He had a few words with him after lunch.
' Arrived last night, Bertie?' he asked. ' Glad to see you. How are they all?'
Bertie pulled himself together, and smiled.
' All sorts of messages to you,' he said. ' They miss you awfully.'
' I guess I'm not missed most,' remarked Mr. Palmer. ' Can you wait here half an hour or so? I want to talk to you, but I've got other things that won't wait.'
Bertie looked at his watch.
' I can be back in an hour,' he said, ' if that will do.'
' Yes, an hour from now. Quarter to four, then,' and he nodded to him, shut up his heart again, and dismissed him from his thoughts as completely as he had left the room.
Bertie, as Mr. Palmer had supposed, had arrived in London only the evening before, and since Gallio was out of town, spending, in point of fact, a most unremunerative fortnight at Monte Carlo, on a system which lost infallibly, though slowly, had at his invitation taken possession of his chambers in Jermyn Street. He had come down to breakfast in as happy and contented a frame of mind as any young man, gifted with good digestion and a charming girl to whom he was engaged, need hope ever to find himself, and had seen with some satisfaction that there was only one letter waiting for him. He had expected rather to find creditors clamouring round him, for he had a respectable number of them waiting for his leisure cash, and had supposed that they would very politely have notified him of their existence as soon as he arrived. But there was only one letter for him. He opened it; its purport was as simple as a statement of accounts, and type-written. It began:
' Dear Sir,
' I have the honour to remind you of a document, from which I have extracted the following.'
