"Do you think she is—attached—to the dark gentleman?"
"I know she's afraid of him. I've seen her turn white at his step on the stairs, and she's always upset after he's been to our place, and sits and cries as if her heart was breaking. There, I do feel sorry for her! She's a real good sort. She give me this here hat," added the slavey, tossing her beplumed and bejewelled head. "It was bought in the Harcade, and it ain't been worn above half a dozen times, only the sea-water damaged it a bit when she was travelling."
So sincere and deep-rooted was Faunce's interest in Mrs. Randall, that he took considerable pains to follow the movements of her friend Mr. Bolisco, whom he tracked to his lair in a sporting public-house at Battersea—an old, tumble-down building in a shabby street close to the river, a house that had once been a respectable roadside inn, and had once been in the country.
Faunce took some note of the famous prize-fighter's habits, which were idle and dissolute, and of his associates, who belonged to the lowest order, the ragged fringe of rascality that hangs upon the edge of the sporting world. It was sad to think that so disreputable an acquaintance could dominate the life of a fine, high-spirited creature like Kate Delmaine. But, much as he was interested in a beautiful woman, who was travelling on that dismal journey which is called "going to the dogs," Mr. Faunce felt that his evening walks with Betsy, and his occasional look in at the Gamecock at Battersea—that sporting rendezvous where Mr. Bolisco had his "diggings,"—were so much dilettante trifling, and mere waste of time. His work in relation to Kate Delmaine was finished; and whatever mystery there might be in her life, mystery involving even a crime, it was no business of his to investigate it.
Somewhat reluctantly, therefore, like a baffled hunter who turns from the dubious trail of the beast he has been pursuing, Mr. Faunce discontinued his visits to Chelsea, and went no more, in his character of a well-to-do idler interested in the prize-ring, to the public-house across Battersea Bridge.
"I must be getting a regular amateur," he told himself, "if I can't have done with a case when my work is finished."
Christmas came as a pleasant diversion, and during that jovial season Faunce deserted his rooms in Essex Street, forgot that he was a detective, and remembered that he was a citizen and a husband. The turkey and beef, the pudding and mince-pies did credit to Mrs. Faunce's judgment, and the skill of an unpretentious cook, who did not scorn to bare her robust arms to the elbow, and hearthstone the doorstep before she fried the morning rasher.
The catering had been Mr. Faunce's own work. It was his falcon glance that had detected the finest Norfolk turkey in a row of eighteen-pounders, the ripest York ham out of a score of good ones. The champagne which he bought for his guests, the ten-year-old Scotch whisky which he drank himself, were all of the best, and the villa at Putney had the air of plenteous comfort in a small space which pervades a well-found ship.
With his wife sitting opposite to him, and an old friend on either side, Faunce enjoyed the harmless pleasures of social intercourse, and cleared his mind of crime and mystery, and did not go back to his office in Essex Street until the general holiday was over, and the flavour of Christmas had faded out of the atmosphere.