Freddy heard the two servants go downstairs together, but he himself was too frightened to follow them, being paralysed with dismay. What had he done? What would Uncle Jo say when he knew? He ought to tell him at once; but, dared he? He felt he did not dare.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Freddy keeps Silence.
"IT'S the most mysterious affair I ever heard of in my life! Are you quite sure you left the coat in the surgery last night? Might you not have hung it up in the hall? No. Well, who has had an opportunity of getting at it, then?" —and Mrs. Dennis, who had a few minutes previously entered the house with Poppy, looked in bewilderment from her husband to the two servants who had met her in the hall with the news that the former's old overcoat was missing.
"How can I possibly tell?" Dr. Dennis answered a trifle irritably; "all I know is, that I wore the coat to Mr. Henley's last night, and, when I came home, hung it behind the surgery door as I usually do; and—I was very tired, that is the only excuse I have to offer for my carelessness—I went straight upstairs to bed, omitting to take my pocket-book from the breast pocket of the coat. This morning, as you know, I was called out early, and I then wore my new overcoat. The worst of it is," he explained, as he followed his wife into the dining-room, "there were two five-pound notes in that pocket-book, which Mr. Henley gave me last night for a poor patient of mine whose husband has died, leaving her destitute."
"Oh, Jo!" exclaimed Mrs. Dennis distressfully, "supposing the money should be lost? What if your coat has been stolen?"
"Then I must make the money good, my dear. When I first found the coat missing it occurred to me that you might have given it away."
"Oh, no!" Mrs. Dennis glanced around and saw Freddy standing in the doorway, listening to the conversation. The little boy's face looked very pale and startled; but she thought that was only natural under the circumstances. "I don't see how the coat can have been stolen," she proceeded meditatively, "because none of your patients ever enter the surgery, and I am sure the servants are honest."
"Yes," the doctor agreed, "cook and Jane are as much in the dark as we are, of that I am certain." Then, catching sight of Freddy, he said: "Come near the fire, my boy, you look chilled to the bone. What have you been doing all the afternoon? You ought not to have stayed upstairs in the cold."
"I've only been upstairs a little while," Freddy rejoined hastily. "I've been down here most of the time, reading, and—and looking out of the window."