"Believe I shall run over to Germany very soon, Steele," went on the first speaker.
"Indeed?" John Steele's brows drew together; the appearance of the lad was vaguely familiar. He remembered him now, the hostler boy at the Golden Lion.
"Yes; capital case coming on in the criminal courts there."
"And you don't want to miss it, Forsythe?"
"Not I! Weakness of mine, as you know. Most people look to novels or plays for entertainment; I find mine in the real drama, unfolded every day in the courts of justice."
Forsythe paused as if waiting for some comment from his companion, but none came. John Steele watched the boy; he waved a paper in his hand and called with easy familiarity to a housemaid in an open window above:
"Telegram from London, Miss. My master at the Golden Lion said there'd be a sixpence here for delivering it!"
"Well, I'll be down in a moment, Impudence."
The silence that followed was again broken by Captain Forsythe's voice: "There are one or two features in this German affair that remind me of another case, some years back--one of our own--that interested me."
"Ah?" The listener's tone was only politely interrogatory.