“Then how came it that when my servant was sent to leave some fruit and flowers for you and inquire your name, he was told that you were Dr. Rudolph Hartzmann, of Leipzig?”
“Are you serious?” I questioned, as much puzzled as he for the moment.
“Never more so. I remember our astonishment to think that any European should have so dark a skin and live in the native quarter.”
“Mr. Blodgett,” I explained, “I did not know till this moment that a pen name I have used to sign my writings had been given you, but it was a joke of my father’s to register me under it, and my only theory is that he had given some one in the hotel that name, and, by mischance, your servant was misinformed.”
He was too good a business man to look as skeptical as he probably felt, and merely asked, “What is your real name, then?”
“Donald Maitland, son of William Maitland.”
His eyes gave a startled wink and he screwed his lips into position for a whistle, but checking the inclination, he merely turned his revolving-chair so that he looked out of a window. He sat thus for a moment, and then, facing me, he questioned, with a sudden curtness of voice and manner, “What is your business with me?”
“I have taken the liberty of calling on the supposition that you are a friend of Miss Walton.”
“I am.”
“Miss Walton was once my father’s ward, yet last night she refused to see me. Can you tell me why?”