But at the archway of the ancient enclosure he met old Simpson Harker, pottering about in his usual apparently aimless fashion.

Harker smiled at sight of Bryce.
"Ah, I was wanting to have a word with you, doctor!" he said.

"Something important.

Have you got a minute or two to spare, sir?
Come round to my little place, then--we shall be quiet there." Bryce had any amount of time to spare for an interesting person like Harker, and he followed the old man to his house--a tiny place set in a nest of similar old-world buildings behind the Close.

Harker led him into a little parlour, comfortable and snug, wherein were several shelves of books of a curiously legal and professional-looking aspect, some old pictures, and a cabinet of odds and ends, stowed away in of dark corner.