“Are you 4,259 Mayfair?”
He had answered “What?” before he realized that this question was nothing more than a very vivid recollection. But even when he had assured himself that it was only a very vivid recollection, he lay still and discovered that his heart was beating very quickly. And so afraid was he that the motion of stretching out his arm would bring again the voice to his ears, that he lay still, his hand stretched along the counterpane. And suddenly he got up.
He opened one white-painted cupboard, then the other. Finally, he went to the door of the room and peered out. His man, expressionless, carrying over his arm a pair of trousers, and in one hand a white letter crossed with blue, was slowly ascending the staircase at the end of the corridor.
“You didn’t ask me a question,” Dudley Leicester said, “about two minutes ago?”
Saunders said: “No, sir, I was answering the door to the postman. This, sir.” And he held out the registered letter.
It was as if Dudley Leicester recoiled from it. It bore Pauline’s handwriting, a large, round, negligent scrawl.
“Did he ask our number?” Dudley inquired eagerly; and Saunders, with as much of surprise as could come into his impassive face, answered:
“Why, no, sir; he’s the regular man.”
“Our telephone number, I mean,” Dudley Leicester said.
Saunders was by this time in the room, passing through it to the door of the bath-cabinet.