“Good morning.”
I made a plunge for a door on the left of his desk.
“This way out, Mr. Eddington,” came after me; but I was in the corridor, and closed the door behind me.
A white hand with extended fingers was painted on the further wall, and, beneath it, the words:
Harris & Harris,
Domestic Employment Agency.
Turning to the right, I passed out into Berners Street.
“It is well,” said O’Hagan, musingly, when I had made my report. “You will now get back to the said corridor, without permitting yourself to be seen from Ritzmann’s shop; you will wait by Ritzmann’s private door, but on the stair side, so that when I come out he won’t notice you. I shall hand you something; you will go up Harris and Harris’s stair like a rocket, concealing, of course, the object referred to, and see about a cook. Then go home.”
One pays for the privilege of O’Hagan’s friendship.
I had not been at my post more than half a minute, when I saw O’Hagan pass in the street and enter the Ritzmann shop. I began to make notes in a note-book to excuse my loitering. Leaving me so engaged, you will please follow the Captain.