“’Tis for me,” said Harry, turning to Canau. “There seems to be news;” and then, with a feeling of compassion, he continued, “but do you know anything of it all?—speak if you do.”
“I know! No, no; not a word!” exclaimed Canau, when, waiting to hear no more, Harry hurried excitedly to the door, to encounter Sergeant Falkner, while closely following him came D. Wragg, growling viciously, and tearing at his spikey hair, as he set his boot down violently upon each stair, as if crushing under it vermin in the shape of the police.
A few words, though, from the sergeant had the effect of setting D. Wragg off into a set of terpsichorean evolutions that were grotesque in the extreme. Certainly a triumphal dance was intended, with accompanying stamps of the thick boot and snappings of his fingers; but how he could possibly have contrived to jerk, and start, and jig as he did, and yet live, was a puzzle that brought down the far-famed Gordian knot into a contemptible cat’s-cradle of Berlin wool. Dislocation! It might have been thought that he was out of joint from head to toe, and india-rubber had taken the place of his muscles.
“I told you so—I told you so!” he shouted. “There! don’t you make no more mistakes, any on you, because—Hip—hip—hip—hooray! I say, though, Mr Canau, ain’t it glorious? But I say, sir, Mr Clayton, sir, is there any little thing in the shop? Don’t you make—there! ain’t I glad!”
Another triumphal dance succeeded D. Wragg’s burst of eloquence, when he stumped off, sowing turnips as he went, to find Mrs Winks; while Harry hurried back into the room to whisper one word—a word which made the Frenchman fall back upon his pillow with a sigh of content, as Janet turned to the window to hide her face from those who were too much engrossed with their own thoughts to think of the poor girl’s feelings.
“I am content now, Monsieur Clayton,” sighed Canau. “There will be no more suspicion, and you will come and see me when I am a different man. But I could not bear that there should be a slur upon the place where we have lived so long. But there! go—you are anxious;” and as Harry hurried from the room, Canau repeated, with brightening eye, that most important word which Harry had uttered, and that word was—
“Found!”