There was a tap at the door, and the clerk entered with a slip of paper which he handed to his master.
‘All right, Perkins. Shall be disengaged in a few minutes.’
As the clerk closed the door behind him, Wrentham handed the paper to his visitor, who read on it, ‘Mr Philip Hadleigh,’ and instantly rose to go.
‘Perhaps—you will excuse me—but perhaps it would be as well if you did not meet each other here at present. Here is my private door.’
‘I expect to see you this evening with the answer to the telegram,’ said Mr Hadleigh quietly as he went out.
‘You shall see me whether the answer has arrived or not.’
When he had closed the door, Wrentham stood still, unconscious, apparently, that he was resting on the handle, although it seemed as if he were half-inclined to call Mr Hadleigh back. His expression had changed to a frown at some invisible object on the floor, and his head was slightly bowed. This was his thought:
‘Have I lost a chance, or opened the way to one?... Eminently unsatisfactory, if I have not. He must have some game on.... No designs! As if he could gammon me into the notion that he was the sort of man to bother himself about other people’s affairs without good reason for it. A hundred to one on that event. But if Shield does mean to take everything out of my hands’——
He frowned still more darkly at the invisible object on the floor, and the speculation ended in a chaos of disagreeable reflections. With a quick jerk of the head he roused himself.
‘We’ll see,’ he muttered as he advanced to the table and touched a hand-bell twice.