Part 34 (2/2)
His antic.i.p.ation was correct. Mrs. Burke refused point-blank to allow her helpless retainer to be touched. He could remain where he was, she said, and she hoped the snakes and the lizards and the mosquitoes and all the other fearsome things she could mention would come and devour him--but the police were not going to touch him.
She was equally hostile when Durham suggested they should start off for the town without giving her the trouble of preparing anything for them to eat. In fact, he could not now open his lips to her that she did not snap some biting retort at him.
”She'd set the dogs on you if she were in her own country, sir,”
Brennan remarked, when at last they drove away from the house with a final envenomed shaft ringing in their ears. ”I don't think the old man is the only one who has a taste for the drink, if you ask me, sir.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST STRAW
Since Mrs. Eustace returned to the towns.h.i.+p Harding had never once been to see her nor, when pa.s.sing the house, had he glanced at it.
His att.i.tude was inexplicable to her. That she had not had even a word from him while she was at Taloona perplexed her, for it did not occur to her to question whether he had received the message she left with Bessie for him. Yet there were several reasons which might account for that omission. But his failure either to see or to communicate with her after her return to Waroona was entirely another matter.
When the third day came without a sign or word from him she took the bull by the horns and sent a note asking him to see her that evening.
She was waiting for him in her sitting-room when she heard him come to the door, heard him ask Bessie if she were at home, heard him approach the room. As he opened the door she rose to greet him. He stopped on the threshold.
”I received your note--you wish to see me?” he said stiffly.
”Fred!” she exclaimed, looking at him in amazement. ”Why, what has happened? Why do you speak so? What is it?”
He remained where he was, silent.
”Don't you wish to see me?” she asked, still regarding him with a look of wondering amazement. ”Has anything happened? Is that the reason you have never been to see me since I came back--why you never sent a word to me at Taloona? Have they--have they found out anything more about Charlie?”
He closed the door and walked across to the table by the side of which she was standing.
”Mrs. Eustace,” he began, but before he could say more she interrupted him.
”You have something unpleasant to say. What is it? At least be frank.
Whatever it is I am prepared to hear it.”
He took the letter from his pocket.
”This came into my possession the night we were at Taloona,” he said slowly. ”I should have returned it to you at once, but it slipped my memory until after you had gone. Then, accidentally, unthinkingly, I came to read it. I--I wish to hear what you have to say about it. I wish to know----” The sentences he had so carefully thought out fled from his brain before the calm, steadfast look with which she was regarding him.
”Do you recognise it?” he asked abruptly.
He held out the cover to her, turning it over so that she could see both sides.
”It is one of the Bank envelopes; I don't recognise anything else,” she replied.
Taking the letter from the cover, he spread it open and held it out.
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