"We may draw the covert blank, you know,
after all. When we've some definite news--"
Viner nodded, went out, into the afternoon calm of Bedford Row. As he
walked up it, staring mechanically at the old-fashioned red brick fronts,
he wondered how many curious secrets had been talked over and perhaps
unravelled in the numerous legal sanctuaries approached through those
open doorways. Were there often as strange ones as that upon which he had
so unexpectedly stumbled? And when they first came into the arena of
thought and speculation did they arouse as much perplexity and mental
exercise as was now being set up in him? Did every secret, too, possibly
endanger a man's life as his old schoolfellow's was being endangered? He
had no particular affection or friendship for Langton Hyde, of whom,
indeed, he had known very little at school, but he had an absolute
conviction that he was innocent of murder, and that conviction had
already aroused in him a passionate determination to outwit the police.
He had been quick to see through Drillford's plans. There was a case, a
strong _prima facie_ case against Hyde, and the police would work it up
for all they were worth.
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