Volume Two—Chapter Fifteen.
The Dead tell no Tales.
“What’s the matter with him?” said one of the men who had come off from the shore to Glyddyr’s yacht, after performing the duty he had in hand.
“Well,” said the steward, laughing, “he’s my boss, so it ain’t for me to say; but if it had been you, I should have said you had been looking into a brandy glass till you were too giddy to stand.”
“Well; that’s what I thought,” said the coroner’s officer, “but being a gentleman, I held my tongue. Thought gents never did take too much.”
“Oh, no; never,” said the steward, sarcastically. “But don’t talk about it; the guvnor’s a good deal upset about the affair at Mr Gartram’s.”
“’Nough to upset any one. Who’d have thought it. Well, good morning.”
“Don’t want me as a witness, do you?”
The officer laughed, and was rowed back to the shore, while Glyddyr sat in his cabin watching the progress of the boat, and asking himself, as he glanced from time to time at the summons to the inquest which he held in his hand, whether he had committed himself in any way by word or look in the presence of the coroner’s officer.
Twice over he turned to the brandy decanter in search of courage, but he shrank from it with a fresh chill of dread.