"Tall and handsome, with big black eyes and a black beard. He was something like the gentleman who came to see you last night. I beg pardon, did you speak, sir?"
But Van Zwieten had not spoken. He had uttered a groan rather of relief than otherwise. The thing was not so bad after all. In the lady he recognized the wife of Mr. Malet, though why she should have come to raid his rooms was more than he could understand. The policeman he had no difficulty in recognizing as Wilfred Burton in a new disguise. Without doubt it was he who had brought Lady Jenny Malet to the Westminster rooms. And Wilfred knew, too, of the existence of the box with its compromising contents, of which Van Zwieten himself had been foolish enough to tell him on the previous night, out of a sheer spirit of bravado--bravado which he bitterly regretted when it was too late. He swore now in his beard, at his own folly, and at Wilfred's daring.
However, now that he could feel tolerably sure that the authorities had nothing to do with the seizure of his papers, he felt more at ease. After all, these private enemies might be baffled, but of this he was not so sure as he had been. The several checks which had recently happened to him had made him feel less sure of himself.
"Well, Mrs. Hicks," he said, rousing himself from his meditations, "and what did these people do?"
Mrs. Hicks threw her apron over her head and moaned. "Oh, sir!" she said, in muffled tones, which came from under her apron, "they told me that you were a dangerous man, and that the Government had sent the policeman to search your rooms. The lady said she knew you well, and did not want to make a public scandal, so she had brought the policeman to do it quietly. She asked me for the key, and said if I did not give it up she would bring in a dozen more policemen--and that would have ruined me, sir!"
"And you believed her?" cried Van Zwieten, cursing her for a fool.
Mrs. Hicks whipped the apron off her head and looked at her lodger in wide-eyed amazement. "Of course I did," she said; "I'm that afraid of the police as never was. Many a time have I feared when I saw poor Hicks--who is dead and gone--in the hands of the constables for being drunk, poor lamb! I wouldn't resist the police; would you, sir?
"Never mind," he said, seeing it was useless to argue with her. "You let them into my rooms, I suppose?"
"As you may guess, sir, me being a law-abiding woman, though the taxes are that heavy. Yes, sir, I took them up to your room and left them there."
"Ach! what did you do that for?"