They might have been utter strangers to me that night, and for a little time after. Nor was it in accordance with their orders that I got to know things as soon as I did. That was where Uvo Delavoye did come in, and with him his mother's new cook, Sarah, in the bonnet with the nodding plume—just as she had been to see her pore old master.
"It's a beautiful mad-'ouse," said Sarah, with a moist twinkle in her funny old eye. "I only 'ope he won't want to burn it down!"
"I only hope you're keeping his effort to yourselves," said I. "It'll do the Estate no good, if it gets out, after all the other things that have been happening here."
"Trust us and the doctors!" said Uvo. "We're all in the same boat, Gilly, and your old Muskett's the only other soul who knows. By the way"—his glance had deepened—"both they and Sarah think it must have been coming on for a long time."
"I'm quite sure it 'as," said Sarah, earnestly. "I never did 'ear such things as Mr. Nettleton used to say to me, or to hisself, it didn't seem to matter who it was. But of course it wasn't for me to go about repeating them."
I saw Uvo's mouth twitching, for some reason, and I changed the subject to the miraculous preservation of the house in Witching Hill Road. The doctors had assured me that the very floor, which my own eyes had beheld a sea of blazing spirit, was scarcely so much as charred. And Uvo Delavoye confirmed the statement.
"It wasn't such a deep sea as you thought, Gilly. But it was the spirit that saved the show, and that's just where our poor friend overshot the mark. Spirit burns itself, not the thing you put it on. It's like the brandy and the Christmas pudding. Those shavings would have been far more dangerous by themselves, but drenched in methylated spirit they burnt like a wick, which of course hardly burns at all."
"My methylated!" Sarah chimed in. "He must have found it when he was looking for me all over my kitchens, pore gentleman, and me at my brother's all the time! I'd just took a gallon from Draytons' Stores, because you get it ever so much cheaper by the gallon, Mr. Hugo. I must remember to tell your ma."