He stood in a quandary, his eyes fixed again upon that etching which McAuley had praised. It brought the movements of that quarter of an hour back to him as vividly as though he were still living in those moments. How could the thing have gone? He spent another futile five minutes back in the room, crawling about the carpet on all fours; lifting the corners in the vain idea that it might be lurking there.

Then he stood up again and pondered fruitlessly. He had heard no servant in the hall outside; no one had come in by the front door. If anyone in the house should find that envelope it would be awkward … but that was impossible … there had been no time for such a thing; no one could have known what he had had upon him.

Further search seemed useless. Things do disappear in this extraordinary way. The bother about this particular thing was the unpleasantness of knowing that such a letter might be lying about loose. He said to himself that there was no time to be lost: the essential thing was to communicate with J. at once.

He had had time to get home to his flat by this time, surely? He must telephone. He went to the little room at the back where his private telephone stood, and when he had got on to McAuley’s flat in Marble Arch House at the top of Park Lane, not half a mile off, he heard, even as the servant answered, another voice speaking which he could have sworn was that of McAuley himself.

It was not a voice near the instrument—it could not quite certainly be made out—but he thought he caught certain words.

The voice that presently did answer him clearly and directly was that of McAuley’s secretary: he knew her well—an efficient gentlewoman, of like nationality with her employer, Rose Fairweather by name. That voice said, in singularly distinct tones, that J. had been in for a moment, and had gone out again.

Halterton was almost positive he had heard J.’s voice, and that, in spite of its faintness and his inability to catch all the words, one patch of those words had been: “If it’s him,” and another, “You don’t know when.”

In answer to a second more nervous questioning there had come the still more distinct reply, that not only had J. just gone out but that he would not be back for dinner, and that Miss Fairweather did not know where he had gone or when he would return. … No, he might not be back till long after midnight. … No, he had not dressed, and he hadn’t taken a bag. … Oh yes, he would be back some time next morning at latest … yes, he would get his post. … And with that Wilfrid Halterton had to be content. But it left him in an agony.

As he walked slowly back to his study from the private instrument in the little room he asked himself what a man ought to do in such circumstances.

Here he was, with a document which no one else must see, lying about lost and to be found by heaven knows who. It was a document vital to him, and he himself was deprived of its use and without guarantee. J. would certainly act very soon; hardly, perhaps, next day, but certainly within a few days; and then all the world would know that the Charter was as good as granted. And he, Wilfrid Halterton, would be there without his side of the affair secure under his own keeping. Obviously there was only one thing to be done. He couldn’t make out why he hadn’t thought of it at once. Since J. was not on the telephone, he must write to him. He could not help thinking that J., for some reason or other, had wanted not to be bothered. He was almost certain he had heard that voice, and nearly as certain that he had heard those two fragmentary phrases. He quite understood that McAuley should want not to be bothered, but still he ought, after such an important transaction, to have come to the instrument. Anyhow, it was too late now.