“I don’t care what’s afoot,” he said; “I’ll finish my brandy, and go when I choose.”
The man—who appeared to be the landlord of the house—advanced his face a little nearer, across the bar, and spoke in a wheedling tone. “I’m going up myself, Mr. Dandy,” he said, in a whisper; “perhaps you’d like to come up with me?”
“Oh—if you like,” replied Philip, carelessly; although this was exactly what he wanted. He felt that, from the tone the man had adopted, it was evident that the late Dandy Chater had been a difficult man to deal with. He determined to make what capital he could out of that.
The man—after calling gruffly to a draggled female in the inner room to come and attend to the bar—dived under the wooden flap in the counter, and stood beside Philip. The latter slowly and coolly drank his brandy, and even stopped to bite the end from a cigar, and light it—looking frowningly at the other, who stood waiting patiently at the foot of some dark stairs for him; all this to give himself time, and to carry out, as fully as possible, that idea, of which he had somehow possessed himself, that the late Dandy Chater had been a remarkably disagreeable fellow, and that it was necessary for his successor to keep up the character.
At last, having spun out the time as much as possible, he lounged after his guide, up the stairs; and was ushered by him, through a low doorway, into a room which, from the appearance of the single long projecting window, which took up nearly all one side, evidently gave on to the river. Round a table in this room, four men were seated, with their elbows upon it, and their heads very close together; the heads were turned, as the door opened, and a murmur—apparently of relief and recognition—broke simultaneously from the four throats. Philip Chater, observing, in that momentary glance, that they were all men of an inferior type to himself, from the social standpoint, carried off his entry with an air, and swaggered up to the table—still with that heavy insolence of bearing, which had seemed to have so good an effect upon the landlord below.
“Well,” he said, taking a seat at the table, and coolly blowing a cloud of smoke into the air—“what do you want with me?”
He noticed, as he spoke, that the man who had guided him to the room appeared to have a direct interest in whatever proceedings were afoot; inasmuch as that he took a seat at the table, quite as a matter of course.
“Where’s the Count?” abruptly asked one man—a tall, sandy-haired fellow, with grey eyes far too close together to make his countenance a pleasing one.
“The very question I was going to ask you,” replied Philip. “Do you suppose I’m the Count’s keeper?”
“Well—he left here with you last week,” replied the same man, in an injured tone. “We supposed he’d been staying with you as usual.”