“‘Caught in the act.’ Yes, they are ingenious creatures. Let me introduce myself. My name is Julian Eversleigh. Sit down, won’t you? Excuse me for a moment.”
He crossed to a writing-table.
Julian Eversleigh inhabited a single room of irregular shape. It was small, and situated immediately under the roof. One side had a window which overlooked Rupert Court. The view from it was, however, restricted, because the window was inset, so that the walls projecting on either side prevented one seeing more than a yard or two of the court.
The room contained a hammock, a large tin bath, propped up against the wall, a big wardrobe, a couple of bookcases, a deal writing-table—at which the proprietor was now sitting with a pen in his mouth, gazing at the ceiling—and a divan-like formation of rugs and cube sugar boxes.
The owner of this mixed lot of furniture wore a very faded blue serge suit, the trousers baggy at the knees and the coat threadbare at the elbows. He had the odd expression which green eyes combined with red hair give a man.
“Caught in the act,” he was murmuring. “Caught in the act.”
The phrase seemed to fascinate him.
I had established myself on the divan, and was puffing at a cigar, which I had bought by way of setting the coping-stone on my night’s extravagance, before he got up from his writing.
“Those fellows,” he said, producing a bottle of whisky and a syphon from one of the lower drawers of the wardrobe, “did me a double service. They introduced me to you—say when—and they gave me——”
“When.”