I accordingly hailed a cab and drove back to my office.

Once there I entered up my diary according to custom, wrote a note to Kitwater, informing him that I had discovered that Gideon Hayle had not left London on the previous Sunday, and also that I believed him to have negotiated certain of the stones in London, after which I returned to my hotel to dine.
Most people who know me would tell you that it might be considered consistent with my character that I still occupied the same apartments in the private hotel, off the Strand, in which I had domiciled myself when I first arrived in England.

If I am made comfortable I prefer to stick to my quarters, and the hotel in question was a quiet one; the cooking and the service were excellent, and, as every one did his, or her, best for me, I saw no sort of reason for moving elsewhere.

It is something in such matters to know the people with whom one has to deal, and in my case I could not have been better cared for had I been a crowned head.

I suppose I am a bit of a faddist in these things.