"I say, old man," he said, "you look thoroughly done up. I hardly realized that you had been hard at work all day. Have you eaten anything?"
"Had all I wanted," said Furneaux, thawing a little under this solicitude.
"Perhaps you didn't want enough. Come, own up. Have you dined?"
"No—I was not hungry."
"Where did you lunch?"
"I ate a good breakfast."
Winter sprang to his feet again.
"By Jove!" he cried, "this affair seems to have taken hold of you—I meant to send for the hall-porter and the French maid—Pauline is her name, I think; she ought to be able to throw some light on her mistress's earlier life—but we can leave all that till to-morrow. Come to my club. A cutlet and a glass of wine will make a new man of you."
Furneaux rose at once. Anyone might have believed that he was glad to postpone the proposed examination of the servants.
"That will be splendid," he said with an air of relief that compared markedly with his reticent mood of the past few minutes. "The mere mention of food has given me an appetite. I suppose I am fagged out, or as near it as I have ever been. Moreover, I can tell you everything that any person in these Mansions knows of what took place here between six and eight o'clock last night—a good deal more, by the way, than Clarke has found out, though he scored a point over that stone. Where is it?—in the office, you said. I should like to see it—in the morning."