"He ain't in the best of humours, even of his own, and they're none on 'em good," thought Jim, as he turned out of Tokenhouse-yard and took his way westward again, keeping his hand permanently in his pocket this time. A fresh disappointment awaited him at Routh's house. Mrs. Routh had gone out immediately after she had breakfasted. Did she know he wanted to see her? Jim asked. Harris was rather tickled by the question.
"I say," he remarked, "you're getting on, Jim; you'll be as impident as a cock sparrow presently. I didn't happen to tell her; but if I 'ad, do you think she'd a stayed in to give you the chance?"
"Yes, I do; wot's more, I'm sure she would," said Jim, and walked moodily away, leaving Mr. Harris in a fine attitude of surprise upon the threshold. When that functionary finally left off looking after the boy, and shut the door, he did so to the accompaniment of a prolonged whistle.
It was only ten o'clock, and Jim had been told to go to Mr. Dallas's at eleven. The interval troubled him; he could not settle his mind to the pursuit of odd jobs. He did not mind "hanging about;" he would hang about Piccadilly till the time came. But when Jim reached the house in which Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas lodged, he was surprised to find it an object of lively curiosity to a number of persons who were crowding the pavement, notwithstanding the active interference of a policeman, endeavouring to clear a passage for two ladies whose carriage was before the door, and one of whom was evidently in the deepest distress. Jim plunged at once into the heart of the concourse, and asked a number of eager questions, to which he received simultaneous but contradictory replies.
"He's dead!" "No, he isn't." "He's his brother, I tell you; I heard the cook a-tellin' the milk-boy." "He ain't his brother; the old 'un's his uncle; and he's been and murdered his cousin." Such were a few of the sentences Jim caught as his curiosity and anxiety rose to frenzy.
"Wot is it? wot is it? Do tell me. Is anything wrong with Mr. Dallas?" he asked imploringly of the servant who had opened the door to the two ladies (who had at last succeeded in entering the house), and was just about to shut it in the faces of a few scores of anxious inquirers endeavouring to pierce the depths of the hall, and to see through the dining-room doors. "Don't you know me? I was here yesterday. I have been here before. I was to see Mr. Dallas at eleven. Can't I see him? Is he worse?"
The woman did know the boy, and she at once admitted him.
"Come in," she said; "I'll tell you inside. It's a deal worse than his death that's the matter." So Jim vanished into the house, a distinction which, being unattainable by themselves, was regarded with much indignation by the crowd. Temporarily dispersed by the active policeman, they gathered again, hoping the boy would come out, when they might pounce upon and extract information from him. But they waited in vain; the boy did not come out. The carriage still remained at the door, and in about an hour a gentleman of grave and busy aspect issued from the maddeningly mysterious mansion, stepped into the vehicle, and was driven rapidly away. The crowd was not in luck; no one heard the order given to the coachman. Then such silence and desolation as can ever fall on Piccadilly fell upon the scene, and the gay-looking, brightly-decorated house obstinately hid its secret.
The woman who recognized Jim told him the story of the events which had occurred in the hall, speaking in a hurried whisper and with much genuine womanly compassion. Jim heard her with a beating heart and shaking limbs. As the boy leaned against the wall, regardless of the damaging properties of his tousled head resting on the spotless paint, he wondered if this was like fainting, and whether he should be able to keep from "going off" like Mr. Dallas.
"We're strangers to Mr. Felton, of course," said the woman; "and it's natural everybody as can should like to keep their troubles to themselves, for it don't do no good tellin' of 'em, and people don't think no more of you; but there's things as can and things as can't be hid, and them as can't has been a takin' place here."