“A pleasant trip, I hope?”
His voice was old and courteous.
“Very,” the gray man was the spokesman. “This letter,” he drew a thick envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to MacArthur, “we were instructed, Doctor, to request that you read it immediately upon our arrival.”
Dr. MacArthur took the letter and carefully tore the flap.
“Thank you,” he said looking up. Then he rose and offered the men and the woman cigarettes, struck a match and extended it to the woman. He always offered newspaper reporters cigarettes, and Harrison had said detectives were....
Miss Parkins smiled, took the match, lighted, and passed it.
Dr. MacArthur returned to his chair and began reading and she said, “Three on a match. Unlucky!”
Then they were silent. The air was full of estimation. The letter was long, and evidently from the head of the detective agency. It was addressed to Dr. MacArthur and said:
“Mr. Higgins has been in our employ about fifteen years and handled many executive jobs. Your request was for a man capable of impersonating a well-to-do patient, or a member of the administrative staff of a distant hospital; a man who may be given full run of the hospital and thereby an opportunity, we gather, to question, without creating suspicion, in every department. We have recently had Mr. Higgins upon a job necessitating the trapping of an embezzler within one of our largest New York hospitals. He has our complete confidence, a worldwide experience with people, and an excellent judgment of men. We have found him especially successful in catching mental criminals, and from Dr. Bridgman of the Rockefeller, we judge that is your problem.
“Mr. Smooty has long experience in impersonations. He has done confidence work in Sing-Sing, department stores, and as a hotel detective; also we have used him in the Pennsylvania Station. His nondescript appearance is an excellent foil for his capabilities. You asked for a man who might be placed as a menial.
“He and Mr. Higgins have worked together for many years and are among the first ranking detectives in America. Mr. Smooty is originally an Englishman and has also done work for Scotland Yard and in the British Intelligence.”
Dr. MacArthur took his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. This was the first time, to his knowledge, he had ever sat in the presence of a Scotland Yard man. And as a little boy, next to being a dogcatcher, to belong to Scotland Yard.... It left him rather awed. Maybe the woman was a Russian Grand Duchess!