Mr Eldred paced the entry, read all the
notices, consulted his watch, sat and gazed up the staircase, did all
that a very impatient man could, until some twenty minutes had run out.
At last he addressed himself to the doorkeeper and inquired if it was a
very long way to that part of the library to which Mr Garrett had gone.
'Well, I was thinking it was funny, sir: he's a quick man as a rule, but
to be sure he might have been sent for by the librarian, but even so I
think he'd have mentioned to him that you was waiting. I'll just speak
him up on the toob and see.' And to the tube he addressed himself. As he
absorbed the reply to his question his face changed, and he made one or
two supplementary inquiries which were shortly answered. Then he came
forward to his counter and spoke in a lower tone. 'I'm sorry to hear,
sir, that something seems to have 'appened a little awkward. Mr Garrett
has been took poorly, it appears, and the librarian sent him 'ome in a
cab the other way. Something of an attack, by what I can hear.' 'What,
really? Do you mean that someone has injured him?' 'No, sir, not violence
'ere, but, as I should judge, attacked with an attack, what you might
term it, of illness.
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