Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 2 (of 2)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
English fiction -- 19th century
"A slight-made gentleman with a fair face and light curly hair,
looking about thirty," had been Ann Hopley's description; it answered
in every particular to the man Karl was gazing at; gazing until he
watched him out of sight. Lawyer St. Henry, naturally observant,
thought his guest stared after the man as though he held some peculiar
interest in him.
"Do you know who that man really is, Mr. St. Henry?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Sir Karl. No reason why I should not, for I have
not been told to keep it a secret. Some little time back, my nieces
grew full of the new lodger at Mrs. Jinks's; they were talking of him
incessantly: A gentleman reading divinity----"
"Why, that's Mr. Cattacomb," interrupted Sir Karl. "He lodges at Mrs.
Jinks's."
"Not that ladies' idiot," cried the lawyer, rather roughly. "I beg
your pardon, Sir Karl, but the Reverend Guy sometimes puts me out of
patience. This man has the upper rooms, Cattacomb the lower----"
"But I--I thought that was a boy: a lad at his studies," reiterated
Karl, in some perplexity. "I assumed him to be a pupil of
Cattacomb's."
"It is the man you have just watched down the street, Sir Karl. Well,
to go on. My nieces were always talking of this new gentleman, a Mr.
Strange, who had come to Foxwood to get up his health, and to read up
for some divinity examination. That was their account. They said so
much about him that I got curious myself: it was a new face, you see,
Sir Karl, and girls go wild over that. One morning when I was starting
for the office, the gig at the door, Jane ran out to me. 'Uncle,' she
said, 'that's Mr. Strange coming down Mrs. Jinks's steps now: you can
see him if you look.' I did look, Sir Karl, and saw the gentleman you
have just seen pass. His face struck me at once as one that I was
familiar with, though at the moment I could not tell where I had seen
him. Remembrance came to me while I looked--and I knew him for an
officer connected with the detective force at Scotland Yard."
Karl drew a long breath. He was listening greedily.
"About a year ago," resumed the lawyer, "my agent in London, Mr.
Blair, had occasion to employ a detective upon some matter he was
engaged in. I was in London for a few days at that time, and saw the
man twice at Blair's--and knew him again now. It was this same Mr.
Strange."
"And you say Strange is not his right name?"
"No, it's not."
"What is the right one?"
"Well, I can't tell you the right one, Sir Karl, for I cannot remember
it. I am sure of one thing--that it was not Strange. It was a longer
name, and I think rather a peculiar name; but I can't hit upon it. He
must be down here on some private business, and has no doubt his own
reasons for keeping incog. I recollect Blair told me he was one of the
astutest officers in the detective force."
"Has he recognised you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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