“Or, what do I know? Suppose these fugitives have taken refuge with Padiham,—it may be to escape pursuit. Poor Mr. Clitheroe! Who knows what poverty may have permitted him to do? Better to hide in Lamely Court than to be stared at in a prison!
“My facts are slender basis for conclusion,”—so I avowed to myself on this review.
“But I would rather have a hope than no hope. The filmiest clew is kinder than no clew.
“I will finish my letter to old Short, dear boy, inventor of a well-omened Cut-off; I will sleep like a top, with no mysterious disappearances to disturb me; I will be with the Dwarf by seven. If that is Fulano in the drawing, he shall carry double again. He shall conduct the Lover and Friend to the Lady.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
PADIHAM’S SHOP.
How jubilant I felt the next morning as I made my way toward Lamely Court! The Thames really seemed to me a pure and lucent current. I began to fancy that there might be a stray whiff of ozone in the breezes of Albion.
What a cheerful clock it was, in some steeple near at hand, that struck seven as I set foot upon Padiham’s steps! What a blessing to a neighborhood to have a clock so utterly incredulous of dolefulness,—a clock that said All’s well to the past hour, and prophesied All’s well to the coming!
“Now,” I thought, “I must have my wits about me. My business is with Padiham the mechanic, not with Padiham the good Samaritan. My time and mind belong to Short’s Cut-off. I must not dash off into impertinent queries about people the dwarf may know nothing of, may wish to tell nothing of. Keep cool, Richard Wade! mind your own business, and then you can mind other people’s. Be ready to be disappointed! Destiny is not so easy to propitiate as you seemed to believe last night.”
As the clock dallied on its last stroke of seven, I entered Padiham’s shop.