Читать книгу Special Detective (Ashton-Kirk) онлайн

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“Very well,” said Fuller, briskly. “I’ll start with the Mexican-Pacific Bank. They ought to know a deal about the Campes because they did a lot of business with them, according to what we have here.”

As Fuller opened the door to leave the study, Stumph appeared with a big, fresh-faced man who clutched a hard-rimmed hat in his nervous grip.

“Mr. Scanlon,” said Stumph; and then he followed Fuller out of the room.

“Glad to see you, Kirk,” said Mr. Scanlon, in a voice which suited his proportions. “I hope I haven’t come butting in.”

“Not a bit of it,” the crime student assured him. “Here, have a chair; also have a cigar.”

Mr. Scanlon sat in the chair, and pinched the tip off the cigar. He had blue, good-natured eyes, the sort accustomed to laugh; but now they were grave enough, and little troubled wrinkles showed at their corners.

“You look up to your ears in work,” said he, his eyes upon the books.

Ashton-Kirk smiled.

“On the contrary, I’ve been resting,” he answered, his gaze also upon the books, and filled with the mist which comes of deep plunges into the past, or into the annals of lands that never were. “When I’m overtaxed or too tightly strung there’s nothing so relaxes me as the ancient romances; there’s nothing near so quieting as the sayings of the wise old monks, spoken in the cool of the cloisters.”