“Well, forged notes are pretty good evidence, aren’t they?” asked my partner. “In any case you are quite unfit for work and it isn’t fair on me—or you, either, for that matter.”
“But who can be sending me these threatening messages?” I asked him.
“Probably the wily husband himself. Wants a divorce, possibly. Perhaps he will come to Hensman & Yelverton to file the petition!”
“You’re not serious!” I exclaimed pettishly. “You don’t see what all this means to me—the upsetting of my life and of my profession.”
“I’m perfectly serious, anyhow, in saying this has got to end. We can’t go on with one partner a passenger: things are getting behind. Cut the whole affair. Your friend Feng, as any man of sense would have been, was against it from the first. And how about that old invalid from Constantinople? Have you heard from him?”
“Not a word. That’s a reminder. I’ll write to the Ottoman Bank and see whether he is back again. But I don’t see how he can help.”
“He was back in London three days ago. Look!” Hensman said, passing me over a cutting from the Times. “I cut it out intending to give it to you.”
I took the narrow little strip and read the words:
“Mr. Hartley Humphreys has returned from Constantinople to the Carlton Hotel.”
“By Jove! I’ll call and see him,” I said. “The paragraph escaped me. Thanks.”