I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy evening,
with the strange business upon which we were engaged, combined to
make me nervous and depressed. I could see from Miss Morstan's
manner that she was suffering from the same feeling. Holmes
alone could rise superior to petty influences. He held his open
note-book upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted down
figures and memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.
At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the side-
entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and four-
wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-
fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly
reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a
small, dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.
"Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he asked.
"I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends," said
she.
He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes
upon us. "You will excuse me, miss," he said with a certain
dogged manner, "but I was to ask you to give me your word that
neither of your companions is a police-officer."
"I give you my word on that," she answered.
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