There was an empty place on the bench but Richard hesitated long before occupying it. Although no more than a single step it seemed a tremendous distance from the pavement to the seat. A happy memory of a similar sensation helped him to take the plunge—it was the trembling nervousness he had felt on the first day of his commission when he stood in an agony of suspense outside the anteroom of the officers' mess and tried to summon up courage to enter. A dark shambling figure approaching the spot decided him, and having accomplished the feat it was only to find experience repeating itself. No one took any notice, not a sunken chin was raised. The sleepers to right and left edged away a trifle to give him room and continued with their breathy muttering sleep.
Richard Frencham Altar lit a cigarette and buried his hands in his pockets and with the whole future before him to contemplate and with every vital problem that a man may be called upon to face, he said to himself, "Now I wonder who that johnny was who nodded to me at the Berkeley."
He was still wondering, for want of something better to do, when an hour later his friend the constable passed slowly by and looked him over critically. An official report of his observation would have read as follows:—
Height, about five feet nine. Age, thirty odd. Hair, dark with a disposition to wave. Eyes, brown, merry and set wide apart. Well marked brows. Nose of medium length and slightly crooked to the left. Short upper lip. Firm mouth with an upward twist at the corners. A strong square chin. A habit of holding the head slightly at an angle. Quick way of speaking and walks with a springy step. Stands with one hand on his left hip.
"Doing all right?" asked the constable.
"Fine," said Richard.
CHAPTER 2.
EIGHT CLOSED DOORS.
As the taxi turned into the station yard from the Euston Road, Anthony Barraclough unobtrusively opened the offside door and dropped into the street. A pantechnicon concealed the manoeuvre from the traffic that followed. His taxi driver was blissfully unaware of his departure. It would seem a mean thing to have done but Barraclough had pinned a Bradbury to the vacated seat as a tacit apology.
On landing in the street he wasted no time and nipped very neatly into the open back of the pantechnicon. Here he concealed himself until a stream of a dozen taxis had passed by, and in the pleasant straw smelling shadows Anthony Barraclough grew a beard in precisely half a minute by the clock, and a moustache in even less time. It was a nice beard and a nice moustache, but even so it did not improve his appearance. He was much better looking without. If you doubt the statement here is an official report of his looks and bearing, by means of which you may judge for yourself.