"Without Mr. Leicester," replied Starling.
"Then he has gone to town," said the captain, springing out of bed and stretching himself thoughtfully. "Gone to town! What the deuce has he gone to town for?"
"That's what everybody wants to know," said Jem, from the next room, where he was spreading out the towels and pouring the water into the bath.
"Did you make friends with the people in the servants' hall at the Cedars?" asked the captain.
"I did, captain, obedient to your commands," said Jem with a wink. "And a very nice, genteel lot o' people they are, though I prefer the hall here, if there's any choice. Oh, yes, I walked up last night, permiscous like, and when they knew as I was your man they made me welcome, drawed me some of the best October and would 'a' opened a bottle of Madery, but I wouldn't hear on it—I allus was so modest. I had a cut of duck and a helpin' o' some sort o' cream with a long, furrin name——"
"Tush! I don't want to know what you had to eat and drink," interrupted the captain. "What did you hear?"
"Not much," he said, laying out the captain's ready-brushed morning suit. "I heard that Mr. Leicester was going up to London this morning, quite sudden like—and he ain't one of your impulse gents, neither. His man didn't know what was up, and depended to stop here for another month at the least. There wasn't anything awkward between the old people and the young 'un, neither, for the butler—which is a more high and mighty swell, in a bigger shirt front, than our chap—he heard Mr. Dodson beg o' Mr. Leicester to stop. But, no, he said he'd go, and gone he has, sure enough."
"And now you can go," said the captain. "Stay! did you find that piece of paper which I told you to look for in the drawing room?"
"No, captain, and I looked everywhere."
"Idiot!" said the captain, between his teeth, "let that be a warning to you never to put your clumsy paw to paper again. How do I know who may have picked that up, with its cursed, telltale sentence?"