"Take my card to Colonel Kendrick," I said briskly to the man who opened the door.
He looked at it doubtfully a moment. But my assured air, and the "Attorney at law" that announced my business in unmistakable type impressed him, and he called a fellow servant to his side, gave him the card with a word of instruction, and advised me to be seated.
After a few minutes of waiting I wondered whether I would not have done better, after all, to ask speech with the master of the house, and I was just on the point of requesting the Cerberus to take my name to Mr. Coleman, when my dubitations were cut short by the opening of a door, and a sudden outburst of voices, which softened to an indistinguishable murmur as it closed again, and Colonel Kendrick came walking down the hall.
"Ah, Hampden," he said gravely, stroking his flame-tinted whiskers, "I'm not sure whether I am glad to see you or not. What has happened? Anything?"
"Well, I'm in no doubt about being glad to see you," I returned. "I've been suspecting you were knocked on the head."
"Pooh!" said Wharton Kendrick. "I'm in no danger. Don't worry about me. What you want to do is to find out what the other fellow is doing. Can you tell me that?"
"Certainly. He left his office at six o'clock, went directly to his house, and hasn't stirred out of it since."
"Very good. Now, I believe you had something to tell me." And his eye wandered uneasily to the door from behind which the confused murmur swelled with tantalizing indistinctness.
"Yes: I have been hunting you all day to tell you that I received word this morning that the Council of Nine had bought a thousand rifles."
This bit of news brought no answering sign of surprise on the face of my client.