‘What old gent?’
‘Why the old gent peeping through the window of the room upstairs?’
The words were hardly out of the driver’s mouth when Sydney was through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather more soberly,—his methods were a little too flighty for me. When I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed into the one at the back,—then through a door at the side. He came out shouting.
‘What’s the idiot mean!—with his old gent! I’d old gent him if I got him!—There’s not a creature about the place!’
He returned into the front room,—I at his heels. That certainly was empty,—and not only empty, but it showed no traces of recent occupation. The dust lay thick upon the floor,—there was that mouldy, earthy smell which is so frequently found in apartments which have been long untenanted.
‘Are you sure, Atherton, that there is no one at the back?’
‘Of course I’m sure,—you can go and see for yourself if you like; do you think I’m blind? Jehu’s drunk.’ Throwing up the sash he addressed the driver. ‘What do you mean with your old gent at the window?—what window?’
‘That window, sir.’
‘Go to!—you’re dreaming, man!—there’s no one here.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but there was someone there not a minute ago.’