"Indeed! Why it's not eleven o'clock."
"At any rate, there's no light in his room, or I should have gone up. He complained of headache: perhaps he has gone to bed early to sleep it off."
"I want to see him particularly," said the barrister. "Are you sure he is in bed?"
"You can go and ascertain, Kene. Ring the people of the house up, should they have gone to bed too. I could see no light anywhere."
Mr. Kene did not care to ring people up, and decided to leave his business with Mr. Ollivera until the morning. He had been dining with some fellows he said, and had no idea how the time was running on. Linking his arm within that of Bede Greatorex, they walked together to the Star, and there parted. Mr. Greatorex went up at once to his chamber, stirred the fire into a blaze, rang for the waiter, and ordered another glass of hot brandy-and-water.
"I think I must have taken cold," he observed to the man when it was brought to him. "There has been a chill upon me ever since I came here."
"Nothing more likely, sir," returned the waiter. "Them trains are such draughty things."
However Mr. Greatorex hoped he should be all right in the morning. He gave directions to be called at a quarter before eight, and the night wore on.
Some time before that hour chimed out from the cathedral clock, when the morning had come, he found himself aroused by a knocking at his door. A waiter, speaking from the outside, said that something had happened to Mr. Ollivera. Mr. Bede Greatorex, thinking the words odd, and not best pleased to be thus summarily disturbed, possibly from dreams of Louisa Joliffe, called out from the downy pillow (in rather a cross tone, it must be confessed) to know what had happened to Mr. Ollivera: and was answered that he was dead.
Springing out of bed, and dressing himself quickly, Bede Greatorex went downstairs, and found that Kene, who had brought the news, was gone again, leaving word that he had gone back to High Street. Mr. Greatorex hastened to follow.