CHAPTER III.
That was Mr Bunker’s first and last meeting with the Rev. John Duggs, and he took no small credit to himself for having so effectually incensed his neighbour, without, at the same time, bringing suspicion on anything more pertinent than his sobriety.
And yet sometimes in the course of the next three days he would have been thankful to see him again, if only to have another passage-of-arms. The time passed most wearily; the consulting-room blinds were never raised; no cabs stopped before the doctor’s door; nobody except the little servant ever moved about the house.
He could think of no plan better than waiting; and so he waited, showing himself seldom in the streets, and even sitting behind the curtain while he watched at the window. After writing at some length to the Baron he had no further correspondence that he could distract himself with; he was even forced once or twice to dip into the [pg 199] theological works. Mrs Gabbon had evidently “’eard sommat” from Mr Duggs, and treated him to little of her society. The boredom became so excessive that he decided he must make a move soon, however rash it was.
The only active step he took, and indeed the only step he saw his way to take, was a call on Dr Twiddel’s locum. But luck seemed to run dead against him. Dr Billson had departed “on his holiday,” he was informed, and would not return for three weeks. So Mr Bunker was driven back to his window and the Baron’s cigars.
It was the evening of his fourth day in Mrs Gabbon’s rooms. He had finished a modest dinner and was dealing himself hands at piquet with an old pack of cards, when he heard the rattle of a cab coming up the street. The usual faint flicker of hope rose: the cab stopped below him, the flicker burned brighter, and in an instant he was at the window. He opened the slats of the blind, and the flicker was aflame. Before the doctor’s house a four-wheeled cab was standing laden with luggage, and two men were going up the steps. He watched the luggage being taken in and the cab drive away, and then he turned radiantly back to the fire.
“The curtain is up,” he said to himself. “What’s the first act to be?”
Presently he put on his [wide-awake] hat and went out for a stroll. He walked slowly past the doctor’s house, but there was nothing to be seen or heard. Remembering the room at the back, he was not surprised to find no chink of light about the front windows, and thinking it better not to run the risk of being seen lingering there, he walked on. [pg 200] He was in such good spirits, and had been cooped up so continually for the last few days, that he went on and on, and it was not till about a couple of hours had passed that he approached his rooms again. As he came down the street he was surprised to see by the light of a lamp that another four-wheeler was standing before the doctor’s house, also laden with luggage.
Two men jumped in, one after another, and when he had come at his fastest walk within twenty yards or so, the cabman whipped up and drove rapidly away, luggage and men and all.
He looked up and down for a hansom, but there were none to be seen. For a few yards he set off at a run in pursuit, and then, finding that the horse was being driven at a great rate, and remembering the paucity of stray cabs in the quiet streets and roads round about, he stopped and considered the question.