“A jou-jou,” I answered, blessing mademoiselle inwardly.
The man didn’t speak French, so I told him jou-jou meant “toy,” and that satisfied him. We had some more talk, and I am sure I surprised him, but he was very civil, and took no end of trouble to discover an address I wanted. It turned out to be a little street off Tottenham Court Road. I drove there in a hansom, remained ten minutes, and hired the same cab back to the West-end. The cabman wanted to charge me four shillings, but I gave him half-a-crown and looked for his number.
“S’elp me!” he cried, “wot’s things a-comin’ to?” And, with that, he whipped his poor horse into a canter, which is the nasty, vindictive way that sort of man has of expressing his feelings.
Then I had a real slice of luck. I met Mr. Warden, my father’s solicitor, just coming out of his office. He was quite taken aback at seeing me, especially when he found that Dad or Mam was not with me, and my good fortune was that had I been a few seconds later I should have missed him, as he was going to join Mrs. Warden in Brighton, having simply run up to town for an hour to glance at his letters. I was sorry for Mrs. Warden, but I had to keep him.
Although he was a lawyer, and a very smart one, Dad says, he did open his eyes wide when I got fairly started with my story. I told him everything, or nearly everything, and the only bits that puzzled him were my references to Dan, or Bob, or Tib. As for what the parrot said, or Rikki did, he was too polite to smile, but he kept balancing his gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, until I thought it best not to mention the Gang any more, because they seemed to bother him.
But, oh my, didn’t he look serious when I showed him the letter from Schwartz’s brokers, and told him about the “squeeze” in Kwantus! He asked me if I knew what paper I got my information from, and I said “yes,” so he tinkled a little bell and sent a clerk to buy a copy in Fleet-street. I was not sure about the date, but the clerk, who was such a nice boy, said he could search the file.
By the time I had finished, the clerk returned with the newspaper. Mr. Warden changed his spectacles, and said “Hum” and “Ha” several times while he was reading the paragraph. Then he put on the gold ones again, and gazed at me.
“You are a very remarkable girl, Millicent,” he said.
“I suppose my story sounds odd,” I answered, “but it all happened exactly as I have told you, and there is hardly anything that takes place in Dale End which the Gang cannot form a reliable opinion about.”
“The Gang?” he repeated.