"No time to fly back to lunch and come again," thought Burton, as he departed. "I'll get something to eat at the 'Sun,' and ring old Pickles up and explain."
He made his way to the hotel, a little annoyed at wasting so fine an afternoon. Entering the telephone box he gave Micklewright's number and waited. Presently a girl's voice said--
"There's no reply. Shall I ring you off?"
"Oh! Try again, will you, please?"
Micklewright often took off the receiver in the laboratory, to avoid interruption during his experiments, and Burton supposed that such was the case now. He waited; a minute or two passed; then the girl's voice again--
"I can't put you on. There's something wrong with the line."
"Thank you very much," said Burton; he was always specially polite to the anonymous girls of the telephone exchange, because "they always sound so worried, poor things," as he said. "Bad luck all the time," he thought, as he hung up the receiver.
He passed to the coffee-room, ate a light lunch, smoked a cigarette, looked in at the billiard-room, and on the stroke of three reappeared at the chemist's store. In a few minutes he was provided with a package carefully wrapped, and by twenty minutes after the hour was soaring back to his friend's laboratory.
Alighting as before at the creek, he walked up the path. The door of the shed was locked. He rapped on it, but received no answer, and supposed that Micklewright had returned to the house, though he noticed with some surprise that his suit-case still stood where he had left it. He lifted it, went on to the cottage, and turned the handle of the front door. This also was locked. Feeling slightly irritated, Burton knocked more loudly. No one came to the door; there was not a sound from within. He knocked again; still without result. Leaving his suit-case on the doorstep, he went to the back, and tried the door on that side. It was locked.
"This is too bad," he thought. "Pickles is an absent-minded old buffer, but I never knew him so absolutely forgetful as this. Evidently he and the old woman are both out."