The valet swore wickedly under his breath, and sprang to his feet, his face white as chalk, his hands shaking.
“It’s Archie, I know his cat-like footstep. The old devil has left his key with him. He’s come after his letters, they won’t trust me with the address.”
Lane was disturbed too, he had not bargained for this sudden interruption, and Simmons looked so panic-stricken, being a white-livered sort of fellow, that his looks were enough to hang him.
“Pull yourself together and leave as much as you can to me,” he whispered to the shaking valet. Then he strode across the room and pretended to be examining a picture while he awaited the entrance of Archibald Brookes.
CHAPTER XV
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
Disturbed as he was at this untoward happening, and perhaps a little annoyed at his prophecy to the valet, that they ran practically no risk of interruption, having been falsified, Lane was compensated by the knowledge that he would have the opportunity of observing this young impostor at close quarters, and judging what manner of man he was. If Simmons’s account was correct, he did not resemble his supposed uncle in the more ungracious of his qualities.
Young Brookes came into the room and took in the situation at a glance. Sir George’s servant had taken advantage of his master’s absence to ask in an acquaintance; he knew the habits of that master too well to believe that there was any hospitality involved in the invitation. If that had been, or was about to be exercised, it would have to be at Simmons’s own expense.
He was an easy-going fellow in many ways, and there was nothing very heinous in such a proceeding. The man had been in the service of well-known people for many years, and had come to his present employer with a most excellent character. He was also a very shrewd fellow and not likely to mix with undesirable associates, much less introduce one of them into a place which contained a good many valuable articles.
Probably he would have thought little of the incident but for signs of consternation on the valet’s panic-stricken face. Truth to tell, the unhappy man was so unstrung that he thought it must be as patent to Archie Brookes as it was to his own guilty conscience, that the two men had been engaged in a nefarious enterprise.
A look of suspicion gradually stole over the young man’s features, growing deeper as Simmons’s lips stammered forth a few confused words which showed that the man’s mind was in a whirl and he hardly knew what he was saying.