“All that I have to say to you is, finish your business and go. Furthermore, you are at liberty to come with me to-morrow morning and search my office and question my clerks. I will accompany you to my banks, and to the strong-room I rent at the deposit. Search for this red envelope you speak about, and if you find it, you are at liberty to draw the worst deductions you will.”
Jimmy pulled gently at his cigarette with reflective eyes cast upward to the ceiling.
“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.
“No,” said the other impatiently.
“It’s a pity,” said Jimmy, with a note of genuine regret. “Spanish is a very useful language—especially in the Argentine, for which delightful country, I understand, lawyers who betray their trust have an especial predilection. My Spanish needs a little furbishing, and only the other day I was practising with a man whose name, I believe, is Murrello. Do you know him?”
“If you have completed your business, I will ring for the servant,” said the lawyer.
“He told me—my Spaniard, I mean—a curious story. He comes from Barcelona, and by way of being a mason or something of the sort, was brought to England with some other of his fellow-countrymen to make some curious alterations to the house of a Señor in—er—Clapham of all places in the world.”
The lawyer’s breath came short and fast.
“From what I was able to gather,” Jimmy went on languidly, “and my Spanish is Andalusian rather than Catalonian, so that I missed some of his interesting narrative, these alterations partook of the nature of wonderfully concealed strong-rooms—steel doors artfully covered with cheap wood carving, vaults cunningly constructed beneath innocent basement kitchens, little stairways in apparently solid walls and the like.”
The levity went out of his voice, and he straightened himself in his chair.