"I didn't say the Quiet Gentleman 'ad been murdered," said Billy, the page; "but Mrs. Marry only thinks so, cos 'e ain't come 'ome.'
"As like as not he's cold and stiff in some lonely grave!" groaned Mrs. Crammer hopefully.
"The Quiet Gentleman," said Cicero, bent upon acquiring further information--"tall, yellow-bearded, with a high forehead and a bald head?"
"Well, I never, sir!" cried Jane, the housemaid. "If you ain't describing Dr. Warrender! Did you know him, sir?"
Cicero was quite equal to the occasion.
"I knew him professionally. He attended me for a relaxed throat. I was vox et præterea nihil until he cured me. But what was this mysterious gentleman like? Short, eh?"
"No; tall and thin, with a stoop. Long white hair, longer beard and black eyes like gimblets," gabbled the cook. "I met 'im arter dark one evenin', and I declare as 'is eyes were glow-worms. Ugh! They looked me through and through. I've never bin the same woman since."
At this moment a raucous voice came from the inner doorway.
"What the devil's all this?" was the polite question.
Cicero turned, and saw a heavily-built man surveying the company in general, and himself in particular, anything but favorably. His face was a mahogany hue, and he had a veritable tangle of whiskers and hair. The whole cut of the man was distinctly nautical, his trousers being of the dungaree, and his pea-jacket plentifully sprinkled with brass buttons. In his ears he wore rings of gold, and his clenched fists hung by his side as though eager for any emergency, and "the sooner the better." That was how he impressed Cicero, who, in nowise fancying the expression on his face, edged towards the door.