'South Square, Gray's Inn. That is the place where the man Edmund Gray lives: the man we want to find and cannot find.'
'Oh! Lord! Lord!' exclaimed the clerk. 'Is it possible?' He lifted his hand and raised his eyes to heaven and groaned. Then he resumed his narrative.
'Coming through the passage, I looked up to the windows of No. 22—Mr. Edmund Gray's Chambers, you know.'
'I believe so.' Mr. Dering's face betrayed no emotion at all. 'Go on; I am told so.'
'In the window I saw Mr. Edmund Gray himself—himself.'
'Curious. You have seen him—but why not?'
'The man we've all been so anxious to find. The man who endorsed the cheque and wrote the letters and got the papers—there he was!'
'Question of identity. How did you know him, since you had never seen him before?'
This question Checkley shirked.
'He came down-stairs five minutes afterwards, while I was still looking up at the windows. Came down-stairs, and walked out of the Square—made as if he was going out by way of Raymond's Buildings—much as if he might be going to Bedford Row.'