“No, no, no,” cried the old man, whose brain, capable at times of a surprising vigour, was now furiously at work.
“But why not?”
S. Gedge Antiques did not reply immediately, but at last a dark light broke over the vulpine face. “Why not, Mussewer Duponny? I’ll tell you. Because I think there may be a better way of dealing with that damned young scoundrel yonder.” William’s master pointed towards the inner room. “Happen the police’ll need all sorts of information we don’t want to give them; and my experience is, Mussewer, their methods are slow and clumsy, and out of date. They may take weeks over this job, and long before they are through with it, the picture will be in America.”
“You may be right, Meester Gedge. But where’s the ’arm in seeing what they can do?”
With the air of one whose faculties have been braced by a mental tonic, the old man shook his head decisively. “Mussewer Duponny,” he said, in a slow voice which gave weight and value to each word, “I’m thinking with a little help from yourself and Mr. Thornton I can deal with this—this scoundrel much better than the police.”
“At your sairvice, Meester Gedge,” said Jules Duponnet, with a dry smile. He could not have been the man he was, had he remained insensitive to the depth of cunning which now transfigured the face of the old dealer. “But for Meester Thornton of course I cannot spick.”
“You can’t, of course,” said the old fox, briskly. “But we’ll go right now, and have a word with Mr. Thornton on the subject.”
Like one in whom a change sudden and mysterious has been wrought, S. Gedge Antiques stepped through the house door into the passage, took his hat and coat from the peg, and his heavy knotted walking stick out of the rickety umbrella stand, put his head into the room next door and said, in a harsh tone to the polisher of chairs, “Boy, I’m going along as far as Mr. Thornton’s, so you’d better keep an eye on the shop.”
LII
The old man, contrary to his practice, was a little late for the midday meal, and he had a poor appetite for it. As he tried to eat the cold mutton and the potato William had baked for him, his thoughts seemed a long way from his plate. William himself, who was too full of trouble to give much attention to food, now saw that the old man’s earlier ferocity, which had hurt him even more than it had puzzled him, had yielded to a depth of melancholy that was hardly less disturbing. But the master’s manner, on his return from the visit to Mr. Thornton, was far more in accordance with his nature, at least as William understood that nature; indeed, his voice had recaptured the note of pathos which seemed natural to it whenever the Van Roon was mentioned.