"Yes, but what has that got to do with me?"
"Listen, I'm coming to that. I've told you about our suite at the Madagascar, and Silas Gyde's two little rooms, and the secret way into the house next door. Now, you see, I'll go to bed in the hotel as Jack Norman's secretary, and in the morning I'll come out of the house next door prepared for work in another character."
"But what am I to do?"
"That house belongs to me, you know, though the deed has never been transferred. You must appear to rent it, furnish it and open it as a first-class boarding-house—no, furnished apartments would be easier for you."
"But"——
"Wait a minute. Then I can rent the second floor rear from you in my new character. I can pass back and forth through the vault as I like, and no one can possibly trace the connection between Jack Norman's secretary and the sober little business man who lives in your house. See?"
"Oh, I couldn't!"
"Why?"
"Mother wouldn't like it. And I—I'm not fitted for that sort of thing."
"You could make a bluff at it. You said you wanted to help."