Some day I
might show that London to you--guarding you, of course, from the
ash-barrels, if you are that kind. On second thoughts, you aren't.
But I know that it is of Adelphi Terrace and a late captain in the
Indian Army that you want to hear now. Yesterday, after my
discovery of those messages in the Mail and the call of Captain
Hughes, passed without incident. Last night I mailed you my third
letter, and after wandering for a time amid the alternate glare and
gloom of the city, I went back to my rooms and smoked on my balcony
while about me the inmates of six million homes sweltered in the heat.
Nothing happened. I felt a bit disappointed, a bit cheated, as one
might feel on the first night spent at home after many successive
visits to exciting plays. To-day, the first of August dawned, and
still all was quiet. Indeed, it was not until this evening that
further developments in the sudden death of Captain Fraser-Freer
arrived to disturb me. These developments are strange ones surely,
and I shall hasten to relate them.
I dined to-night at a little place in Soho. My waiter was Italian,
and on him I amused myself with the Italian in Ten Lessons of which
I am foolishly proud. We talked of Fiesole, where he had lived.
Once I rode from Fiesole down the hill to Florence in the moonlight.
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