I sat down again in my chair, ordered a cup of tea, drank it with splendid visions of a tête-à-tête with Juanita that very night, and was leaning back in my chair lost in a rosy dream when the door opened and the odd little man with the red hair appeared at my side, holding two or three sheets of typewritten copy.
"The story, sir," he said.
I took it from him mechanically, it would never be published now, in all probability, but it would at least serve to show Morse how much I knew. I began to read.
At the end of the first paragraph I knew that the stuff was going to be all right. At the end of the second and third I sat up in my chair and abandoned my easy attitude. When I had read the whole of the thousand words I knew that I had discovered one of the best journalistic brains of the day! The boy could not only ferret out news, but he could write! Every word fell with the right ring and chimed. He was terse, but vivid as an Alpine sunset. He made one powerful word do the work of ten. He suggested atmosphere by a semicolon, and there were fewer adjectives in his stuff than one would have believed possible. There were not four other men in Fleet Street who could have done as well. And beyond this, beyond my pleasure at the discovery of a genius, the article had a peculiar effect upon me. I felt that somehow or other the matter was not going to die with my interview to-night at the Ritz Hotel. The room in which I sat widened. There was a glimpse of far horizons…
I folded the copy carefully and placed it in my breast pocket.
"Mr. Rolston," I said, "I engage you from this moment as a member of my regular staff. Your salary to begin with will be ten pounds a week, and of course your expenses that you may incur in the course of your work. Do you accept these terms?"
Poor Bill Rolston! I mustn't give away the man who afterwards became my most faithful friend and most daring companion in hours of frightful peril, and a series of incredible adventures. Still, if he did burst into tears that's nothing against him, for I didn't realize till sometime afterwards that he was half starved and at the very end of his tether.
He pulled himself together in a moment or two, took a cup of tea and let me cross-question him. What he told me in the next half-hour I cannot set down here. It will appear in its proper place, but it is enough to say that in the whole of my experience I never listened to a more mysterious and more enthralling recital.
I think that from that moment I realized that my fate was to be in some way linked with the three towers on Richmond Hill, and the sense of excitement which had been with me all the afternoon, grew till it was almost unbearable.
"Now, first of all," I said, when he had told me everything, "you are not to breathe a word of this to any human soul without my permission. While you have been absent I have already been taking steps, the nature of which I shall not tell you at present. Meanwhile, lock up everything in your heart."
I had a flash of foresight, well justified in the event.
"I may want you at any moment," I told him, "and therefore, with your permission, I'm going to put you up at my flat in Piccadilly, where you will be well looked after and have everything you want. I'll telephone through to my man, Preston, giving him full instructions, and you had better take a taxi and get there at once. Preston will send a messenger to your lodgings to bring up any clothes and so forth you may require."
He blushed rosy red, and I wondered why, for his story had been told to me in a crisp, man-of-the-world manner that made him seem far older than he was.
Then he shrugged his shoulders, put his hand in his trousers pocket and pulled out – one penny.
"All I have in the world," he said, with a rueful smile.
I scribbled an order on the cashier and told him to cash it in the office below, and, with a look of almost doglike fidelity and gratitude, the little fellow moved towards the door.
Just at that moment it opened and Julia Dewsbury came in.
Rolston's jaw dropped and his eyes almost started out of his head in amazement, and I saw a look come into my secretary's eyes that I should have been glad to inspire in the eyes of one woman.
"There, there," I said, "be off with you, both of you. Miss Dewsbury, take Mr. Rolston, now a permanent member of the staff, into your own room and tell him something about the ways of the office."
For half an hour I walked up and down the editorial sanctum arranging my thoughts, getting everything clear cut, and when that was done I telephoned to Arthur Winstanley, asking him, if he had nothing particular on, to dine with me.
His reply was that he would be delighted, as he had nothing to do till eleven o'clock, but that I must dine with him. "I have discovered a delightful little restaurant," he said, "which isn't fashionable yet, though it soon will be. Don't dress; and meet me at the Club at half-past seven."
My dinner with Arthur can be related very shortly, for, while it has distinct bearing upon the story, it was only remarkable for one incident, though, Heaven knows, that was important enough.
I met him at our Club in Saint James' and we walked together towards Soho.
"You are going to dine," said Arthur, "at 'L'Escargot d'Or' – The Golden Snail. It's a new departure in Soho restaurants, and only a few of us know of it yet. Soon all the world will be going there, for the cooking is magnificent."
"That's always the way with these Soho restaurants, they begin wonderfully, are most beautifully select in their patrons, and then the rush comes and everything is spoiled."
"I know, the same will happen here no doubt, though lower Bohemia will never penetrate because the prices are going to be kept up; and this place will always equal one of the first-class restaurants in town. Well, how goes it?"
I knew what he meant and as we walked I told him, as in duty bound, all there was to tell of the progress of my suit.
"Met her once," I said, "had about two minutes' talk. There's just a chance, I am not certain, that I may meet her to-night, and not in a crowd – in which case you may be sure I shall make the very most of my opportunities. If this doesn't come off, I don't see any other chance of really getting to know her until September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, and I have to thank you for that invitation, Arthur."
He sighed.
"It's a difficult house to get into," he said, "unless you are one of the pukka shooting set, but I told old Sir Walter that, though you weren't much good in October and that pheasants weren't in your line, you were A1 at driven 'birds.'"
"But I can't hit a driven partridge to save my life, unless by a fluke!"
"I know, Tom, I don't say that you'll be liked at all, but you won the toss and by our bond we're bound to do all we can to give you your opportunity. I need hardly say that my greatest hope in life is that she'll have nothing whatever to say to you. And now let's change that subject – it's confounded thin ice however you look at it – and enjoy our little selves. I have been on the 'phone with Anatole, and we are going to dine to-night, my son, really dine!"
The Golden Snail in a Soho side street presented no great front to the world. There was a sign over a door, a dingy passage to be traversed, until one came to another door, opened it and found oneself in a long, lofty room shaped like a capital L. The long arm was the one at which you entered, the other went round a rectangle. The place was very simply decorated in black and white. Tables ran along each side, and the only difference between it and a dozen other such places in the foreign quarter of London was that the seats against the wall were not of red plush but of dark green morocco leather. It was fairly full, of a mixed company, but long-haired and impecunious Bohemia was conspicuously absent.
A table had been reserved for us at the other end opposite the door, so that sitting there we could see in both directions.
We started with little tiny oysters from Belon in Brittany – I don't suppose there was another restaurant in London at that moment that was serving them. The soup was asparagus cream soup of superlative excellence, and then came a young guinea-fowl stuffed with mushrooms, which was perfection