“Hullo! You, is it, you blessed young monkey?” said Narkom gayly, as he looked up and saw the boy. “Knew I’d hear to-day—knew it, by James! Sent you for me, has he, eh? Is he coming himself or does he want me to go to him? Speak up, and—Good Lord! what’s the matter with you? What’s up? Anything wrong?”
Dollops had turned the colour of an under-baked biscuit and was looking at him with eyes of absolute despair.
“Sir,” he said, moving quickly forward and speaking in the breathless manner of a spent runner—“Sir, I was a-hopin’ it was a fake, and to hear you speak like that—Gawd’s truth, guv’ner, you don’t mean as it’s real, sir, do you? That you don’t know either?”
“Know? Know what?”
“Where he is—wot’s become of him? Mr. Cleek, the guv’ner, sir. I made sure that you’d know if anybody would. That’s wot made me come, sir. I’d ’a’ gone off me bloomin’ dot if I hadn’t—after you a-puttin’ in that Personal and him never a-turnin’ up like he’d ort. Sir, do you mean to say as you don’t know where he is, and haven’t seen him even yet?”
“No, I’ve not. Good Lord! haven’t you?”
“No, sir. I aren’t clapped eyes on him since he sent me off to the bloomin’ seaside six months ago. All he told me when we come to part was that Miss Lorne was goin’ out to India on a short visit to Cap’n and Mrs. ’Awksley—Lady Chepstow as was, sir—and that directly she was gone he’d be knockin’ about for a time on his own, and I wasn’t to worry over him. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, sir, since that hour.”
“Nor heard from him?” Narkom’s voice was thick and the hand he laid on the chair-back hard shut.
“Oh, yes, sir, I’ve heard—I’d have gone off my bloomin’ dot if I hadn’t done that. Heard from him twice. Once when he wrote and gimme my orders about the new place he’s took up the river—four weeks ago. The second time, last Friday, sir, when he wrote me the thing that’s fetched me here—that’s been tearin’ the heart out of me ever since I heard at Charing Cross about wot’s happened at Clarges Street, sir.”
“And what was that?”