"'Very good,' said he. 'Oh, yes, certainly. I will send for the
man. . . . Your business is private, you say? . . . I am very
sorry: we are all at sixes and sevens here, with every office
crowded. But there's an empty saloon--one of those absurdities
with which the management in old days sought to tickle the
public taste. They are going to turn it into a ward in a couple
of days, and that's why we have left it unoccupied. If that
will do, and you'll come with me, we'll see if the electric
light functions. I believe the fitters were at work there this
afternoon.'"
"That, as Farrell told me ten minutes later, was how it happened.
For me, when answering the message that a stranger had called to
see me on urgent business, I walked as directed, across the
matted moonlit lawn to this building which I had never visited
before--and when, pushing the door wide, I saw Farrell standing
under the electric lamps, with his dog beside him--I fell back a
pace and half-turned to run for it.
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