Robin turned the sheet over. The back was blank. Then he held the paper up to the light. Yes, there was a water-mark. Now it was easily discernible. “EGMONT FF. QU.” he made out.
The train was slowing down. Robin glanced out of the window and saw that they were crossing the river in the mirky gloom of a London winter Sunday. He balanced the sheet of paper in his hands for a moment. Then he folded it carefully into four and stowed it away in his cigarette-case. The next moment the train thumped its way into Charing Cross.
A taxi deposited him at the Middle Temple Gate. He walked the short distance to the set of chambers he occupied. On his front door a piece of paper was pinned. By the rambling calligraphy and the phonetic English he recognized the hand of his “laundress.”
Dere sir [it ran], mr rite call he want to see u pertikler i tole im as you was in country & give im ur adress hope i dun rite mrs bragg
Robin had scarcely got his key in the door of his “oak” when there was a step on the stair. A nice-looking young man with close-cropped fair hair appeared round the turn of the staircase.
“Hullo, Robin,” he exclaimed impetuously, “I am glad to have caught you like this. Your woman gave me your address, so I rang up Harkings at once and they told me you had just gone back to town. So I came straight here. You remember me, don’t you? Bruce Wright ... But perhaps I’m butting in. If you’d rather see me some other time....”
“My dear boy,” said Robin, motioning him into the flat, “of course I remember you. Only I didn’t recognize you just for the minute. Shove your hat down here in the hall. And as for butting in,”—he threw open the door of the living-room,—“why! I think there is no other man in England I would so gladly see at this very moment as yourself.”
The living-room was a bright and cheery place, tastefully furnished in old oak with gay chintz curtains. It looked out on an old-world paved court in the centre of which stood a solitary soot-laden plane-tree.
“What’s this rot about Parrish having committed suicide?” demanded the boy abruptly.
Robin gave him in the briefest terms an outline of the tragedy.