He left the room with a nervous stride altogether unlike his usual dignified glide. He turned, wildly almost, into the nearest closet in the corridor and switched on the light. There was the dark gray suit, which was too loose even for Anthony, and the dark brown suit, which happened to be too long for him; but the old blue suit—ah, that was the one!
Very earnestly, Anthony tried to assure himself that it had been both far too tight and far too short in every detail, at its last wearing; almost pathetically he sought to tell himself that David in the old blue suit would look quite like a young man wearing his own clothes—and with the old blue suit over his arm and a pair of shoes in the other hand, he tip-toed back to David.
"This is the next best thing to the clothes you wore, and I'm sure you'll find them quite all right," said he.
"Me get into those?" Mary murmured with the same strange apathy.
"Most certainly, and I've thought out the rest of it—there while I was locating this suit," Anthony pursued, with what was meant for a reassuring smile and making his jerky way to the little desk in the corner of the guest chamber. "I shall give you a note, David, addressed to a mythical person and unsealed."
"What for?"
"So that, on the remote chance of any one in this house questioning your presence, you can show that you're merely delivering a grip—your own—for me!" smiled Fry, as he scribbled. "Rather clever, that, eh?"
"Horribly clever!" Mary said enigmatically.
Two long minutes the pen scratched on, while Mary watched his back with the same inscrutable, almost unwinking stare. Then Anthony turned with a smile.
"This is to Mr. J. Thurston Phillips at the Astor Hotel," said he. "If I were you, I'd carry it rather conspicuously; it's quite possible that the clerk downstairs may want to know who you are. And, also if I were you, I'd explain that you're the son of an old friend of mine and a stranger in the city and that I put you up overnight—something like that. You understand?"