Blick looked in the direction indicated, and saw Braxfield. The old butler, very solemn and precise in his mourning raiment, was just emerging from a chemist’s shop, sundry small parcels in his hands. He lifted startled eyes as the Chief Constable accosted him.
“Good evening, Braxfield,” said the Constable, affably. “How are you in these trying times?”
Braxfield shook his head.
“Trying indeed they are, sir!” he replied. “I have felt this week, sir, as if the world was being turned upside down—my world at any rate! I never knew such times, sir, nor expected to know such!”
“You’ve certainly had a good deal of trouble at Markenmore, Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable, sympathetically. “Must have been a time of great anxiety to everybody who’d lived a quiet life hitherto, as I think you’ve done.”
Braxfield shook his head again, and looked as mournful as his garments.
“It’s not been so much the trouble, sir, nor yet the anxiety, though both have been bad enough, as the continual surprises!” he answered. “One after the other they’ve come, till my poor head has fairly ached under them! Mr. Guy’s coming—his father’s death—that dreadful murder—hearing that my stepdaughter was married, secret-like, to Sir Harry, as we then thought him—this little boy being brought and presented as the real heir—and all the rest of it; dear me, sir, it’s as if you didn’t know whatever to expect next!”
“Ah, well, you’ll get settled down in time, Braxfield,” remarked the Chief Constable. “The little boy is, of course, a great surprise. How does Mr. Harry take the sudden change in his fortunes?”
“Mr. Harry, sir, and Miss Valencia,” replied Braxfield, “have taken the matter in the best way possible. The little gentleman—Sir Guy, of course—has been welcomed in the warmest fashion; he is already made as much of by his uncle and aunt as if they’d known him from his cradle. Family feeling, sir, is strong in such houses as ours!”
“I suppose Mr. Harry was fond of his father, Sir Anthony?” asked the Chief Constable, with an almost imperceptible side-glance at Blick. “Very constant in attendance upon him, I believe?”