“Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be obliged.”
I turned to descend to the kitchen, when--
“The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be welcome, and I think I should like a trowel.”
I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.
“I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith,” I said, “but--”
“Forgive me, old man,” he replied. “I was so preoccupied with my own train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my request must have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later; at the moment, hustle is the watchword.”
Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly, returning with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish and a glass of milk.
“Thanks, Petrie,” said Smith--“If you would put the milk in a jug--”
I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into which he poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the plate of cold turbot in one hand and the milk jug in the other, he made for the door. He had it open when another idea evidently occurred to him.
“I’ll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie.”
“Don’t assume that I want to mystify you,” he added, “but the presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don’t expect to be long.”
The cold light of dawn flooded the hallway momentarily; then the door closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland Smith as he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He was making for the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he reached them.
I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of sunrise. A policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a belated reveler in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me again. Out there in the gray mists a man who was vested with powers which rendered him a law unto himself, who had the British Government behind him in all that he might choose to do, who had been summoned from Rangoon to London on singular and dangerous business, was employing himself with a plate of cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!
Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I was less concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary traveler who had descended from it.