Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/292

274 We sat down, one at each side of the table. Then he suddenly got up again.

"Will you excuse me for one minute?'" he said over his shoulder, as he started for the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked him, with a good deal of trepidation, and one hand firmly on the roll plate, to make sure that the best part of my breakfast wasn't going to follow him. But he didn't wait to answer me. And I sat there wondering if he'd gone for good, or merely slipped out for a policeman, or remembered to awaken the mysterious lady in the cream and gold room above stairs.

But I was wrong on every count. For he came back in a moment or two with the black club-bag in his hand and a look of relief on his face.

"It isn't the sort of thing, you know, that you care to leave lying around in corners!" he apologetically remarked, as he stepped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him.

He put the club-bag close beside his chair as he sat down again.

"Shall I pour?" I asked, as I lifted the cosey from the silver coffee-pot.

"Thanks," he said, but his eyes, I noticed, were studious and abstracted. He served the bacon and