“H’m, that’s unfortunate,” I said. “You were a bit too bold, I fear.”
Of course I had told him nothing of the reason why I was watching the man who had evinced such interest in the Eckhardt tyre.
“I exercised all the caution possible,” Drake declared, “but he doubled back upon me down at Shortlands and thus tricked me. He didn’t say anything, but only laughed in my face.”
The story of the foreigner at the villa at Shortlands struck me as somewhat remarkable, and I resolved to go there on the morrow and investigate. I now held all Kershaw Kirk’s movements in suspicion.
Next day I rose with the fixed intention of going at once down to Shortlands, that district of suburban villadom, but hardly had I risen from the table where I had breakfasted in silence with Gwen, when something occurred to turn the tide of events into an entirely different channel.
Indeed, by that sudden and unexpected occurrence I knew that I had at last advanced one step towards the knowledge of who killed Professor Greer behind those locked doors in Sussex Place.