A quick step came bounding up the stairs, and a key rattled in the lock.
“You’d betther ax him yerself,” responded the housekeeper pithily, and the door opened to admit a handsome, well-knit man, tall and straight, with the clearly cut features of the true Westerner, and the easy carriage of one accustomed to the freedom of the prairie.
He was quietly dressed. The only sign that he was not a Londoner was given by his wide-awake felt hat, the last token of environment relinquished by a wandering citizen from the region of the Rockies. In the semi-darkness of the interior he could but dimly discern the form of the detective behind the ready-tongued housekeeper.
“There’s two gintlemen to see ye, Misther Corbett,” said she.
“Well, now, that’s curious,” he answered cheerfully. “I can only see one of you, but I’m glad to have you call, stranger, anyway. Come right in. Are you sent by my friend to kinder cheer me up? I find this big city of yours a powerful kind of tonic after Wyoming. Come right in.”
Mr. White was as greatly nonplussed by the newcomer’s attitude as by his flow of language.
Within the drawing-room Corbett caught sight of the second detective. “Hello! Here’s the other one. Ve-ry glad to meet you both. Now, if you’ll just tell me your names we’ll get along straight away, as I guess you know mine all right.”
The man was genuinely pleased by this unexpected visit. He smilingly pushed towards them a box of cigars, green ones, and helped himself to a weed.
“My name,” said the detective, “is Inspector White, of Scotland Yard, and my friend here accompanies me officially.”
“And hasn’t he got a name?”