"He and Mr. Glenthorpe had dinner together in the little upstairs
sitting room which Mr. Glenthorpe kept for his own private use. He did
his writing in it, and the flints and fossils he discovered in his
excavations were stored in the cupboards. His meals were always taken up
there, and last night he ordered the dinner to be taken up there as
usual, and the table to be laid for two. Charles waited at table, but I
was up there twice--first time with some sherry, and the second time was
about an hour afterwards, when the gentlemen had finished dinner. I took
up a bottle of some old brandy that the inn used to be famous for--it's
the same that you gentlemen have been drinking. When I knocked at the
door with the brandy it was Mr. Glenthorpe who called 'Come in!' He was
standing in front of the fire, with a fossil in his hand, and he was
telling the young man about how he came to discover it. I put the
brandy on the table and left the room.
"That was the last time I saw him alive. Charles came down with the
dinner things about half-past nine, and said he was not wanted upstairs
any more. Charles went to bed shortly afterwards--he sleeps in one of
the two rooms off the kitchen. I went to my own bedroom before ten,
after first telling Ann, the servant, who was doing some ironing in the
kitchen, to turn off the gas at the meter if the gentlemen retired
before she finished, but not to bother if they were still sitting up. It
had been decided that the young gentleman should occupy the bedroom next
to Mr. Glenthorpe, and Ann was a bit late with her ordinary work because
it had taken her some time to get his room ready. The room had not been
occupied for some time, and she'd had to air the bed-clothes and make
the bed afresh.
"The next morning I was a bit late getting down--there's nothing to open
the inn for in the mornings--and Ann told me as soon as I got down that
the young gentleman had left nearly an hour before. She had taken him up
an early cup of tea at seven o'clock, and he opened the door to her
knock, and took it from her. He was fully dressed, except for his boots,
which he had in his hand, and he asked her to clean them, as he wanted
to leave at once. She was walking away with the boots, when he called
her back and took them from her, saying that it didn't matter about
cleaning them, as he was in a hurry. When she gave him the boots he put
a note into her hand, and said that was to pay for his bill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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