One corner of the room was occupied by a stack of japanned tin boxes that recalled a solicitor's office; but these boxes had no lettering upon them. A discreet little numeral was sufficient indication of their contents for Faunce, who was incapable of forgetting a fact once registered in the book of his mind.
"You must find papers accumulate rapidly in your work, Mr. Faunce," said Haldane.
"They would if I let them, sir; but I don't. When once a case is settled or withdrawn from my hands, I return all letters and other papers that may have reached me, and I burn my history of the case."
"You will have nothing left for your Reminiscences, then?"
"They are here, sir," the detective replied sharply, tapping his massive brow; "and one day—well, sir, one day I may let the reading world know that truth is stranger—and sometimes even more thrilling—than fiction. But I must have consummate cheek to talk of fiction to the author of 'Mary Deane.'"
Haldane started, half inclined to resent an impertinence; but a glance at the man's fine head and brilliant eye reminded him that the detective and the novelist might be upon the same intellectual plane, or that in sheer brain power the man from Scotland Yard might be his superior.
Faunce had seen the look, and smiled his quiet smile.
"It's one of the penalties of being famous, Mr. Haldane, that your inferiors may venture to admire you. I have your book among my favourites."
He pointed to the shelf, where Haldane saw the modest, dark-green cloth back of his one novel, between "Esmond" and "The Woman in White."
"And now to business, sir. And first allow me to say that I am glad to see any friend of Lady Perivale's."