“Your manner, Mr. Ferguson, is autocratic. You don’t ask me, you command; but I’ll obey. That is, if you’ll condescend to wait while I put a hat on.”
She went upstairs. Almost immediately she had done so there came a ring at the front door. The door was opened and shut again. After it had been shut, Miss Adair called down the stairs:
“Ellen, who was that?”
The maid’s voice replied, “It was some one who wished to see Miss Moore. He said his name was Withers—Mr. George Withers.”
“George Withers!” I shouted.
Without a moment’s hesitation I rushed out of the sitting-room, flung open the front door, and dashed into the street. I dare say that Ellen, and Miss Adair, too, thought that I had suddenly become a raving lunatic. But Ellen’s mention of the caller’s name recalled to me the fact that the peculiar letter which I had found in the pocket of the plum-coloured cloak had been addressed to “George Withers.”
A young man was going down the street, walking rather quickly. I shouted to him.
“Hallo! Mr. George Withers!”
He stopped and turned with something of a start; then stared, as if uncertain what to make of me or what to do. I called to him again.
“I want you!”