He came in first to see whether we could
give him one. I paid the cab myself and brought in his bag."
"He had just arrived from the country, I presume?"
The porter nodded.
"At King's Cross, by the 10.45, I believe; but it must have been a good
bit late, for I was just coming off duty, and the night-porter was just
coming on."
"Then you didn't see any more of Mr. Steel that night?"
"I saw him go out again," said the porter, dryly, "after he had
something to eat, for we are short-handed in the off-season, and I
stopped up myself to see he got it. I didn't see him come in the second
time."
Langholm could hardly believe his ears. To cover his excitement he burst
out laughing.
"The old dog!" he cried. "Do you know if he ever came in at all?"
"Between two and three, I believe," said the porter in the same tone.
Langholm laughed again, but asked no more questions, and in a little he
was pacing his bedroom floor, with fevered face and tremulous stride, as
he was to continue pacing it for the greater part of that August night.
Yet it was not a night spent in thought, but rather in intercepting and
in casting out the kind of thoughts that chased each other through the
novelist's brain.
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