'I only want to tell you that I understand a woman's coming to wash you; "lay you out," I believe, they call it. I suppose you don't object?'
Not a sign; not a sound.
'That's all right; I don't suppose she'll worry you overmuch. By the way, where have you put that money? I don't want to know; only women of that kind are as sharp as needles; and not over scrupulous either. If you like to confide it to my keeping it will be quite safe in my charge, and you can have it whenever you want it, with the other five hundred, as you know very well.'
Nothing to show he heard.
I turned down the bedclothes, thinking that he might have slipped the notes between the sheets. Not he! Nothing in the shape of a bank-note was to be seen. My curiosity being piqued--the depths of this man really were too deep!--I looked for them in every place I could think of, subjecting the whole bed to a minute examination; he evincing not the slightest apparent interest in my proceedings. Not the vestige of a note. Could he have swallowed them? If he had not, I could not conceive what had become of them. They were not upon his body. They could hardly, at his bidding, have vanished into air. Although I was quite prepared to admit that, 'for ways that are dark,' compared to him the Heathen Chinee was an innocent suckling.
'Well, as I can't find it I imagine that the woman won't; so I suppose I make take it that the money's safe. There's only one other topic on which I wish to touch--the funeral. The undertaker's man will come and measure you to-day. The shell, and, I presume, the coffin also, will arrive to-morrow morning. You'll be placed inside, and, in the afternoon, the coffin will be closed. It will be taken down in the evening by a special train to Cressland--where you may, or may not, be aware is the family vault--the interment taking place on Wednesday. As we are none of us particularly proud of you, the interment will be as private as possible. As, I take it, you don't want to be inside the coffin when it's placed in its last resting-place, I'll look in before the undertaker's fellows; you must give up being dead, and, between us, we'll screw down the lid. I'll find an excuse which will satisfy them. I have an idea in this fertile brain of mine.--You clearly understand and agree. Say so if you don't!'
He said nothing, nor signified in any way whatever that he had attained to even a glimmer of comprehension. But I knew him. Taking his immobility to signify acquiescence, I left him asleep upon the bed.
But though I left him he was with me all the time. I could not get him out of my head. I interviewed the landlord, with whom I made arrangements on a very liberal scale to compensate him for the inconvenience the affair was causing him; and all the while that we were talking I saw, with my mental eye, the silent figure on the bed!
Thence I went to Tattenham, the funeral furnisher. The figure was with me there. I wondered what my feelings would be if I knew that I was being measured for my coffin. With what amount of ceremony would the measurer treat me? To be touched for such a purpose by such hands! I feared that under his kind offices I should not lie so still as I trusted Mr. Montagu Babbacombe would do.
At home I found, as I expected, Edith and Reggie confabulating with Violet. As I also expected, Vi began at me at once--though her tone and bearing were alike surprising. She was unwontedly meek.