The new proprietor of Lee and Hol was a short-sighted, elderly man of no great conversational power, and apparently of no fixed purpose in life except to say "no" to the very handsome offers which the colonel's agents made when they discovered there was a chance of re-purchasing the business. Boundary had personally inspected all the offices. He had found an excuse to visit them several times, duly noted the arrangement of the furniture, the sizes of the staffs and the general character of the business which was being carried on. This was a necessary precaution because these offices were immediately under his own flat. But just now they had a special value, because it was a practice during the daytime for the three firms to employ a commissionaire, who occupied a little glass-partitioned office on the landing and attended impartially to the needs of all three tenants to the best of his ability.
Boundary descended the stairs and found the elderly man in his office, leisurely and laboriously affixing stamps to a pile of letters. He called him from his task.
"Judson," he said, "have you seen anybody go up to my rooms this afternoon?"
The man thought.
"No, sir, I haven't," he replied.
"Have you been here all the time?"
"Yes, since one o'clock I have been in my office," said the commissionaire. "None of our young gentlemen wanted anything."
"You didn't go out to go to the post?"
"No, sir," said the man. "I've not stirred from this office except for one minute when I went into Mr. Lee's office to get these letters."
"And you've seen nobody go upstairs?"