Crépin rubbed his hands.
“It is well,” he said. “This without doubt is a skinflint.”
We turned a corner and passed the entrance to a ruined drive. Here the tall iron gates, swinging upon massive posts of rubble-stone, had been recently, it seemed, torn from their moorings of grass and knotted bindweed, for the ground was scarred and the lower bars of metal hung with rags of drooping green. Crépin’s features underwent another change at the sight.
“But what is this?” he muttered. “Something unaccustomed—some scare—some panic?”
He looked with sudden fury at the prisoner.
“If he has got wind of our coming—has escaped with——”
He broke off, showing his teeth and grinding his hands together. At the moment we came in view of the château.
It was an old grey house—built of the same material as the gate-pillars—with a high-pitched roof and little corner tourelles. Once, presumably, a possession of importance, decay and neglect had now beggared it beyond description. Yet within and without were evidences of that vulgar miserly spirit that seeks by inadequate tinkering to deceive with half-measures. The tangled grass of the lawn was cut only where its untidiness would have been most in evidence, and its litter left where it fell. Triton blew his conch from a fine fountain basin near the middle of the plot; but the shell, threatening to break away, had been fastened to the sea-god’s lips with a ligament of twine that was knotted round the head. A crippled bench was propped with a stone; a shattered ball-capital at the entrance-door held together with a loop of wire. What restoration that was visible was all in this vein of ludicrous economy.
But not a sign of life was about—no footstep in the grounds, no face at any window. To all appearance the place was desolate.
We drew up at the broken stone porch. The door was already flung wide, and we entered, with all the usual insolent clatter of “fraternity,” an echoing hall. Here, as elsewhere, were dust and decay—inconsequent patching and the same tawdry affectation of repair.