Miser Farebrother: A Novel (vol. 3 of 3)Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
General
Miser Farebrother: A Novel (vol. 3 of 3)
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Fiction
"Being thrown upon their own resources, they took two rooms in
Knightsbridge. We tracked them there. Sometimes they went out together,
sometimes alone. When they were together they scarcely spoke to each
other, and it seemed to us as if this silence had been determined upon
between them; what they said might have been overheard, and they might
have said something injudicious. It almost appeared as if nothing was to
come of our watch. There was a monotony in it which weighed upon us, and
we were almost in despair. We tried to get a room in the house they
lodged in, but there was none to let. The day before yesterday, however,
something occurred to rouse us. We saw a woman watching the house they
lived in. She knocked at the street door, and received an answer to her
questions from the landlady. Then she retired, and from a short distance
kept watch upon the house--you may imagine how excited this made
us--until Jeremiah Pamflett came out alone. He walked along apparently
with no suspicion in his mind that he was being followed by the woman,
and certainly with no suspicion that Linton and I were walking behind
them both. You may be certain that we were very careful. It is excusable
in me as an actor, and in Linton as a dramatic author, that we should
adopt some slight disguise, altered from day to day under my direction,
to lessen the chances of our being detected in case Jeremiah Pamflett
should happen to see us. Well, sir, as the four of us were walking along
in Indian file, what did the woman suddenly do but go up to Jeremiah
and accost him! And what did he do but start violently, turn round to
look at the woman, and then, without saying one word to her, walk
rapidly away with the conspicuous intention of getting rid of her. From
a rapid walk he got into a run, and the woman and we lost sight of him.
So far as that incident was concerned, there was an end of it. We lost
sight, too, of the woman; but not before we saw sufficient of her to be
able to recognize her if we should see her again. Yesterday we were
again in view of the house in which these Pamfletts lodged, and there
again was the same woman watching, as we judged, for her friend
Jeremiah. But he did not make his appearance, and after remaining in the
neighbourhood for nearly an hour, we saw the landlady put a card in her
front window, 'Rooms to let.' Across the road went the woman; she
knocked at the door, made some inquiries of the landlady, and came away
with a spiteful, disappointed expression on her face. I told Linton to
follow her, and find out where she lived. Meanwhile I myself went across
to the home, and inquired about the rooms to let. It was as I suspected:
the Pamfletts had left--'quite sudden,' the landlady said. Putting this
and that together, I came to the conclusion that they had left their
lodgings, and most probably the neighbourhood, because of the discovery
by the woman of their whereabouts. This looked so much like fright on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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