“I’ve got that, marm,” replied Mrs Hudson, warming up a little, “and I should like to go over his things myself as they are unpacked.”
“Wholly unnecessary,” replied the female, holding out her hand for the key. “I see to everything of that kind here.”
“But I mean to open the box!” cried Mrs Hudson, breaking out into a passion quite unusual with her.
I, too, had been getting the steam up privately during the last few minutes, and the sight of Mrs Hudson’s agitation was enough to start the train.
“Yes,” said I, swelling out with indignation, “Mrs Hudson and I are going to open the box. You sha’n’t touch it!”
The female appeared to be not in the least put out by this little display of feeling. In fact, she seemed used to it, for she stood quietly with her arms folded, apparently waiting till we both of us thought fit to subside.
Poor Mrs Hudson was no match for this sort of battle. She lost her control, and expressed herself of things in general, and the female in particular, with a fluency which quite astonished me, and I did my little best to back her up. In the midst of our joint address a gentleman appeared on the scene, whom I correctly divined to be Mr Ladislaw himself.
Mr Ladislaw was a short, dapper man, in rather seedy clothes, with long sandy hair brushed right back over the top of his head, and no hair at all on his face. He might have been thirty, or he might have been fifty. His eyes were very small and close together; his brow was stern, and his mouth a good deal pulled down at the corners. Altogether, I didn’t take to him at first glance, still less when he broke into the conversation and distinctly took the part of Mrs Hudson’s adversary.
“What is all this, Miss Henniker?” he said in a quick, sharp voice, which made me very uncomfortable.
“This is Mr Jakeman’s servant,” answered the female. “She was talking a little rudely about Frederick Batchelor’s luggage here.”