Chapter Ten.
A Mystery Cleared Up.
When night had fairly hung its sable curtains over the great city, Mr Blurt descended to the shop.
“Now, Mr Aspel, I’ll relieve you. The lady you sent up, Miss Lillycrop, is, it seems, an old friend of my brother, and she insists on acting the part of nurse to-night. I am all the better pleased, because I have business to attend to at the other end of the town. We will therefore close the shop, and you can go home. By the way, have you a home?”
“O yes,” said Aspel, with a laugh. “A poor enough one truly, off the Strand.”
“Indeed?—that reminds me: we always pay salaries in advance in this office. Here is a sovereign to account of your first quarter. We can settle the amount afterwards.”
Aspel accepted the coin with a not particularly good grace.
“Now then, you had better—ha—excuse me—put up the shutters.”