My hope proved to be well founded. I slept right through the remainder of the night without interruption, and was only awakened next morning by the tapping of the pretty housemaid at my door.
As before, I jumped out of bed and let her in. I remembered, of course, what Billy had said on the previous evening about her having something important to tell me, but my first glimpse of her expression would have made this fact quite plain to me.
"Well," I said, bracing myself up, "what is it now?"
She put down the tea beside my bed. "If you please, sir," she said, "do you know what's happened to Mr. Milford?"
I stared at her in amazement. "Bless my soul!" I ejaculated, "you don't mean to say that he's in trouble again?"
"He went away last night, sir, soon after you left the house, and he's never come back."
I digested this startling information in silence.
"Went away!" I repeated at last. "How did he go away? He was much too seedy to walk, surely?"
She shook her head. "I don't know about that, sir. A boy brought a note for him, and he went away at once in a cab—a taxi-cab, sir."
I began to laugh. I really couldn't help it. "Well," I said, "Mr. Milford about takes the biscuit."