"Am I awake?" was the question he put his consciousness.
Wondering, he bent forward and drew the tip of one forefinger across the black polished wood of the writing-bed. It left a dark, heavy line. And beside it, clearly defined in the heavy layer of dust, was the silhouette of a hand; a woman's hand, small, delicate, unmistakably feminine of contour.
"Well!" declared Maitland frankly, "I am damned!"
Further and closer inspection developed the fact that the imprint had been only recently made. Within the hour,—unless Maitland were indeed mad or dreaming,—a woman had stood by that desk and rested a hand, palm down, upon it; not yet had the dust had time to settle and blur the sharp outlines.
Maitland shook his head with bewilderment, thinking of the grey girl. But no. He rejected his half-formed explanation—the obvious one. Besides, what had he there worth a thief's while? Beyond a few articles of "virtue and bigotry" and his pictures, there was nothing valuable in the entire flat. His papers? But he had nothing; a handful of letters, cheque book, a pass book, a japanned tin despatch box containing some business memoranda and papers destined eventually for Bannerman's hands; but nothing negotiable, nothing worth a burglar's while.
It was a flat-topped desk, of mahogany, with two pedestals of drawers, all locked. Maitland determined this latter fact by trying to open them without a key; failing, his key-ring solved the difficulty in a jiffy. But the drawers seemed undisturbed; nothing had been either handled, or removed, or displaced, so far as he could determine. And again he wagged his head from side to side in solemn stupefaction.
"This is beyond you, Dan, my boy." And: "But I've got to know what it means."
In the hall O'Hagan was shuffling impatience. Pondering deeply, Maitland relocked the desk, and got upon his feet. A small bowl of beaten brass, which he used as an ash-receiver, stood ready to his hand; he took it up, carefully blew it clean of dust, and inverted it over the print of the hand. On top of the bowl he placed a weighty afterthought in the shape of a book.
"O'Hagan!"
"Waitin', sor."