They passed up Coventry Street and across the Circus into Piccadilly. Hilliard had a flat in a side street off Knightsbridge, while Merriman lived farther west in Kensington. At the door of the flat Hilliard stopped.
“Come in for a last drink, won’t you?” he invited. “It’s ages since you’ve been here.”
Merriman agreed, and soon the two friends were seated at another open window in the small but comfortable sitting-room of the flat.
They chatted for some time, and then Hilliard turned the conversation to the story Merriman had told in the club.
“You know,” he said, knocking the ash carefully off his cigar, “I was rather interested in that tale of yours. It’s quite an intriguing little mystery. I suppose it’s not possible that you could have made a mistake about those numbers?”
Merriman laughed.
“I’m not exactly infallible, and I have, once or twice in my life, made mistakes. But I don’t think I made one this time. You see, the only question is the number at the bridge. The number at the mill is certain. My attention was drawn to it, and I looked at it too often for there to be the slightest doubt. It was No. 3 as certainly as I’m alive. But the number at the bridge is different. There was nothing to draw my attention to it, and I only glanced at it casually. I would say that I was mistaken about it only for one thing. It was a black figure on a polished brass ground, and I particularly remarked that the black lines were very wide, leaving an unusually small brass triangle in the center. If I noticed that, it must have been a 4.”
Hilliard nodded.
“Pretty conclusive, I should say.” He paused for a few moments, then moved a little irresolutely. “Don’t think me impertinent, old man,” he went on with a sidelong glance, “but I imagined from your manner you were holding something back. Is there more in the story than you told?”
It was now Merriman’s turn to hesitate. Although Madeleine Coburn had been in his thoughts more or less continuously since he returned to town, he had never mentioned her name, and he was not sure that he wanted to now.