“Oh, him, sir,” replied Baxter, with a servant’s contempt for callers of his own class in society, “he were a quiet-spoken, ordinary sort of party, sir, as said he come from Scotland Yard.”
Fair was too well in hand by this time to wince as he heard this bit of disturbing coincidence, but he said to himself: “My word, they are prompt—but, damn it, they can’t have known!” Then, happening to look up and seeing the old butler, “What are you waiting for?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” gently began Baxter, shuffling nearer to Fair, “but, Mr. Fair, sir—Master Maxwell—you’ll forgive an old servant that served your father and grandfather before you, sir. There ain’t no trouble like, or anythink a-hangin’ over us, is there, sir? One of the parlormaids thought that she heard a shot, sir—and——”
“Oh, yes,” quickly responded Fair, with a laugh, “I was cleaning this old pistol and it went off. Get on now. Trouble? Why, look at me, Baxter. I’m the luckiest dog in the world. I have just made another fortune.”
“Thank God for that, sir,” quietly replied old Baxter, moving toward the door, at which he turned and said, “The gentleman will be dining, of course?”
“No, he can’t stop. In fact, he wishes to leave the house unobserved by our guests when we are at dinner—so fetch his hat and coat,” said Fair, again settling down to his evening paper.
“I was forgetting, sir,” once more the querulous old voice began, “that Miss Mettleby said that the children are coming to say good night——”
“The children?” exclaimed Fair, caught off his guard. “No—good God, no!—that is, I mean I shall be engaged. Tell Miss Mettleby so. Be off.”
With suspicions now thoroughly aroused and full of misgivings Baxter did as he was bid, and his master jerked the paper open again and slapped at the crease to make the sheet flat. But his eyes wandered aimlessly.
“The children—gad! I had forgotten them,” he muttered as he thought with horror what this all meant to them. Time after time he tried to read the leading article which was about his own brilliant achievement, but with a mad spasm he crumpled the newspaper into a ball and flung it across the great room, exclaiming, “Why didn’t the infernal blackguard know when he was well off?”