“You need not be afraid of that fly,” he said.
“No—come up, you brute!”
Mr. Bodery turned carelessly to put his bag in the back of the cart.
“Let him have it,” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Your friend sees you, but he does not know that you have seen him. He is pointing you out to the station-master.”
As he spoke the cart swung round the gate-post of the station yard, nearly throwing him out, and Sidney's right hand felt for the whip-socket.
“There,” he said, “we are safe. I think I can manage that fly.”
Mr. Bodery settled himself and drew the dust-cloth over his chubby knees.
“Now,” he said, “tell me all about Vellacott.”
Sidney did so.
He gave a full and minute description of events previous to Christian Vellacott's disappearance, omitting nothing. The relation was somewhat disjointed, somewhat vague in parts, and occasionally incoherent. The narrator repeated himself—hesitated—blurted out some totally irrelevant fact, and finished up with a vague supposition (possessing a solid basis of truth) expressed in doubtful English. It suited Mr. Bodery admirably. In telling all about Vellacott, Sidney unconsciously told all about Mrs. Carew, Molly, Hilda, and himself. When he reached the point in his narration telling how Vellacott had been attracted into the garden, he became extremely vague and his style notably colloquial. Tell the story how he would, he felt that he could not prevent Mr. Bodery from drawing his own inferences. Young ladies are not in the habit of whistling for youthful members of the opposite sex. Few of them master the labial art, which perhaps accounts for much. Sidney Carew was conscious that his style lacked grace and finish.