Mrs. Ewart-Crane may be said to have seized him in no uncertain fashion, and to have pointed the way. He protested and pleaded; but all to no purpose. Mrs. Ewart-Crane demanded to know what had happened or was happening; and her dignity forbade that she should take any active part in the matter personally. Clearly Jordan Tant was the man sent by Providence for such a purpose.
So Jordan Tant went—and Jordan Tant arrived at the house at the very moment when the whole discovery had burst upon that house. Mr. Gilbert Byfield himself, as an apparent visitor, might not have been missed; but Bessie—the very head and front of everything—and Daniel Meggison, whose dictatorial tones had been heard everywhere at all times and seasons in that house; these were the people to be missed indeed. Mrs. Stocker complained first of discourteous behaviour on the part of host and hostess; later on became suspicious that all was not well, and wondered sarcastically if her brother had gone in search of yet another fortune. This suggestion she made with an accompaniment of sniffs and folded hands, and some pursing of lips.
Still Aubrey Meggison was discreetly silent. He wanted to find out what had happened, solely on his own account; he wanted to know what had become of that father who had so basely deserted him; but on the other hand he did not want, as he tersely expressed it, "a crowd."
Simon Quarle sprang into the very heart of the matter, strident-tongued and fierce. It was his Bessie that was concerned, and he passionately swept aside any suggestion that anyone else might be injured. Where was she?—and what was being done?—those were the questions to which he demanded an instant answer—questions which he shook before the faces of all with whom he came in contact.
Mr. Tant, coming in the guise of a friend of Mr. Gilbert Byfield, was seized upon eagerly as someone having information. What did he know?—and what was he prepared to tell? Mr. Tant looked round on the eager faces, and feeling that for once he held a position of importance, waved the questioners aside, and declined to answer.
"I know nothing of Mr. Byfield's movements," he said. "There certainly has been a suggestion that he might be leaving here shortly—but beyond that I know nothing."
"Does nobody know anything?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Stocker, glaring at her husband as though she fully expected that mild little man to be hiding important information in his quaking breast. "Are we all to be treated in this fashion, and no explanations to be given whatever?"
It was at that moment that the vanity which possessed Mr. Aubrey Meggison overcame all other feelings, and demanded to have speech. Aubrey had up to this moment been ignored; more than that, he had been ignored by this aristocratic-looking, well-dressed stranger. He thrust his way into the circle, elbowing out of it Mr. Edward Stocker, as being the weakest there, and faced Mr. Jordan Tant.
"Seein' that everybody seems to be at sixes and sevens, and not quite to know what they're talkin' about, it mightn't be a bad idea if what I might call the last representative of the family put in a spoke. There's a lot of jawin' goin' on—and yet nobody seems to know anything at all. If I might say a word, p'raps I could elucidate what seems to be regarded as a bit of a mystery, but which ain't, mind you, any mystery at all."
"Why—what in the world do you know about it?" demanded Mrs. Stocker fiercely.