"That is very silly," said the haughty Miss Williams with a bored air as she handed it back to him and turned towards her typewriter. "Good-day, Mr. Kendrick. I really must get on with my work."
It was with an unreasonable feeling of disappointment that he bowed himself out. She had not blinked an eyelash! Who was the idiot who first started looking for needles in haystacks anyway? A fool's quest! Mumma! but wasn't he de trop with the ladies? Well, he would buy cigars with the dollar and make a present of the pin to Mrs. Parlby, his uncle's estimable housekeeper.
But he did neither of these things. Instead, he was to continue the folly of keeping both souvenirs and the equal folly of looking at them from time to time—to see if they were safe.
CHAPTER V
THE TAN SATCHEL
Ordinarily Hugh Podmore, secretary to the President of the Canadian Lake Shores Railway, took a keen interest in his work. If anything, he applied himself more industriously during the many absences of his chief than when President Wade was there to observe and commend, a zeal which might or might not have been a tribute to his conscientiousness. But to-day Mr. Podmore, although dressed with that care which habitually imparted to his well proportioned figure something of the beau brummel,—to-day he was not quite his customary polite self. Things irritated him which ordinarily he would not have noticed, and the morning had dragged for him in quite an unusual way. He had spent much time gazing absently out of the office window at the traffic in the street below, with many futile glances at his watch.
The first shop whistle that led the noonday medley found him pulling down the lid of his roll-top desk and he was reaching for his raincoat when his stenographer entered to inform him that there was a gentleman outside who would not take "No" for an answer. In no very gracious mood he snatched the card from the girl's hand; but the name meant nothing to him and he flung aside his gloves in resentment of the interruption.
"Show'm in," he growled, unlocking the desk and shoving back the lid with a bang.
The big young man who entered in answer to the summons enquired for the President. Everybody who came into that anteroom began the same way and Podmore tilted back in his chair and appraised the other coldly, noting two things particularly—the young man's athletic build and the very marked discoloration of his left eye. Another job hunter!
"State your business, please."