Beatrice walked calmly down the stairs, and opening the front door herself, returned to the hotel to think over the matter. At the door of the little inn she found the stout landlady arguing with a red-haired, foxy man.
"Waterloo!" said Beatrice, drawing back.
"There," chuckled the rogue, grinning at the landlady, "she knows me does the young lydy.--Miss, come at once--Durban's dying."
"Durban dying!"
"He'll be dead in a jiffy," said Waterloo, grinning. "You come, miss." Then dropping his voice, "He wants to tell you who killed your father."
[CHAPTER XXII]
REVELATIONS
"Don't go with him, miss," urged Mrs. Quail. "He's a bad one: look at his eyes."
Beatrice had no need to look at them. She knew well the evil that they held, and shrank, as she always did, from contact with this creature of the night. Certainly Waterloo was much better dressed than when she had seen him last. He wore a somewhat shabby frock coat, a pair of smart patent-leather boots, a fashionable collar, and a silk hat which glistened like the sun. The tramp actually reeked of some fashionable scent, and swung a dandy cane with a genteel air. He wore a wig, from under which his natural red hair peeped; and his false teeth looked aggressively white and new. On the whole, Waterloo evidently considered that he was now a perfect buck, and ogled the comely landlady and the shrinking girl with an assured air.
"You are not deceiving me?" asked Beatrice, forcing herself to be civil to the man, for obvious reasons.