Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/50

48 I may run short of change,' and he held out a banknote. 'Certainly, if you will kindly write your name and address on the back,' I replied, and I gave him a pen."

"The one you had been using?"

"Yes; it was in my hand. He turned away and I thought that he was doing what I asked, but before he would have had time to do that he handed me the pen back and said: 'Thanks; after all, I'll leave it as it is.'"

"Who sent in the book for sale?"

"Described as 'the property of a gentleman,'" contributed Mr Marrable. "I wondered."

"If you will excuse me for a moment," said Mr Ing, "I will find out."

He returned from another office smiling amiably but shaking his head.

"'The property of a gentleman,'" he repeated with senile deliberateness. "I find that the owner expressed a definite wish for the transaction to be treated confidentially. It is no unusual thing for a client to desire that. On certain points of etiquette, Mr Carrados, I am just as jealous for the firm as Trenchard could be, so that until we can obtain consent I am afraid that the gentleman must remain anonymous."

"The question is," volunteered Mr Marrable, "where has the volume got to, rather than where has it come from?"

"Sometimes," remarked the blind man, "after looking in many unlikely places one finds the key in the lock itself. At all events we seem to have come to the end of our usefulness here. Unless one of your people happens to come forward with a real clue, Mr Ing, I