In honor of the occasion Cartmell, like myself, had put on a black frock coat and a silk hat, properly equipped with a mourning band of respectful width. But he wore the coat with a jaunty air, and the hat slightly but effectively cocked on one side, so that the quiet yet ingrained horsiness of his aspect suffered little from the unwonted attire. The confidential wink with which he now turned his plump rubicund face toward me preserved his general harmony. With the mournful atmosphere of Breysgate Priory, however, I could not help feeling that my own lank jaws and more precisely poised head-gear consorted better.
"You can hold your tongue, Austin?"
"A very shrewd man has paid me four hundred a year for four years past on that understanding."
"Then what happened at the Smalls, at Cheltenham?"
"Isn't that beginning the story at the wrong end?" I asked.
"That was where she was"—he searched for a word—"where she was planted. She lived at three or four different places altogether, you know."
"And the mother?"
"Mother died—vanished anyhow—early in the proceedings. Well, word came of trouble at Cheltenham. Small, though of my own profession, was an ass. He wrote a bleating letter—yes, he was more like a sheep, really—to old Nick. Nick told me I must go and put it to rights. So I went."
"Why didn't he go himself?"
"I think," said Cartmell cautiously, "that he had some kind of a feeling against seeing the girl. Really that's the only thing that accounts for his behavior all through."