Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth. The young man gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered with an air of great leisure down the long corridor. He reappeared after a moment's absence behind the last door, to return with considerably more alacrity.
"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled much deference with considerable surprise.
Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the circumstance of so prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no previous appointment had been made. He entered the door held open for him by the boy, and so found himself in Baker's presence.
XXIII
The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods. A thick rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good pictures hung off the wall. Near the windows stood a small desk for a stenographer, and a wide mahogany table. Behind this latter, his back to the light, sat Baker.
The man's sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the customary facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place to an expression of cold attention. When he spoke, Bob found that the picturesque diction too had vanished.
At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting, but said nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested his two fists, knuckle down, on the polished desktop. Baker waited stolidly for him to proceed. Bob jerked his head toward the stenographer.
"I want to talk to you in private," said he.