Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth.  The young man gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered with an air of great leisure down the long corridor.  He reappeared after a moment’s absence behind the last door, to return with considerably more alacrity.

“Come right in, sir,” he told Bob, in tones which mingled much deference with considerable surprise.

Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the circumstance of so prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no previous appointment had been made.  He entered the door held open for him by the boy, and so found himself in Baker’s presence.

XXIII

The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods.  A thick rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good pictures hung off the wall.  Near the windows stood a small desk for a stenographer, and a wide mahogany table.  Behind this latter, his back to the light, sat Baker.

The man’s sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the customary facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place to an expression of cold attention.  When he spoke, Bob found that the picturesque diction too had vanished.

At Bob’s entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting, but said nothing.  Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested his two fists, knuckle down, on the polished desktop.  Baker waited stolidly for him to proceed.  Bob jerked his head toward the stenographer.

“I want to talk to you in private,” said he.

The stenographer glanced toward her employer.  The latter nodded, whereupon she gathered a few stray leaves of paper and departed.  Bob looked after her until the door had closed behind her.  Then, quite deliberately, he made a tour of the office, trying doors, peering behind curtains and portieres.  He ended at the desk, to find Baker’s eye fixed on him with sardonic humour.  “Melodramatic, useless—­and ridiculous,” he said briefly.

“If I have any evidence to give, it will be in court, not in a private office,” replied Bob composedly.

“What do you want?” demanded Baker.

“I have come this far solely and simply to get a piece of information at first hand.  I was told you had threatened to become a blackmailer, and I wanted to find out if it is true?”

“In a world of contrary definitions, it is necessary to come down to facts.  What do you mean by blackmailer?”

“It has been told me that you intend to aid criminal proceedings against Mr. Welton in regard to the right-of-way trouble and the ‘sugaring’ of Plant.”

“Well?”

“And that in order to evade your own criminal responsibility in the matter you intended to turn state’s evidence.”

“Well?” repeated Baker.

“It seemed inconceivable to me that a man of your social and business standing would not only confess himself a petty criminal, but one who shelters himself by betrayal of his confederate.”