“I don’t know why,” she went on, “this house looks most horribly dead. I hope nothing’s happened to poor Casimir. I have a most disagreeable feeling that it may have.”
“Ah, this famous feminine intuition,” laughed Gumbril. He knocked again.
“I can’t help feeling that he may be lying there dead, or delirious, or something.”
“And I can’t help feeling that he must have gone out to dinner. We shall have to give him up, I’m afraid. It’s a pity. He’s so good with Mercaptan. Like bear and mastiff. Or rather, like bear and poodle, bear and King Charles’s spaniel—or whatever those little dogs are that you see ladies in eighteenth-century French engravings taking to bed with them. Let’s go.”
“Just knock once again,” said Mrs. Viveash. “He might really be preoccupied, or asleep, or ill.” Gumbril knocked. “Now listen. Hush.”
They were silent; the children still went on hallooing in the distance. There was a great clop-clopping of horse’s feet as a van was backed into a stable door near by. Lypiatt stood motionless, his arms still crossed, his chin on his breast. The seconds passed.
“Not a sound,” said Gumbril. “He must have gone out.”
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Viveash.
“Come on, then. We’ll go and look for Mercaptan.”
He heard their steps in the street below, heard the slamming of the taxi door. The engine was started up. Loud on the first gear, less loud on the second, whisperingly on the third, it moved away, gathering speed. The noise of it was merged with the general noise of the town. They were gone.