Guy laughed. "Not a bad suggestion," he agreed. "Do you adopt the same plan to protect yourself?"
Hora shrugged his shoulders. "I carefully built up my own reputation in advance," he remarked. "Haven't I told you? I suppose not, for you were both too young when I first located myself here." He looked round the pleasant dining-room complacently. "I've had the place for ten years now, and for one's name to be for ten years in the London directory, at the same address, is a certificate of respectability which is not easily discredited."
"Still I wonder that you did not seek greater privacy," remarked Guy, as he lit a cigarette.
Hora smiled. "A decision for privacy always awakens suspicion, and thus in our profession privacy de facto is perhaps the one luxury we cannot afford. Nevertheless a greater degree of privacy is possible in the midst of a crowd than would be possible anywhere else in the wide world. This is not such a paradoxical statement as it sounds. In the crowd no one is intent on the doings of his neighbours. Put a ring-fence round a man, and every eye would be fixed upon him. Thus you see my reason for selecting a residential flat for my London residence. The servants are not mine. Each of them has half a dozen other objects of curiosity. When they have attended to our requirements they disappear."
"But, nevertheless, they must be curious concerning the contents of the art gallery?"
The allusion was to a portion of the abode into which the servants were not supposed to enter. Though situated on the eighth story, Hora's flat at Westminster Mansions was not the ultimate achievement of the builder. Above were attics to which a narrow staircase gave entrance. The stairs were shut off by a door, and the door was always locked.
"When I see any signs of curiosity I always take an early opportunity of gratifying it," said Hora. "Every one of the servants who has ever waited upon me has had the privilege of inspecting that chamber, and not one of them has ever been sufficiently interested to enter it a second time, except at my especial request. You see they are all aware why I took possession of the attic. They think it is the fad of a nervous invalid. Those attics were entered from another staircase when first I took the flat, and some of the servants slept there. I complained of the noise, continually. Half a dozen of the poor devils must have been dismissed at one time or another for purely imaginary offences in consequence. Then I declared I could stay no longer, and I gave notice to leave. The agent for the landlord was apologetic, and asked if there was no way in which he would not be able to meet me. I offered to rent the place, saying that I would make it into a storeroom for the books and trifles which I am continually accumulating. He jumped at the offer I made, and I know he thought me a fool." Hora chuckled. "How surprised he would be to learn that the proceeds of many a rich haul have been stored there for months. But I have drifted away from my original point. I was telling you of the manner in which I built up my original reputation for eccentricity, the safest cloak a man may wear. It was a simple matter. I merely answered for myself the references I gave to my landlord. I described myself as an unfavourable tenant from every point of view, but the pecuniary one. My habits I described as irregular, my requirements exacting to a degree, my manner brusque and overbearing, and my disposition faddy and changeable, and further said I was given to making continual requests for structural alterations in any dwelling place that I occupied in order to make accommodation for any new collecting craze which seized me."
"I wonder any landlord ventured to accept you," laughed Myra.
"The London landlord has a high opinion of his capability for withstanding the demands of his tenants," said Hora drily. "He is a man lavish of promises, but meagre of fulfilments, and possessed of a genius for extracting the uttermost farthing of his rent. Moreover, he would take Satan himself as a tenant if he offered to pay six months' rent in advance. Naturally I proved acceptable, and not turning out to be the terror I depicted myself I am now looked upon as the best tenant in the whole building. I am free to do as I like. My treasure-house ceases to excite curiosity, and I believe if I were to place the crown jewels upon one of the tables up there they would be undisturbed, so long as my rent was paid regularly, until they were hidden beneath the accumulated dust of ages."
The allusion gave Guy an idea.