“He is not. He vill perhaps not return to-night. Who are you?”
“I reckon you won’t know my name. You’re Julia, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am Giulia. Vat ees it?”
“Open the door, there’s a good soul, and I’ll tell you. I can’t shout it through. It’s important.”
“I do not know you,” she protested nervously after a pause. “You are from the police again?”
So, as he guessed, Snell had already been here. He wondered that the loquacious porter had not seen him and scented the errand.
“Yes,” he lied boldly. “So you’d better open the door right now. You’ve nothing to fear from me, and I shan’t keep you many minutes.”
She muttered something that he could not catch, but a chain clanked, and a moment later she opened the door a few inches and peered out—a short, plump old woman, whose comely brown face and lustrous black eyes wore a strained, anxious expression, that relaxed a little as she eyed her visitor.
His appearance seemed to reassure her, for she drew back and motioned him to enter the little square hall.
He smiled at her, and there were few women, young or old, who could resist Austin Starr’s smile. He had what some folk term “a way with him,” all the more effective since it was exerted unconsciously.