THE AFFAIR AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL
which he had listened proved the emanation of a drugged and heated brain, lo! the facts buffeted him in the face, and the story was shown to be true.
"I am alive once more," Mr. Ricardo thought as he turned back with Hanaud, and in his excitement he cried his thought aloud.
"Are you?" said Hanaud. "And what is life without a newspaper? If you will buy one from that remarkably raucous boy at the bottom of the street I will keep an eye upon Calladine's house till you come back."
Mr. Ricardo sped down to Charing Cross and brought back a copy of the fourth edition of the Star. He handed it to Hanaud, who stared at it doubtfully, folded as it was.
"Shall we see what it says?" Ricardo asked impatiently.
"By no means," Hanaud answered, waking from his reverie and tucking briskly away the paper into the tail pocket of his coat. "We will hear what Miss Joan Carew has to say, with our minds undisturbed by any discoveries. I was wondering about something totally different."
"Yes?" Mr. Ricardo encouraged him. "What was it?"
"I was wondering, since it is only ten o'clock, at what hour the first editions of the evening papers appear."
41
