“I’m in the wrong apartment. That’s all,” I said. “Maybe you’ll think that’s an excuse and not a reason. I can’t help it if you do.”
“Well,” he said, “that explains some things. It’s pretty well known, I fancy, that I have little worth stealing, except my good name.”
“I was not stealing,” I replied in a sulky manner.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It is an ugly word. We will strike it from the record. Would you mind telling me whose apartment you intended to—er—investigate? If this is the wrong one, you know.”
“I was looking for a Letter.”
“Letters, letters!” he said. “When will you women learn not to write letters. Although”—he looked at me closely—“you look rather young for that sort of thing.” He sighed. “It’s born in you, I daresay,” he said.
Well, for all his patronizing ways, he was not very old himself.
“Of course,” he said, “if you are telling the truth—and it sounds fishy, I must say—it’s hardly a Police matter, is it? It’s rather one for diplomasy. But can you prove what you say?”
“My word should be suficient,” I replied stiffly. “How do I know that you belong here?”
“Well, you don’t, as a matter of fact. Suppose you take my word for that, and I agree to beleive what you say about the wrong apartment. Even then it’s rather unusual. I find a pale and determined looking young lady going through my desk in a business-like manner. She says she has come for a Letter. Now the question is, is there a Letter? If so, what Letter?”