There
was no room for pictures. Nothing but the shining backs of well-bound
volumes looked down upon him. Four brilliant lights hung from the
ceiling and a reading lamp with a polished reflector stood among the
disordered masses of papers on the desk.
The lamp was not lit, but when Shorthouse put his hand upon it he found
it was _warm_. The room had evidently only just been vacated.
Apart from the testimony of the lamp, however, he had already felt,
without being able to give a reason for it, that the room had been
occupied a few moments before he entered. The atmosphere over the desk
seemed to retain the disturbing influence of a human being; an
influence, moreover, so recent that he felt as if the cause of it were
still in his immediate neighbourhood. It was difficult to realise that
he was quite alone in the room and that somebody was not in hiding. The
finer counterparts of his senses warned him to act as if he were being
observed; he was dimly conscious of a desire to fidget and look round,
to keep his eyes in every part of the room at once, and to conduct
himself generally as if he were the object of careful human observation.
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