“I don’t think,” said Thorndyke, “that a plait was quite the best form. A little cable would look better, especially for a medallion portrait; indeed I think that if you had a plain square black frame with a circular opening, a little golden cable, carried round concentrically with the opening would have a rather fine effect.”
“So it would,” I exclaimed. “I think it would look charming. I had no idea, Thorndyke, that you were a designer. Do you think Polton could make the cable?”
“Polton,” he replied, impressively, “can do anything that can be done with a single pair of human hands. Let him have the hair, and he will make the cable and the frame, too; and he will see that the glass cover is an airtight fit—for, of course, the cable would have to be under the glass.”
To this also I agreed with a readiness that surprised myself. And yet it was not surprising. Hitherto I had been accustomed secretly and in solitude to pore over these pathetic little relics of happier days and lock up my sorrows and my sense of bereavement in my own breast. Now, for the first time, I had a confidant who shared the knowledge of my shattered hopes and vanished happiness; and so whole heartedly, with such delicate sympathy and perfect understanding had Thorndyke entered into the story of my troubled life that I found in his companionship not only a relief from my old self-repression but a sort of subdued happiness. Almost cheerfully I fetched an empty cigar-box and a supply of cotton wool and tissue paper and helped him tenderly and delicately to pack my treasures for their first exodus from under my roof. And it was with only a faint twinge of regret that I saw him, at length, depart with the box under his arm.
“You needn’t be uneasy, Mayfield,” he said, pausing on the stairs to look back. “Nothing will be injured; and as soon as the casting is successfully carried through, I shall drop a note in your letter-box to set your mind at rest. Good night.”
I watched him as he descended the stairs, and listened to his quick foot-falls, fading away up the court. Then I went back to my room with a faint sense of desolation to re-pack the depleted deed-box and thereafter to betake myself to bed.
Chapter XV.
A Pursuit and a Discovery
More than a week had passed since that eventful evening—how eventful I did not then realize—when I had delivered my simple treasures into Thorndyke’s hands. But I was not uneasy; for, within twenty-four hours, I had found in my letter-box the promised note, assuring me that the preliminary operations had been safely carried through and that nothing had been damaged. Nor was I impatient. I realized that Polton had other work than mine on hand and that there was a good deal to do. Moreover, a little rush of business had kept me employed and helped me to follow Thorndyke’s counsel and forget, as well as I could, the shadow of mystery and peril that hung over my friends, and, by implication, over me.
But on the evening of which I am now speaking I was free. I had cleared off the last of the day’s work, and, after dining reposefully at my club, found myself with an hour or two to spare before bed-time; and it occurred to me to look in on Thorndyke to smoke a friendly pipe and perchance get a glimpse of the works in progress.
I entered the Temple from the west, and, threading my way through the familiar labyrinth, crossed Tanfield Court, and passing down the narrow alley at its eastern side, came out into King’s Bench Walk. I crossed the Walk at once and was sauntering down the pavement towards Thorndyke’s house when I noticed a large, closed car drawn up at its entry, and, standing on the pavement by the car, a tall man whom I recognized by the lamp light as Mr. Superintendent Miller.