Murder by Matchlight by Edith Caroline Rivett

Punctually at seven o’clock the same evening Mr. Hardwell arrived at his favourite restaurant, accompanied by Mr. Carringford. The latter had recovered to some extent from the weariness of the previous night and looked more like the quiet detached person whom Macdonald had found interesting to talk to when he first met him. The two men seated themselves at the same table they had occupied on Thursday evening and were served with gin and lime while Mr. Hardwell studied the menu. Shortly afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Ross Lane came in and claimed a table which had been reserved for them a short distance from Mr. Hardwell’s. Farther down the restaurant, at a table well removed from the latter, Macdonald and Jenkins also considered the menu. Jenkins looked thoroughly pleased with life: it was not often that duty led him to a good dinner at a good restaurant and he was prepared to do full justice to whatever was set before him.

The restaurant was soon full up, every table occupied by cheerful diners: occasionally someone glanced in from the doors giving on to the lounge to ascertain if a friend had arrived and the waiters bustled around in a manner reminiscent of peace-time festivity. Shortly after half-past seven a dark bespectacled young man wearing a raincoat looked into the restaurant from the lounge and gazed rather anxiously down the rows of tables. Mr. Ross Lane saw him and studied him with amused unconcern. The young man asked a question of a waiter and then withdrew, but ten minutes later he reappeared and walked slowly between the tables to the angle of the L shaped restaurant. He was obviously looking for somebody, and the head waiter went and had a few words with him. As though unconvinced, the young man shook his head and continued his inspection of the diners as he walked towards the Paddington Street entrance, and then returned by the way he had come.