“Staying for a week or so,” I answered, “and I may perhaps come to live, but am not sure yet. By-the-bye, do you ever get any letters for my friend Mr. Henry Jeanes?”
“Mr. Henry Jeanes? Oh, yes, sir. And you are the second gentleman that’s harsked me the same question. Mr. Green ’e harsked me as well.”
“Mr. James Bakewell Green?” I said. “Oh, yes; he is a friend of mine too.”
“Hindeed, sir!” (This with a deprecatory cough, as if he did not think much of the late Mr. Green, and was inclined in consequence to reconsider the favourable opinion he had apparently formed of myself.) “Curious gentleman, Mr. Green. Never bought nothing in the shop, Mr. Green didn’t. Most gentlemen as ’as their letters addressed ’ere takes a bottle of our ’air wash now and then for the good of the ’ouse; but Mr. Green ’e never ’ad as much as a stick of shaving soap at hany time. ’E was halways harsking questions too, as I told Mr. Jeanes.”
“Oh,” I said, beginning to see daylight in regard to the means by which Mullen had got to know that Green was making inquiries about him. “How did you come to mention the matter to Mr. Jeanes?”
“Mr. Jeanes ’e left particular word, sir, that if hanybody harsked after ’im we was to be sure and let ’im know.”
“I see,” I said. “And when do you expect Mr. Jeanes to call again?”
“Mr. Jeanes never calls, sir. We ’aven’t ever seen ’im. ’E sent us hinstructions that all letters wot come for ’im was to be put in a henvelope and addressed to ’im at Professor Lawrance’s ’air-cutting establishment at Stanby, and we was to let ’im know if any one harsked after ’im.”
At that moment the bell over the tobacconist’s shop outside announced the entrance of a customer, and two young men pushing open the swing door of the hairdressing saloon, seated themselves to await their turn.
Under the circumstances, and especially as I had learnt all I required, I did not think it wise to ask further questions, but I had a particular reason—which the reader shall shortly hear—for wishing to possess a specimen of the handwriting in which the letters for Henry Jeanes, Esq., that were sent on to the care of Professor Lawrance’s establishment at Stanby, were directed.