On the previous day, at a little before six o’clock in the evening, he had called upon old Mrs Gilbert, who with her daughter kept the boarding-house where I chanced to be staying, and had, it appeared, taken a top room, where his two leather portmanteaux were placed. ...After I had bowed farewell and she had descended the steps, I closed the door, and was returning along the hall when suddenly Sammy emerged from the dining-room, where he had evidently been standing, and facing me with a strange, serious expression upon his features, such as I had never seen there before, asked:-