“I’m sure Mr. ‘Catch-’old-o’-you’s’ not in yet, sir; but I’ll give him any message for you in the morning,” suggested Withers officiously.
“No, thanks, I’ll leave it with Julia if necessary. Good night.”
“Good night, sir, and thank you. I’ll keep the lights on till you’ve got to the top.”
Starr thanked him again and went upstairs—eight flights of them—outwardly composed, inwardly more perturbed than he had ever been in his life before. His mind was in a dark tumult of suspicion and perplexity, which would have been increased if he could have known the news George Winston had just learnt from Dover—that Roger and Grace were not at the “Lord Warden.”
“It’s impossible! He can’t have had anything to do with it!” he told himself impatiently, refusing even to formulate the suspicion that had arisen in his mind. Yet the suspicion was there.
The lights below went out as he pressed the bell button at No. 19, but an instant later one flashed up within the hall of the flat and he heard a soft shuffle of slippered feet. But the door was not opened to him. The letter slit moved and through the aperture a woman’s voice demanded, in good enough English, though with a strong foreign accent:
“Who is zere?”
He responded with a counter-question:
“Is Mr. Cacciola at home?”