is rather a long one, but I think I can tell it in a quarter of an hour. Can you dress for dinner in the other quarter?”
“Oh, yes, yes!”
“What a nuisance civilisation is, Nelly. We never dressed for dinner in the Pilasters; indeed, the fashion amongst the leading families in that locality leans rather the other way. The gentlemen in the cab and chimney line generally take off their coats when the mid-day meal is announced in order to dine in their shirt-sleeves.”
“Richard, Richard!” cried Eleanor, impatiently.
“Well, well, Mrs. Monckton, seriously, you shall have my Windsor adventures. I hate this man Launcelot Darrell, for I believe he is a shallow, selfish, cold-hearted coxcomb, or else I don’t think I could have brought myself to do what I’ve done to-day. I’ve been playing the spy, Eleanor, for a couple of hours at least. The Duke of Otranto used to find plenty of people for this kind of work,—artists, actors, actresses, priests, women, every creature whom you would least suspect of baseness. But they manage these things better in France. We don’t take to the business so readily upon this side of the water.”
“Richard!”
The girl’s impatience was almost uncontrollable. She watched the hands of a little clock upon the chimney-piece: the firelight flashed every now and then upon the dial, and then faded out, leaving it dark.
“I’m coming to the story, Nell, if you’ll only be patient,” remonstrated Mr. Thornton. He was getting over that secret sorrow which he had nursed for such a long time in the lowest depths of a most true and faithful breast. He was growing reconciled to the Inevitable; as we all must, sooner or later; and he had reassumed that comfortable brotherly familiarity which had been so long habitual to him in his intercourse with Eleanor. “Only be patient, my dear, and let me tell my story my own way,” he pleaded. “I left here early this morning in your husband’s dog-cart, intending to drive over to Windsor and amuse myself by exploring the town, and the castle, if possible, to see if there was anything in my way to be picked up—donjon keeps, turret staircases, secret corridors, and so on, you know. You know what sort of a morning it was, bleak and dismal enough, but until twelve o’clock no rain. It was within a quarter of an hour of twelve when I got into Windsor, and the rain was just beginning, spiteful drops of rain and particles of sleet, that came down obliquely and cut into your face like so many needle-points. I stopped at an inn in a perpendicular street below the castle, which looks as if it means to topple down and annihilate this part of the town some of these days. I put up the dog-cart, and asked a few questions about the possibility of getting admission to the royal dwelling-place. Of course I was informed that such admission was to-day utterly impracticable. I could have seen the state apartments yesterday. I could see them, most likely, by the end of next week, but I couldn’t see them when I wanted to see them. I hinted that my chief desire was to see secret passages, donjon keeps, moats, and sliding panels; but neither the landlord nor the waiter seemed to understand me, and I sat down rather despondently by the window of the tavern parlour to wait till the rain was over, and I could go out and prowl upon the castle terrace to study wintry effects in the park.”
“But Launcelot Darrell, Richard—where did you meet Launcelot Darrell?”
“I am coming to him presently. The perpendicular street wasn’t particularly lively upon this wretched February day; so, as there weren’t any passers-by to look at, I amused myself by looking at the houses facing the inn. Immediately opposite to me there was a house very superior to the others in style—a red brick house of the Georgian era, modernised by plate-glass windows and green blinds—not a large house, but eminently respectable. A dazzling brass plate adorned the door, and upon this brass plate, which winked and twinkled in the very face of the rain, I read the name of Mr. Henry Lawford, solicitor.”
“The lawyer who made Mr. de Crespigny’s will?”
“Precisely. Upon one side of the door there was a bell-handle inscribed Visitors, on the other a duplicate handle inscribed Office. I hadn’t been looking at the house above five minutes, when a young man, with a slender silk umbrella, struggling against the wind, rang the office-bell.”
“The young man was Launcelot Darrell?” Eleanor cried, quickly.
“He was. The door was opened by a boy, of whom Mr. Darrell asked several questions. Whatever the answers were, he walked away, and the door was shut. But from his manner of strolling slowly along the street, I was convinced that he was not going far, and that he meant to come back. People don’t usually stroll in a sharp rain that comes down obliquely and seems to drift in your face from every point of the compass. He’ll come back presently, I thought; so I ordered a bottle of pale ale and I waited.”
“And he came back?”
“Yes; he came back in about half an hour; but, ten minutes or so before he returned, I saw a shabby-genteel, elderly man let himself in with a latch-key at a small green side door with ‘Clerk’s Office’ painted in white letters on the panel. I knew by the look of this man that he must be a clerk. There’s a look about an attorney’s clerk that you can’t mistake, even when he doesn’t carry a blue bag; and this man did carry one. Ten minutes afterwards Launcelot Darrell returned. This time he knocked with the handle of his umbrella at the green door, which was opened by the boy, who went to fetch the elderly clerk. This elderly clerk and Mr. Darrell stood on the door-step talking confidentially for about five minutes, and then our friend the artist went away; but this time again strolled slowly through the rain; as if he had a certain interval to dispose of, and scarcely knew what to do with himself.
“I suppose the amateur detective business fills a man’s mind with all manner of suspicious fancies, Eleanor. However that may be, I could not help thinking that there was something queer in these two visits of Launcelot Darrell to the red brick house opposite me. What did he want with a