"
"I can't say how much reason or unreason there may prove to be in this
particular case. It all depends."
Mr. Sidebotham got up and locked the door of his study and drew down the
blinds of both windows. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket and
opened a black tin box. He ferreted about among blue and white papers
for a few seconds, enveloping himself as he did so in a cloud of blue
tobacco smoke.
"I feel like a detective already," Shorthouse laughed.
"Speak low, please," returned the other, glancing round the room. "We
must observe the utmost secrecy. Perhaps you would be kind enough to
close the registers," he went on in a still lower voice. "Open registers
have betrayed conversations before now."
Shorthouse began to enter into the spirit of the thing. He tiptoed
across the floor and shut the two iron gratings in the wall that in
American houses supply hot air and are termed "registers." Mr.
Sidebotham had meanwhile found the paper he was looking for. He held it
in front of him and tapped it once or twice with the back of his right
hand as if it were a stage letter and himself the villain of the
melodrama.
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