“I get a lot of stuff in,” he said, “and I can’t immediately place this particular play; but if you’ll let me take it to my office, I will look up my books.”
Again Michael considered. He did not wish that piece of evidence to pass out of his hands; and yet without confirmation and examination, it was fairly valueless. He reluctantly agreed.
“What do you make of that fellow?” asked Jack Knebworth when the door had closed upon the writer.
“I don’t like him,” said Michael bluntly. “In fact, my first impressions are distinctly unfavourable, though I am probably doing the poor gentleman a very great injustice.”
Jack Knebworth sighed. Foss was one of his biggest troubles, sometimes bulking larger than the temperamental Mendoza.
“He certainly is a queer chap,” he said, “though he’s diabolically clever. I never knew a man who could take a plot and twist it as Lawley Foss can—but he’s—difficult.”
“I should imagine so,” said Michael dryly.
They passed out into the studio, and Michael sought the troubled girl to explain his crudeness. There were tears of vexation in her eyes when he approached her, for his startling disappearance with a page of the script had put all thoughts of the play from her mind.
“I am sorry,” he said penitently. “I almost wish I hadn’t come.”
“And I quite wish it,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “What was the matter with that page you took—you are a detective, aren’t you?”