I was to join him
there shortly after five o'clock.
"Now we come to my movements. I lunched in the City, and afterwards went
to a certain well-known book-seller's in Holborn, who had written to tell
me that he had for sale a valuable book which he knew I wanted. I have
been a collector of rare books ever since I came back to England. I spent
an hour or so at the book-seller's shop. I bought the book which I had
gone to see--paying a very heavy price for it. I carried it away in my
hand, not wrapped up, and got into an omnibus which was going my way, and
rode in it as far as the end of Praed Street. There I got out. And--in
spite of what I said in my advertisement in the newspapers of the
following morning,--I had the book in my hand when I left the omnibus. Why
I pretended to have lost it, why I inserted that advertisement in the
papers, I shall tell you presently--that was all part of a game which was
forced upon me.
"It was, as near as I can remember, past five o'clock when I turned along
Praed Street. The darkness was coming on, and there was a slight rain
falling, and a tendency to fog. However, I noticed something--I am
naturally very quick of observation.
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