'Kind of fit, it is. Trouble done it. Yah! Ingratitood.' He would have hissed the word, but it has no sibilant. You can't hiss without the materials. 'Yesterday's trouble. That's what's done it.'
They stood watching in silence for about ten minutes. The office was like the Court of the sleeping Princess. Then Checkley sneezed. Mr. Dering probably mistook the sneeze for a kiss, for he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, and arose once more himself, grave and austere.
He nodded cheerfully, took off his hat, hung it on its peg, buttoned his coat, and threw open the safe. Evidently he remembered nothing of what had just passed.
'You are early, George,' he said. 'You are before me, which is unusual. However—the early bird—we know.'
'Before you for once. Are you quite well this morning? None the worse for yesterday's trouble?'
'He's always well,' said Checkley, with cheerfulness assumed. 'Nobody ever sees him ill—he get ill? Not him. Eats as hearty as five-and-twenty and walks as upright.'
'I am perfectly well, to the best of my knowledge. Yesterday's business upset me for the time—but it did not keep me awake. Yet it is certainly a very great trouble. You have no news, I suppose, that brought you here earlier than usual?'
'Nothing new since yesterday.'
'And you feel pretty confident?'
'I feel like a sleuth-hound. I understand the pleasures of the chase. I long to be on the scent again. As for Edmund Gray, he is as good as in prison already.'