"Who's L.L.P.?" enquired Entwistle.
His host laughed.
"Merely the help," he replied. "Carter's her name. I call her Little Liver Pill—she reminds me of one. L.L.P, for short, you know."
"Might be your friend Andrew Norton," suggested the other.
"By Jove, yes! I hadn't thought of that," was the reply. "All the same, I don't think he would touch my desk. It's just likely that in a preoccupied moment (although as a rule he isn't given that way) he may have gone home and left the lights switched on and the door open. Hulloa, this looks queer! I wonder if Norton got into a funk over the Zep.?"
Barcroft pointed to a pipe lying on the mantelpiece. It was freshly filled and the tobacco was slightly charred, indicating that the owner had been interrupted in the act of lighting up.
"His pipe," he continued. "And he seems a fairly methodical fellow, not likely to leave anything behind. Hope he's all right. If it wasn't for the fact that I've had a long tramp and it's close on one thirty I'd run across to his place."
"What sort of a man is he?" enquired Entwistle.
"Decent—quite. Nothing of the bore about him, or I would have choked him off very quickly," replied Barcroft grimly. "Quite informal, and different from the ordinary type of caller when a fellow comes into a fresh district. You know the sort—stiff-necked blighters of both sexes who pay formal calls for the sole purpose of finding out who you are, what you are and what you've got. In my case, I suppose, they expect to find a sort of untamed curiosity: that's how they regard literary men, I believe. But my time is too precious to waste in that way, so I let them know it pretty quickly. Ah, there are the trains running again," he added as a dull rumble was borne to their ears. "Zep. show's over for to-night. Keen on bed?"
"Not very," replied Entwistle. "Are you?"