'None of 'em knows enough to be sure, sir.'
'Well,' said Hugo, 'there isn't likely to be a funeral without a coffin, and no porter could be blind to a coffin going upstairs.'
'I can't get wind of any coffin, sir.'
'And that's all you've learnt?'
'That's the hang of it, sir—up to now. But I can wire you to-night or to-morrow, with further particulars.'
Hugo glanced at the carriage-clock in front of him, and thought of the famine of porters at Waterloo Station in August, and invented several other plausible excuses for a resolution which he foresaw that he was about to arrive at.
'You've made me miss my train,' he said, pretending to be annoyed.
'Sorry, sir. Simon, the governor isn't going.'
Simon descended from the box for confirmation, a fratricide in all but deed.
'Have the luggage taken upstairs,' Hugo commanded.