"I'll just take a look in upon them now," he remarked. "And let me advise you, sir, to get your father in a more reasonable frame of mind, if possible. If he calls in fresh aid, as he threatens, there might be the dickens to pay."
Bede Greatorex crossed the room hastily, as though he meant to guard the middle door, and spoke in a low tone.
"I do not care that they should know you have been with me. Not for the world would I let it come to their knowledge that I doubt either of them."
"Now do you suppose that I am a young gosling?" demanded Butterby. "You have done me the honour to confide this private business to my hands, Mr. Bede Greatorex, and you may safely leave it in 'em. After being at the work so many years, there's not much left for me to be taught."
He departed by the passage, treading lightly, and halted when he came to the clerks' door. He was in deep thought. This matter which, as he phrased it, Mr. Bede Greatorex had done him the honour to put in his hands, was no such great matter after all; a mere trifle in professional quarters: but few things had so much puzzled the detective. Not in his way to discovery: that, as it seemed to him, would be very easy, could he pursue it openly. Bede Greatorex puzzled him; his ambiguous words puzzled him; the thing itself puzzled him. In most cases Mr. Butterby could at least see where he was; in this he stood in a sea-encompassed fog, not understanding where he was going, or what he was in search of.
Giving the swing-door a dash backwards, as though he had just entered, he went into the room. Mr. Brown was at his desk, Roland Yorke at his; but the other two were absent. So if the visit had been intended as a special one to Josiah Hurst, it was a decided failure.
When was the great Butterby at fault? He had just looked in upon them "in passing," he said, to give the good-morrow, and enquire how they relished the present state of the thermometer, which he should pronounce melting. How did Mr. Yorke like it?
Mr. Yorke, under the circumstances of not knowing whether he stood on his head or his heels, had not thought about the thermometer. Since the receipt of a letter that morning, containing the news that one, whom he cared for more than a brother, might probably be coming to London shortly on a visit, Roland had been three parts mad with joy. He was even genial to the intruder, his bête noire.
"Is it you, Butterby? How are you getting on, Butterby? Take a stool if you like, Butterby."
"Can't stop," said Butterby. "Just meant to give a nod round and go out again. Not come in on business today. You look spruce, Mr. Yorke."