During that week Mallalieu was to learn by sad experience that it is a very poor thing to acquire information at second hand. There he was, a strictly-guarded--if a cosseted and pampered--prisoner, unable to put his nose outside the cottage, and entirely dependent on Chris Pett for any and all news of the world which lay so close at hand and was just then so deeply and importantly interesting to him. Time hung very heavily on his hands. There were books enough on the shelves of his prison-parlour, but the late Kitely's taste had been of a purely professional nature, and just then Mallalieu had no liking for murder cases, criminal trials, and that sort of gruesomeness. He was constantly asking for newspapers, and was skilfully put off--it was not within Christopher's scheme of things to let Mallalieu get any accurate notion of what was really going on. Miss Pett did not take in a newspaper; Christopher invariably forgot to bring one in when he went to the town; twice, being pressed by Mallalieu to remember, he brought back _The Times_ of the day before--wherein, of course, Mallalieu failed to find anything about himself. And it was about himself that he so wanted to hear, about how things were, how people talked of him, what the police said, what was happening generally, and his only source of information was Chris. Mr. Pett took good care to represent everything in his own fashion. He was assiduous in assuring Mallalieu that he was working in his interest with might and main; jealous in proclaiming his own and his aunt's intention to get him clear away to Norcaster. But he also never ceased dilating on the serious nature of that enterprise, never wearied in protesting how much risk he and Miss Pett were running; never refrained from showing the captive how very black things were, and how much blacker they would be if it were not for his present gaolers' goodness. And when he returned to the cottage after the inquest on Stoner, his face was unusually long and grave as he prepared to tell Mallalieu the news. "Things are looking in a very bad way for you, Mr. Mallalieu," he whispered, when he was closeted with Mallalieu in the little room which the captive now hated fiercely and loathingly. "They look in a very bad way indeed, sir! If you were in any other hands than ours, Mr. Mallalieu, I don't know what you'd do. We're running the most fearful risks on your behalf, we are indeed. Things is--dismal!" Mallalieu's temper, never too good, and all the worse for his enforced confinement, blazed up. "Hang it! why don't you speak out plain?" he snarled. "Say what you mean, and be done with it! What's up now, like? Things are no worse than they were, I reckon." Christopher slowly drew off one of the black kid gloves, and blew into it before laying it on the table.