A tall, thin, grey-bearded man crossed Trafalgar Road from Aboukir
Street. He was very tall and very thin, and the peculiarity of his walk
was that the knees were never quite straightened, so that his height was
really greater even than it seemed. His dark suit and his boots and hat
were extraordinarily neat. You could be sure at once that he was a
person of immutable habits. He stopped when, out of the corner of his
eye, whose gaze was always precisely parallel to the direction of his
feet, he glimpsed Edwin. Deflecting his course, he went close to Edwin,
and, addressing the vacant air immediately over Edwin's pate, he said in
a mysterious, confidential whisper--"when are you coming in for that
money?"
He spoke as though he was anxious to avoid, by a perfect air of
nonchalance, arousing the suspicions of some concealed emissary of the
Russian secret police.