CHAPTER 14Mr. Pinkerton woke up with a start, and looked round the dismal room for a whole long moment before he remembered with enormous relief that he was there of his own free will and volition. His waistcoat and jacket were hanging on the back of a chair, his trousers folded neatly across the seat. The rolled oilskin pouch was where he had left it, on the mantel under a motto recalling to commercial travellers the traditional legend regarding the home and the heart, neatly enshrined in a wreath of rose, shamrock and thistle. Mr. Pinkerton could see it from where he lay.
The fragment of sun coming through the single heavy Nottingham lace curtain at the window, which was, for all the light it gave, little more than an ancient light, picked out the bright new patch and several unpatched
