“An’ the other feller who’s bin wearin’ Steel’s breeches all the month—went off by the 4.49.”
“’E did.”
“Saucy lookin’ chap.”
“Give me Jim Murchison and blow the liquor. ’E tells you what’s what, and no mistake. Said I sh’ld drink meself to death—and so I shall.”
“What, ’ad the roups again, Frank?”
“Yes, all along with my old liver. Chucks it out of me every marnin’, reg’lar as clock-work.”
The observations of the brotherhood were reliable as far as the identity of the gentleman in Major Murray’s dog-cart was concerned. He was named Dr. Peterson, and his caliber may be appreciated by the fact that he received a check for twenty-five guineas when he travelled forty miles to and fro from his house in Mayfair. Moreover, he had left his card the preceding day on Dr. Parker Steel, with a note urging that an interview between them was urgent and inevitable. Parker Steel’s face had betrayed exceeding discomfort and alarm on reading the name on the piece of paste-board that Dr. Peterson had left on the general practitioner’s hall table.
It was about four o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday when Major Murray’s dog-cart clattered over the cobbles of St. Antonia’s Square, and deposited a very spruce little man in a well-cut frock-coat, and a blemishless tall hat at Parker Steel’s door.
The imperturbable Symons recognized him as the caller of yesterday.
“Dr. Steel’s out, sir.”