Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- Fiction
The room had never been a very large one, and now a partition divided
it in two, leaving a passage at one side only, by the window. On each
side of this partition stood a small pedestal table, a couple of
chairs, a copying-press, and the other articles usual in a meagrely
furnished office. Dorrington strode past Bouvier's half of the room
and came upon Hamer as he was hanging his coat on a peg. The letter
of introduction had been burnt, since Dorrington had only asked for
it in order to get Hamer's name and the Hatton Garden address without
betraying to Bouvier the fact that he did not already know all about it.
"Good morning, Mr. Hamer," said Dorrington, loudly. "Sorry to see
you're not well"--he pointed familiarly with his stick at a range of
medicine bottles on the mantelpiece--"but it's very trying weather, of
course. You've been suffering from toothache, I believe?"
Hamer seemed at first disposed to resent the loudness and familiarity
of this speech, but at the reference to toothache he started suddenly
and set his lips.
"Chloroform's a capital thing for toothache, Mr. Hamer, and for--for
other things. I'm not in your line of business myself, but I believe
it has even been used in the diamond trade."
"What do you mean?" asked Hamer, flushing angrily.
"Mean? Why, bless me--nothing more than I said. By the way, I'm afraid
you dropped one of your medicine bottles last night. I've brought it
back, though I'm afraid it's past repair. It's a good job you didn't
quite clear the label off before you took it out with you, else I might
have had a difficulty." Dorrington placed the fragments on the table.
"You see you've just left the first letter of 'E.C.' in the druggist's
address, and the last 'N' of Hatton Garden, just before it. There
doesn't happen to be any other Garden in E.C. district that I know of,
nor does the name of any other thoroughfare end in N--they are mostly
streets, or lanes, or courts, you see. And there seems to be only one
druggist in Hatton Garden--capital fellow, no doubt--the one whose name
and address I observe on those bottles on the mantelpiece."
Dorrington stood with his foot on a chair, and tapped his knee
carelessly with his stick. Hamer dropped into the other chair and
regarded him with a frown, though his face was pale. Presently he said,
in a strained voice, "Well?"
"Yes; there _is_ something else, Mr. Hamer, as you appear to suggest.
I see you're wearing a new pair of glasses this morning; pity you
broke the others last night, but I've brought the piece you left
behind." He gathered up the broken bottle, and held up the piece of
concave lens. "I think, after all, it's really best to use a cord with
_pince-nez_. It's awkward, and it catches in things, I know, but it
saves a breakage, and you're liable to get the glasses knocked off, you
know--in certain circumstances."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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