18 The Unspeakable ThosMr Campion, standing in the outer hall, remained for a moment perfectly silent, listening.
‘Who is it?’
Mr Campion took off his spectacles and wiped them with a tasteful line in silk handkerchiefs. ‘That, my unfortunate friend,’ he said gloomily, ‘is the unspeakable Thos. Thos T. Knapp. T. stands for “tick”.’
‘Why, if it ain’t my old sport Bertie!’ said the voice, appreciably nearer. ‘I ’eard your pipe from out ’ere, my lovely.’
Simultaneously with this last announcement, Mr Thos Knapp himself appeared in the doorway, where he stood looking in on them with bright, sharp, sparrow-like eyes. He was an undersized young man with a broken snub nose and an air of undefatigable jauntiness. His clothes must have been the pride of the Whitechapel Road: fantastically cut g
