"Of course he must be there when his child is dying!" spoke she to herself, as she paced the carpet with a step as impatient and a great deal more indignant than those other steps that had paced, that night. "Of course she must be comforted! While I----"
The words were choked by a flood of emotion. Bitter reflections crowded on her, one upon another. The more earnestly and patiently she strove to bear and forbear, the more cruelly seemed to rise up her afflictions. And Lucy Andinnian threw herself down in abandonment, wondering whether all pity had quite gone out of heaven.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
News for Mr. Tatton.
What Mr. Detective Tatton's future proceedings would have been, or to what untoward catastrophe, as connected with this history, they might have led had his stay at Foxwood been prolonged to an indefinite period, cannot here be known. He remained on. Social matters had resumed their ordinary groove. The Maze was left undisturbed; Mr. Cattacomb was well again; St. Jerome's in full force.
It might be that Mr. Tatton was waiting--like a certain noted character with whom we all have the pleasure of an acquaintance--for "something to turn up." That he was contemplating some grand coup, which would throw his prize into his hands, while to the world and Mrs. Jinks he appeared only to be enjoying the salubrious Kentish air, and amusing himself with public politics generally, we may rest pretty well assured of. But this agreeable existence was suddenly cut short.
One morning when Mr. Tatton's hopes and plans were, like Cardinal Wolsey's greatness, all a-ripening, he received a communication from Mr. Superintendent Game at Scotland Yard, conveying the astounding intelligence that the real Philip Salter had not been in Foxwood at all, but had just died in Canada.
Mr. Tatton sat contemplating the letter. He could not have been much more astonished had a bombshell burst under him. Of the truth of the information there could be no question: its reliability was indisputable. One of the chief officers in the home police force who was in Canada on business, and had known Salter well, discovered him in the last stage of a wasting sickness, and saw him die.
"I've never had such a fool's game to play at as this," ejaculated Mr. Tatton when sufficiently recovered to speak; "and never wish to have such another. What the deuce, then, is the mystery connected with the Maze?"
Whatever it might be, it was now no business of his; though could he have afforded to waste more time and money, he would have liked very well to stay and track it out. Summoning the Widow Jinks to his presence, he informed her that he was called away suddenly on particular business; and then proceeded to pack up. Mrs. Jinks resented the departure as quite a personal injury, and wiped the soft tears from her eyes.