‘Oh! a deal badder,’ cried the chambermaid from the background, opening her eyes very wide, and shaking her head.
‘Poor fellow!’ said the gentleman, ‘I am sorry to hear it. The worst of it is, that I have no idea what friends or relations he has, or where they live, except that it certainly is not in London.’
The landlord looked at the landlady; the landlady looked at the landlord; and the chambermaid remarked, hysterically, ‘that of all the many wague directions she had ever seen or heerd of (and they wasn’t few in an hotel), that was the waguest.’
‘The fact is, you see,’ pursued the gentleman, ‘as I told you yesterday when you sent to me, I really know very little about him. We were school-fellows together; but since that time I have only met him twice. On both occasions I was in London for a boy’s holiday (having come up for a week or so from Wiltshire), and lost sight of him again directly. The letter bearing my name and address which you found upon his table, and which led to your applying to me, is in answer, you will observe, to one he wrote from this house the very day he was taken ill, making an appointment with him at his own request. Here is his letter, if you wish to see it.’
The landlord read it; the landlady looked over him. The chambermaid, in the background, made out as much of it as she could, and invented the rest; believing it all from that time forth as a positive piece of evidence.
‘He has very little luggage, you say?’ observed the gentleman, who was no other than our old friend, John Westlock.
‘Nothing but a portmanteau,’ said the landlord; ‘and very little in it.’
‘A few pounds in his purse, though?’
‘Yes. It’s sealed up, and in the cash-box. I made a memorandum of the amount, which you’re welcome to see.’
‘Well!’ said John, ‘as the medical gentleman says the fever must take its course, and nothing can be done just now beyond giving him his drinks regularly and having him carefully attended to, nothing more can be said that I know of, until he is in a condition to give us some information. Can you suggest anything else?’