Three vast motor-cars waited in front of their ancient door, and Edward Henry’s hired electric vehicle was diminished to a trifle.

He began by demanding the senior partner, who was denied to him by an old clerk with a face like a stone wall.  Only his brutal Midland insistence, and the mention of the important letter which he had written to the firm in the middle of the night, saved him from the ignominy of seeing no partner at all.  At the end of the descending ladder of partners he clung desperately to Mr. Vulto, and he saw Mr. Vulto—­a youngish and sarcastic person with blue eyes, lodged in a dark room at the back of the house.  It occurred fortunately that his letter had been allotted to precisely Mr. Vulto for the purpose of being answered.

“You got my letter?” said Edward Henry, cheerfully, as he sat down at Mr. Vulto’s flat desk on the side opposite from Mr. Vulto.

“We got it, but frankly we cannot make head or tail of it!... What option?” Mr. Vulto’s manner was crudely sarcastic.

“This option!” said Edward Henry, drawing papers from his pocket, and putting down the right paper in front of Mr. Vulto with an uncompromising slap.

Mr. Vulto picked up the paper with precautions, as if it were a contagion, and, assuming eyeglasses, perused it with his mouth open.

“We know nothing of this,” said Mr. Vulto, and it was as though he had added:  “Therefore this does not exist.”  He glanced with sufferance at the window, which offered a close-range view of a whitewashed wall.

“Then you weren’t in the confidence of your client?”

“The late Lord Woldo?”

“Yes.”

“Pardon me.”

“Obviously you weren’t in his confidence as regards this particular matter.”

“As you say,” said Mr. Vulto, with frigid irony.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well—­nothing.”  Mr. Vulto removed his eyeglasses and stood up.

“Well, good morning.  I’ll walk round to my solicitors.”  Edward Henry seized the option.

“That will be simpler,” said Mr. Vulto.  Slossons much preferred to deal with lawyers than, with laymen, because it increased costs and vitalized the profession.

At that moment a stout, red-faced and hoary man puffed very authoritatively into the room.

“Vulto,” he cried sharply.  “Mr. Wrissell’s here.  Didn’t they tell you?”

“Yes, Mr. Slosson,” answered Vulto, suddenly losing all his sarcastic quality, and becoming a very junior partner.  “I was just engaged with Mr.”—­(he paused to glance at his desk)—­“Machin, whose singular letter we received this morning about an alleged option on the lease of the Chapel site at Piccadilly Circus—­the Woldo estate, sir.  You remember, sir?”

“This the man?” inquired Mr. Slosson, ex-president of the Law Society, with a jerk of the thumb.

Edward Henry said, “This is the man.”