“What was the nature of your discovery?”
“Oh, well, you see, sir, it wasn’t much to talk about, only it set me thinking. It was two or three years before Mr. Dalbrook left Ferret Court and went to that first floor set in King’s Bench Walk, but he was beginning to be a great man, and he had more work than he could do, slave as hard as he might; and he did slave, I can tell you, sir. His rooms in Ferret Court were very shabby—they hadn’t had a bit of paint or a pail of whitewash for I don’t know how long; so, just before the Long Vacation, he says to me, ‘I’m going to get these rooms done up, Mrs. Dugget, while I’m out of town. I’ve got a estimate from a party in Holborn, and he’s to paint the wainscot and clear coal the ceiling, and do the whole thing for nine pounds seven and eightpence, in a workmanlike manner. You’ll please to clean up after him, and do away with all the waste paper and rubbish, and get everything tidy before November.”
Mrs. Dugget paused, and refreshed herself with half a cup of tea, and apologized for the obtrusiveness of the cat.
“I hope you don’t object to cats, sir.”
Theodore smiled, reflecting that any man who objected to cats would have fled from that stuffy parlour before now.
“No, I am rather fond of them, as an inferior order of dog. Well, now, as to this discovery of yours, Mrs. Dugget?”
“I’m coming to it as fast as I can, sir. You must know that there was a lot of waste paper in one of the closets beside the fireplace, and you are aware how roomy those closets in Ferret Court are. I never held with burning waste paper, first because it’s dangerous with regard to fire, and next because they’ll give you three shillings a sack for it at some of the paper mills; so I had always emptied the waste-paper baskets into this closet, which was made no other use of, and the bottom of the closet was chock-full of old letters, envelopes, pamphlets, and such like. So I took my sack, and I sat down on the floor and filled it. Now, as I was putting in the papers by handfuls—taking my time over it, for the painters wasn’t coming till the following Monday, and all my gentlemen was away on their holidays—I was struck by seeing such a number of envelopes addressed to the same name—
‘J. Danvers, Esq.,
‘Myrtle Cottage,
‘Camberwell Grove.’
How did Mr. Dalbrook come to have all those envelopes belonging to Mr. Danvers? There must have been letters inside the envelopes, and what business had he with Mr. Danvers’s letters?”
“They may have been letters bearing upon some case on which he was engaged,” said Theodore.