Pyramids of snow

by Edith Metcalfe

"It is of the first importance that I should see him to-day. You have no idea where he has gone—whether I might find him at his club, for instance?"

Jervis could not say. Mr. Ashley was a member of several clubs, but it was scarcely likely that he would visit any of them so early in the day. Could not the gentleman leave a card and call again?

The gentleman would much prefer to wait on the chance of Mr. Ashley's returning, but Jervis seemed so disconcerted by the suggestion, and so much at a loss for a civil way of getting rid of the visitor, that Mr. Tracy took pity on him.

"In point of fact," he said, "I am Mr. Ashley's family solicitor, and you may have heard of the melancholy affair at Fairbridge Manor. I must see Mr. Ashley immediately, in order to prepare for the new trial that is now necessary."

No servant could fail to recognise the paramount importance of such a visitor, or take the responsibility of sending him away without explicit orders to that effect, and Jervis admitted Mr. Tracy. He did more, influenced perhaps by the transference of two new coins, a sovereign and a shilling from the lawyer's pocket to his own.

"I come of an old-fashioned school," Mr. Tracy said with a smile, "and must insist upon your accepting the shilling as well. There's a sentimental difference as well as a pecuniary one between a pound and a guinea, and I never cease to regret that guineas are coined no more. No thanks, I beg. I am really excessively obliged to you for allowing me to come in and await Mr. Ashley's return."

So Mr. Tracy gained his point, and Jervis never suspected that for more than half an hour he had been waiting in the tailor's shop opposite, watching for Melville to emerge before climbing the steep staircase to the little bachelor flat.

"Mr. Ashley always takes a very late breakfast," Jervis remarked as he proceeded with his work of clearing the table. "May I get you some luncheon, sir? I am sure it would be Mr. Ashley's wish that I should ask you."

"'Pon my word now, that's very obliging of you," Mr. Tracy answered; "very obliging indeed. I always breakfast very early myself, and I am distinctly hungry. If I shall not be causing anybody any inconvenience I should be uncommonly glad of some luncheon."

So Jervis relaid the table, and after several colloquies with the chef, conducted through the medium of the speaking tube outside, produced a meal which did great credit to the establishment, and which Mr. Tracy, to use his own language, found "vastly appetising." And while he gave proof of his appreciation of this vicarious hospitality by satisfying an appetite which would have been creditable to a young fellow of twenty, he entertained the valet with a chatty, circumstantial account of the famous murder trial, in which he knew he must be interested. Men of the old school, to which Mr. Tracy prided himself on belonging, are not prone to hold such animated conversations with other people's servants as Mr. Tracy held with Melville's valet now. Jervis was probably unaware of this, but, in all the circumstances, it is not surprising that he should be completely satisfied of the visitor's good faith, and chat as freely as the visitor did himself; which was precisely according to Mr. Tracy's anticipations, and was the sole reason of his going there at all.