'If that's all you have to say, Mr. Howarth, you must excuse my saying that I was just making a pudding when you came.'
'And an excellent pudding, too, I am sure. By the way, Mrs. Merrett, have you any children?'
'I have two.'
Just then there came screams of laughter from the other side of the wall. He held up his hands.
'Ah? There they are! I thought I heard childish voices. Both girls?'
'A boy and a girl.'
What he was driving at I could not think. Somehow I felt pretty sure that the idea of my having children was one he didn't like at all; though what it had to do with him was beyond me altogether, and like his impudence. The queer thing was that, in spite of the fuss she made of them, I'd had the same feeling about Miss Desmond. I was beginning to wonder what connection there was between them; and how it came about that they were both in my house at the same time. That they were there to find out something, I could see; I could also see that they already knew more about me than I did about them. The interest which this fine lady and gentleman took in my belongings was clean out of the common. It was a good deal more than mere curiosity. And as for supposing that it was just sympathy with a stranger, I wasn't so simple as to do that. That Mr. FitzHoward was right, and that Mr. Howarth was mixed up in some way with my James, was getting clearer and clearer; but exactly in what way I had yet to discover.
He had got back to his fidgeting again. I could see that there was something which he very much wanted to say, but which he didn't find it easy to put quite in the shape he wanted. When he did start to get it out, and I began to have some idea of what it was he meant, I was almost too taken aback for words.
'As I have already remarked, I took the greatest possible interest in Mr. Merrett--or, as he was known to me, Mr. Montagu Babbacombe.'
'I heard you say it.'