“To meet Miss Layton at eleven. Do so, my dear fellow. But come to town to-morrow evening. Winter and I may want you.”
So the detective sent another telegram to detain that dress suit, and Hume seemed to have quickly conquered his disinclination to visit Stowmarket.
[Chapter X]
The Black Museum
Winter, who had never seen Capella, was so well posted by Brett as to his personal appearance that he experienced no difficulty in picking out the Italian when he alighted from the train at Liverpool Street Station next morning.
Capella did not conduct himself like a furtive villain. He jumped into a hansom. His valet followed in a four-wheeler with the luggage. In each instance the address given to the driver was that of a well-known West End hotel.
The detective’s cab kept pace with Capella’s through Old Broad Street, Queen Victoria Street, and along the Embankment. At the Mansion House, and again at Blackfriars, they halted side by side, and Winter noticed that his quarry was looking into space with sullen, vindictive eyes.
“He means mischief to somebody,” was Winter’s summing up. “I wonder if he intends to knife Hume?” for Brett had given his professional confrère a synopsis of all that happened before they met, and of his subsequent conversation with the “happy couple” in Beechcroft Hall.
He repeated this remark to the barrister when he reached Brett’s chambers.