Explore "When Rogues Fall Out" by R. Austin Freeman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
DURING the next day or two, I was sensible of a certain tension and unrest that seemed to affect the atmosphere of our chambers in King's Bench Walk. Polton, having successfully installed his apparatus in the corridor at Hartsden Manor House, was in a fever of impatience to harvest the results. I believe that he would have liked to sit down beside his camera and change the film after each exposure. As it was, he had fixed it on Tuesday morning, and, as no result could be expected until Thursday, at the earliest, circumstances condemned him to two whole days of suspense.
But Polton was not the only sufferer. My long association with Thorndyke enabled me to detect changes in his emotional states that were hidden from the eye of the casual observer by his habitually calm and impassive exterior; and, in these days, a certain gravity and preoccupation in his manner conveyed to me the impression that something was weighing on his mind. At first, I was disposed to connect his preoccupation with the affairs of Hartsden Manor; but I soon dismissed this idea. For in those affairs there was nothing that could reasonably cause him any anxiety. And Thorndyke was by no means addicted to fussing unnecessarily.