"No," I replied with a continental bow, "I am not so fortunate."
And then suddenly a thought flashed across me. Ought I to have answered
in a very different key? But we were in the hall now and the next moment
another gentleman appeared.
"Here's Dr. Rendall," said Mr. O'Brien, and I bowed again.
"My name is Mr. Roger Merton," I explained. "I have taken the liberty of
calling upon you."
"Come into my study, Mr. Merton," said Dr. Rendall.
He spoke in a friendly enough voice, but if there was not a trace of
suspicion in his eye too, I am greatly mistaken. And in both cases it
seemed to me that it was suspicion tinged with apprehension, rather than
the suspicion I was so deliberately cultivating. Indeed, I had not
intended to cultivate any suspicion at all in this house, but fortunately
(I think) I simply acted automatically.
Taking him altogether, Dr. Rendall was a decidedly more prepossessing
looking man than O'Brien. In fact he was rather good-looking, with grey
hair and moustache, face of a deep bronze-red hue and very blue eyes. He
was well set up, and quite well dressed too in rough tweeds, and the
only thing against him was that look in his eye as we exchanged our first
sentences.
My wits were very wide awake by this time; I carried a picture of the
outside of the house distinctly in my head as we turned out of the hall,
and when we entered the study I knew it for the room where the blind had
shut down.
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