“I may be a big fool, as you say, but I don’t think I shall make that mistake.”
“Where do you think they have gone?” asked Mr. Glynne.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Clarence.
“Well, I have,” said his father.
“Where?” asked Clarence.
“I shall confide my suspicions to the detectives. I do not think you are a safe person for confidences. I think you had better stay in London, Clarence, until I go back to Buckholme. I will let you know when I do so.”
“Well, that’s over,” said Clarence to himself after his father had left the room. “I have told more lies in the last fifteen minutes than I ever told before in all my life; but Jennie said it was all right, and she knows. I shall have to go up to the house this noon. Bertha had so many things that she could not take with her, and Jennie made me promise to pack them up and send them after her.”
It was a huge package when complete and much too heavy for Clarence to carry under his arm. He discovered this fact after he had walked a short distance from his lodgings, and calling a cab, told the driver to take him to the railway parcel office.
Twenty minutes later, a round-faced, smoothly shaven man applied the knocker so vigorously that Mrs. Liloquist’s face was rosy-red when she opened the door.
“Why, sir, you must be in a great hurry to make such a racket. Now, what do you want, sir?”