‘Very good,’ said Mrs Wilson, in a tone of offence severely restrained.
‘Will you show me the way to the library?’ I requested.
‘I will,’ said Clara; ‘I know it as well as Mrs Wilson—every bit.’
‘Then that is all I want at present, Mrs Wilson,’ I said, as we came out of the room. ‘Don’t lock the door, though, please,’ I added. ‘Or, if you do, give me the key.’
She left the door open, and us in the passage. Clara led me to the library. There we found Charley waiting our return.
‘Will you take that little boy to his mother, Clara?’ I said. ‘I don’t want him here to-day. We’ll have a look over those papers in the evening, Charley.’
‘That’s right,’ said Clara. ‘I hope Charley will help you to a little rational interest in your own affairs. I am quite bewildered to think that an author, not to say a young man, the sole remnant of an ancient family, however humble, shouldn’t even know whether he had any papers in the house or not.’
‘We’ve come upon a glorious nest of such addled eggs, Clara. Charley and I are going to blow them to-night,’ I said.
‘You never know when such eggs are addled,’ retorted Clara. ‘You’d better put them under some sensible fowl or other first,’ she added, looking back from the door as they went.
I turned to the carpenter’s tool-basket, and taking from it an old chisel, a screw-driver, and a pair of pincers, went back to the room we had just left.