England -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery fiction
Everything seemed to be in his favour. In the first place, there was
evidently no suspicion, in the mind of any one he had met yet, that he
was not the man he claimed to be—Dandy Chater; in the second place,
the young servant who had first admitted him gave him the very clue he
needed, and at the very outset. Coming into the room, immediately after
Crowdy had finished reading the letter, this man asked:
“Excuse me, sir—but Mrs. Dolman would like to know whether Mr. Ogledon
is coming down to-day?”
Philip Crowdy gathered his wandering wits, and faced the question.
“Mrs. Dolman—that’ll be the housekeeper,” he thought, rapidly. “But
who the devil is Mr. Ogledon?” After a moment’s pause, he looked up,
and said aloud—“Can’t say, I’m sure. You’d better send Mrs. Dolman to
me.”
The young man went away, and the housekeeper presently came bustling
in. She was a trim, neat, precise old lady, with a certain dignity of
manner belonging to her station. She inclined her head, and folded her
hands, and hoped that “Master Dandy” was well.
“Old servant—been in the family all her life,” thought Crowdy. Aloud
he said—“I really can’t say, Mrs. Dolman, whether Mr. Ogledon will be
here to-day or not. By the way, Mrs. Dolman”—this, as a brilliant idea
struck him—“I think I shall change my room—my bedroom, I mean.”
The good woman raised her hands in astonishment. “Change your room,
Master Dandy! Why—I never heard the like! What’s the matter with the
room, sir?”
“Oh—nothing the matter with it; only I want a change; one gets tired
of anything. Just come upstairs with me, and I’ll show you what I mean.”
Mrs. Dolman would have stepped aside, in the doorway, to allow him to
precede her; but he waved her forward impatiently, and she went on
ahead, and up the broad staircase, with her gown held up delicately in
two mittened hands.
“Now,” thought Philip Crowdy, with a chuckle, “I shall know where I
sleep.”
The old lady went before him, and softly opened the door of a room on
the left hand—Crowdy taking careful note of its position. It was a
beautifully furnished room, with huge old-fashioned presses in it, and
with everything arranged with a view to comfort.
“There couldn’t be a better room, Master Dandy,” urged the old
lady—“and you’ve slept in it as long almost as I can remember. There’s
your dressing-room opening out of it, and your bath-room beyond
that—nothing could be more convenient, Master Dandy. If you moved into
the Yellow room, the outlook is pretty, it can’t be denied—but it
ain’t to be compared to this. Of course, Master Dandy, you’ll do as you
like—but I——”
Philip Crowdy had achieved his object. He looked round the room for a
moment, and shrugged his shoulders. “No—after all, I think you’re
right. It was only a whim of mine; I’ll stay here.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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