contact with the lower castes. "It's set
wet, it'll rain right into the new year," she announced. "And they say a
bad beginnin' makes a worse endin'." Mrs. Drabdump was one of those
persons who give you the idea that they just missed being born
barometers.

"But what are you doing in this miserable spot, so far from home?"
queried the detective.

"It's Bank Holiday," Mrs. Drabdump reminded him in tones of acute
surprise. "I always make a hexcursion on Bank Holiday."

CHAPTER VIII.

The New Year brought Mrs. Drabdump a new lodger. He was an old gentleman
with a long gray beard. He rented the rooms of the late Mr. Constant,
and lived a very retired life. Haunted rooms--or rooms that ought to be
haunted if the ghosts of those murdered in them had any
self-respect--are supposed to fetch a lower rent in the market. The
whole Irish problem might be solved if the spirits of "Mr. Balfour's
victims" would only depreciate the value of property to a point
consistent with the support of an agricultural population. But Mrs.
Drabdump's new lodger paid so much for his rooms that he laid himself
open to a suspicion of special interest in ghosts. Perhaps he was a
member of the Psychical Society. The neighborhood imagined him another
mad philanthropist, but as he did not appear to be doing any good to
anybody it relented and conceded his sanity. Mortlake, who occasionally
stumbled across him in the passage, did not trouble himself to think
about him at all. He was too full of other troubles and cares. Though he
worked harder than ever, the spirit seemed to have gone out of him.
Sometimes he forgot himself in a fine rapture of eloquence--lashing
himself up into a divine resentment of injustice or a passion of
sympathy with the sufferings of his brethren--but mostly he plodded on
in dull, mechanical fashion. He still made brief provincial tours,
starring a day here and a day there, and everywhere his admirers
remarked how jaded and overworked he looked. There was talk of starting
a subscription to give him a holiday on the Continent--a luxury
obviously unobtainable on the few pounds allowed him per week. The new
lodger would doubtless have been pleased to subscribe, for he seemed
quite to like occupying Mortlake's chamber the nights he was absent,
though he was thoughtful enough not to disturb the hardworked landlady
in the adjoining room by unseemly noise. Wimp was always a quiet man.

Meantime the 21st of the month approach