"Please come Hampstead to-morrow—lunch. Important."
Bruce lives in one of those old-fashioned three-storey houses away to the right off the top of Haverstock Hill. I expect you know them if you have ever been up in that direction. Standing back from the road, with balconies, long windows, and creeper-covered fronts, they seem to shrink in a kind of desolate dismay from the new red-brick splendour which has gradually hemmed them in.
Heath View, the end one, is where Bruce hangs out. It belongs to an ex-police sergeant and his wife, called Jones, and Bruce has the whole of the two top floors. They make him very comfortable, but I have often wondered why he doesn't take a flat. He says it is because Mrs. Jones is the only woman in London who can cook a mushroom omelette.
When I rang the bell the possessor of this unique talent opened the door herself. She is a tall, good-looking woman of about forty, with that sort of grave, respectful manner you don't often meet nowadays.
Yes, Mr. Bruce was in, she said, and expecting me. Would I go straight up?
Bruce heard me coming, and flung open the door. He had just jumped up from his desk, which was littered with papers and bundles of deeds tied up by red tape. He looked flushed and a little excited.
"Come along in," he said. "I was just beginning to be afraid you couldn't turn up."
I discarded my coat, and followed him into the room.
"I couldn't neglect such a poignant wire," I said. "What's the matter? Have you come into a fortune?"
He laughed in a curious jerky sort of way, and just then Mrs. Jones came in and began to lay the table for lunch.