“Here?”
“Yes. He is bringing a letter from Miss Jeremy. The letter is merely a blind. We want to see him.”
Herbert was examining the door of my office. He set the spring lock. “He may try to bolt,” he explained. “We’re in this pretty deep, you know.”
“How about a record of what he says?” Sperry asked.
I pressed a button, and Miss Joyce came in. “Take the testimony of the man who is coming in, Miss Joyce,” I directed. “Take everything we say, any of us. Can you tell the different voices?”
She thought she could, and took up her position in the next room, with the door partly open.
I can still see Hawkins as Sperry let him in—a tall, cadaverous man of good manners and an English accent, a superior servant. He was cool but rather resentful. I judged that he considered carrying letters as in no way a part of his work, and that he was careful of his dignity. “Miss Jeremy sent this, sir,” he said.
Then his eyes took in Sperry and Herbert, and he drew himself up.
“I see,” he said. “It wasn’t the letter, then?”
“Not entirely. We want to have a talk with you, Hawkins.”