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‘Mr. Shergold in?’ he asked carelessly.

‘No, he isn’t.’ There was a strange bluntness about this answer. The girl stood forward, as if to bar the entrance, and kept searching his face.

‘When is he likely to be?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say when he went out.’

A woman’s figure appeared in the background. The girl turned and said sharply, ‘All right, mother, it’s only somebody for Mr. Shergold.’

‘I’ll go upstairs and write a note,’ said Munden, in a rather peremptory voice.

The other drew back and allowed him to pass, but with evident disinclination. As he entered the room, he saw that she had followed. He went up to a side-table, on which lay a blotting-book, with other requisites for writing, and then he stood for a moment as if in meditation.

‘Your name is Emma, isn’t it?’ he inquired, looking at the girl with a smile.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Well then, Emma, shut the door, and let’s have a talk. Your mother won’t mind, will she?’ he added slyly.

The girl tossed her head.

‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with mother.’ She closed the door, but did not latch it. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘You’re a very nice girl to look at, Emma, and I’ve always admired you when you opened the door to me. I’ve always liked your nice, respectful way of speaking, but somehow you don’t speak quite so nicely to-day. What has put you out?’

Her eyes did not quit his face for a moment; her attitude betokened the utmost keenness of suspicious observation.

‘Nothing’s put me out, that I know of.’

‘Yet you don’t speak very nicely–not very respectfully. Perhaps’–he paused–‘perhaps Mr. Shergold is going to leave?’

‘P’r’aps he may be.’

‘And you’re vexed at losing a lodger.’

He saw her lip curl and then she laughed.

‘You’re wrong there.’

‘Then what is it?’

He drew near and made as though he would advance a familiar arm. Emma started back.

‘All right,’ she exclaimed, with an insolent nod. ‘I’ll tell Mr. Shergold.’

‘Tell Mr. Shergold? Why? What has it to do with him?’

‘A good deal.’

‘Indeed? For shame, Emma! I never expected that!’

‘What do you mean?’ she retorted hotly. ‘You keep your impudence to yourself. If you want to know, Mr. Shergold is going to marry me–so there!’

The stroke was effectual. Harvey Munden stood as if transfixed, but he recovered himself before a word escaped his lips.

‘Ah, that alters the case. I beg your pardon. You won’t make trouble between old friends?’

Vanity disarmed the girl’s misgiving. She grinned with satisfaction.

‘That depends how you behave.’

‘Oh, you don’t know me. But promise, now; not a word to Shergold.’

She gave a conditional promise, and stood radiant with her triumph.

‘Thanks, that’s very good of you. Well, I won’t trouble to leave a note. You shall just tell Shergold that I am leaving England to-morrow for a holiday. I should like to see him, of course, and I may possibly look round this evening. If I can’t manage it, just tell him that I think he ought to have given me a chance of congratulating him. May I ask when it is to be?’

Emma resumed an air of prudery, ‘Before very long, I dessay.’

‘I wish you joy. Well, I mustn’t talk longer now, but I’ll do my best to look in this evening, and then we can all chat together.’

He laughed and she laughed back; and thereupon they parted.

A little after nine that evening, when only a grey reflex of daylight lingered upon a cloudy sky, Munden stood beneath the plane-trees by Guy’s Hospital waiting. He had walked the length of Maze Pond and had ascertained that his friend’s window as yet showed no light; Shergold was probably still from home. In the afternoon he had made inquiry at the house of the deceased doctor, but of Henry nothing was known there; he left a message for delivery if possible, to the effect that he would call in at Maze Pond between nine and ten.