“I’ve driven through it.”
Christopher nodded. “So have I. I’ll not detain you any longer. Will you let Clisson know I shall be there on Thursday?”
“Certainly. Will you like me to accompany you?”
Christopher shook his head. “Not this time, I think. I would rather be alone.”
“And one thing,” Mr. Saunderson coughed a little nervously, “the name? We can arrange the legal identification this afternoon, but what name will you ultimately take?”
Christopher came to a standstill at the door. Here was a decision thrust on him for which he was oddly unprepared. He recognised at once it meant setting the seal to his own committal if he answered as the lawyer evidently expected and hoped he would do. He paused just long enough to remember how hardly he had taken Mr. Aston’s insistence he should sign his marriage register as Aston Masters.
“I must take the name since I take its belongings,” he said ruefully, and Mr. Saunderson felt his victory was complete. 372
On the following Thursday morning there was nothing in the aspect of earth or sky to indicate to the workers in Princes Buildings the importance of that day to their respective fortunes. On the top floor only a sense of gentle expectancy was present, and a complacent faith in their own readiness to receive and set at ease the young man who was to be the outward visible sign of all that for which they toiled so unceasingly.
As an individual, the younger men bestowed a certain curiosity not unmixed with envy on him; as the successor of Peter Masters, they entertained no doubt whatever he would obediently adhere to the prescribed system as they themselves did. Christopher had arrived in Birmingham the night before and put up at an hotel. Early the next morning he went up the steps into the central corridor of the great buildings that were to all intents and purposes his. There was no one about but a lift boy who did not recognise him, but seeing him look round with deliberate curiosity, asked him civilly what floor he wanted.
“Mr. Masters’ private offices,” Christopher explained. “Top floor, aren’t they?”