“I don’t think so. Things are slack just now, and I am rather glad that they are, as I shall have time to attend to the Rotherhithe matter.”
Dick grunted and shook himself, looking like a huge good-natured bear in the fur overcoat which the bitter cold of the December day demanded. “I don’t see the use of your bothering about the business unless you are legally retained to thresh it out. Why waste your time?”
“Far from wasting my time,” said Alan quietly, “the solution of this mystery means that Miss Inderwick may acquire a large fortune.”
“And you, by marrying Miss Inderwick, will gain possession of the same along with a tolerably pretty young woman,” said Latimer dryly.
Fuller’s dark eyes flashed. “She’s the loveliest girl in the world,” he cried vehemently, “and you know it.”
“I ought to, since you have told me as much as fifty times. But I say, your hint of a large fortune sounds interesting. How much?”
“One hundred to two hundred thousand pounds.”
Dick whistled. “The deuce. We are playing with crowns and kingdoms it seems, old son. Fire away. I’m all attention, in the hope that some of the cash may come into my pockets.”
Alan took no notice of this flippant remark, but went into the outer office to tell his clerk that he would be engaged for one hour. As a solicitor with a small but certain practice Fuller only enjoyed the ownership of two dingy rooms very badly lighted and still more badly furnished. His inner sanctum only contained a large writing-table, a green-painted iron safe, a shabby bookcase filled with law volumes bound in calf, and a few cane-bottomed chairs. A window with a slanting silvered glass outside to attract the light and reflect it into the dark room, was opposite the door, and beside it was a small grate in which at the present moment burned an equally small fire. Alan returned and seated himself beside this, taking out his pipe to enjoy the hour during which “he sported his oak,” as the phrase goes. Dick grunted and sucked at his briar in an opposite chair, waiting for Fuller to open the conversation.
“I told you that Miss Inderwick had given me a clue,” began Alan, but was cut short by his friend.