g to Halgrave, he would
have begun getting up before this; he would even have got to breakfast
if only she had let him know; so he fumed to himself as he shuffled
about, dropping things with his shaking fingers. At last he was
dressed and came down-stairs to find Johnny, pink and apologetic as he
used to be in the Marbridge days, laboriously doing odd jobs which did
not need doing.

There was not a detective lost in Mr. Gillat, he had not the making of
a sleuth-hound in him; or even a watch-dog, except, perhaps, of that
well-meaning kind which gets itself perennially kicked for incessant
and incurable tail wagging at inopportune times. The half-hour which
followed Captain Polkington's coming down-stairs was a trying one. The
Captain went to the back door to look out; Mr. Gillat followed him,
though scarcely like his shadow; he was not inconspicuous, and neither
he nor his motive were easy to overlook. The Captain said something
approbious about the weather and the high wind and occasional
heavy swishes of rain; then he went to the sitting-room which lay
behind the kitchen, and near to the front door. Johnny followed him,
and the Captain faced round on him, irritably demanding what the devil
he wanted.

"To--to see if the register is shut," Mr. Gillat said, beaming at his
own deep diplomacy and the brilliancy of the idea which had come to
him--rather tardily, it is true, still in time to pass muster.

The Captain flung himself into a chair with a sigh of irritation. "It
is a funny thing I can't be let alone a moment," he said. "I came in
here for a little quiet and coolness, I didn't want you dodging after
me."

"No," Johnny agreed amiably; "no, of course not." Then, after a long
pause, as if he had just made sure of the fact, "It is cool in here."

It was, very; it might even have been called cold and raw, for there
had not been a fire there for days, but the Captain did not move, and
Johnny, stooping by the fire-place, examined the register of the
chimney, fondly believing in his own impenetrable deceptiveness.

"I can't help thinking it ought to be shut," he observed, looking
thoughtfully up the chimney; "the rain will come down; it might rain a
good deal if the wind were to drop."

"The wind is not going to drop for hours," the Captain snapped; "it is
getting higher."

A great gust rumbled in the chimney as he spoke, and flung itself with
the thud of a palpable body against the window-pane. Mr. Gillat heard