I was furious as I thought of the way I had been done. I was furious also, and worse than furious, alarmed, when I thought of Juanita. Had she been in the plot the whole time? Did she like being spirited away from all that could make a young girl's life bright and happy? What was at the bottom of it all?
The only thing to do was to try and keep ahead, or level, with my rival contemporaries in the matter of news, and privately to wait on events, and think the matter out definitely. For the next few days, weeks perhaps, some of the acutest brains in England would be puzzled over this problem, and if there was really anything more in it than the freak of a colossal egotist, who thus, with a superb gesture, signified his scorn of the world, then some light might come.
Suddenly I felt ill, and collapsed. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed.
It was about eight o'clock when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what I should do for the rest of the evening, when Preston came in and said that there was a boy who wished to see me. He would neither give his name nor his business, but seemed respectable.
I remembered Pat's mysterious telegram, which till now I had quite forgotten, and with a certain quickening of the pulses I ordered the boy to be shown up.
He came into the room with a scrape and a bow, a nice-looking lad of sixteen, decently dressed in black.
"Who are you and what do you want?" I said.
He seemed a little nervous and his eyes were bright.
"Are you Sir Thomas Kirby?"
"Yes, what is it? By the way, haven't you been all the way to Norfolk to find me?"