It was a plain hint, but Professor Higginson was not grateful. He was considering what advantage this information was to him, and as he slowly considered it he at last clearly grasped that advantage. He would be back at that house within three hours: back with the key and an order to view. And it would go hard with him if he did not find that dangerous scrap of paper. He had not wasted his florin.
"Thank you," he said rapidly, and was gone.
He reached the tram again before it was mid-afternoon. Once in the town he looked up a directory in a shop, found Kirby and Blake's direction, and made his way at once to that office.
Mr. Kirby had come in just an hour before. He had sat drawing caricatures on blotting-paper with stubs of pencil, or gazing at the ceiling. He had written private letters with his own hand, and addressed to people who had no known connection with the firm, and he seemed to have attached himself thus to his business premises, during that one exceptional afternoon, for the advantage of seclusion and of the telephone more than of anything else. Moreover, he had asked peevishly
