"
Cyril Overton pressed his hands to his head. "I can make
nothing of it," said he.
"Well, well, I have a clear day, and I shall be happy to look
into the matter," said Holmes. "I should strongly recommend
you to make your preparations for your match without reference
to this young gentleman. It must, as you say, have been an
overpowering necessity which tore him away in such a fashion,
and the same necessity is likely to hold him away. Let us step
round together to this hotel, and see if the porter can throw
any fresh light upon the matter."
Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a
humble witness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of
Godfrey Staunton's abandoned room, he had extracted all that
the porter had to tell. The visitor of the night before was not
a gentleman, neither was he a working man. He was simply what
the porter described as a "medium-looking chap"; a man of fifty,
beard grizzled, pale face, quietly dressed. He seemed himself
to be agitated. The porter had observed his hand trembling when
he had held out the note. Godfrey Staunton had crammed the note
into his pocket.
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