"Oh, I"m very fit, Brennan," Durham interrupted. "You had better turn the horses out for an hour or so; Mrs. Burke insists on my waiting to have lunch before I go."
Mrs. Burke came out to them as they stood talking.
"Oh, Brennan, did you see old Patsy in the town?" she exclaimed.
"Why, he was here this morning," Durham said.
"Excuse me, Mr. Durham, he was not. You remember what I told you last night. I did not care to say then, but the old man was very strange in his manner before dinner, and I believed he had had drink. I spoke to him about it, and I have not seen him since."
"But--who got breakfast ready?" Durham asked sharply.
"I did myself, Mr. Durham."
"Oh, Mrs. Burke; why did you not tell me? I could have----"
"An Irish lady, Mr. Durham, does not ask her guests to do her housework."
Durham turned away at the sting of her words and voice.
"Did you see the old man in the town, Brennan?" she asked.
"No, Mrs. Burke, he was not in town last night. I should have seen him."
"Oh, dear, then what can have happened to the creature? Sure I wish I had left him behind me in Ireland."
"He may be about the place somewhere. Will I look for him?" Brennan said.
"He"s not about the house; I"ve looked everywhere," she answered.
"He might be in one of the outhouses or stables."
"I never thought of that," she exclaimed. "Maybe that"s where he is. Oh, the trouble of the wretched old fool! I"ll pack him off back to Ireland."
She went into the house and Durham turned to Brennan.
"Have you ever seen him in the town?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, sir. He comes in at night mostly and buys drink, but he never stays. Soden told me yesterday the last time he came in he took away half a gallon of rum with him. Maybe that"s the cause of his disappearance."
"We"ll look for him," Durham said shortly.
In an outlying tool-shed they found him, stretched out on a tumbled heap of old sacks and rubbish, the place reeking with the scent of rum and a half-gallon jar lying on its side near him, empty.
"He"s dead to the world for a day," Brennan said as he stood up after bending over the old man and trying to rouse him. "He must have been drinking steadily for days to get through that quant.i.ty and into this state. What are we to do with him, sir?"
"If Mrs. Burke will give him in charge we will take him to the station and lock him up, but we cannot take him otherwise. He"s on her private property."
"That settles it then," Brennan replied. "She"s Irish, sir. You know what that means."
His antic.i.p.ation was correct. Mrs. Burke refused point-blank to allow her helpless retainer to be touched. He could remain where he was, she said, and she hoped the snakes and the lizards and the mosquitoes and all the other fearsome things she could mention would come and devour him--but the police were not going to touch him.
She was equally hostile when Durham suggested they should start off for the town without giving her the trouble of preparing anything for them to eat. In fact, he could not now open his lips to her that she did not snap some biting retort at him.
"She"d set the dogs on you if she were in her own country, sir,"
Brennan remarked, when at last they drove away from the house with a final envenomed shaft ringing in their ears. "I don"t think the old man is the only one who has a taste for the drink, if you ask me, sir."
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST STRAW
Since Mrs. Eustace returned to the township Harding had never once been to see her nor, when pa.s.sing the house, had he glanced at it.
His att.i.tude was inexplicable to her. That she had not had even a word from him while she was at Taloona perplexed her, for it did not occur to her to question whether he had received the message she left with Bessie for him. Yet there were several reasons which might account for that omission. But his failure either to see or to communicate with her after her return to Waroona was entirely another matter.
When the third day came without a sign or word from him she took the bull by the horns and sent a note asking him to see her that evening.
She was waiting for him in her sitting-room when she heard him come to the door, heard him ask Bessie if she were at home, heard him approach the room. As he opened the door she rose to greet him. He stopped on the threshold.
"I received your note--you wish to see me?" he said stiffly.
"Fred!" she exclaimed, looking at him in amazement. "Why, what has happened? Why do you speak so? What is it?"
He remained where he was, silent.
"Don"t you wish to see me?" she asked, still regarding him with a look of wondering amazement. "Has anything happened? Is that the reason you have never been to see me since I came back--why you never sent a word to me at Taloona? Have they--have they found out anything more about Charlie?"
He closed the door and walked across to the table by the side of which she was standing.
"Mrs. Eustace," he began, but before he could say more she interrupted him.
"You have something unpleasant to say. What is it? At least be frank.
Whatever it is I am prepared to hear it."
He took the letter from his pocket.
"This came into my possession the night we were at Taloona," he said slowly. "I should have returned it to you at once, but it slipped my memory until after you had gone. Then, accidentally, unthinkingly, I came to read it. I--I wish to hear what you have to say about it. I wish to know----" The sentences he had so carefully thought out fled from his brain before the calm, steadfast look with which she was regarding him.
"Do you recognise it?" he asked abruptly.
He held out the cover to her, turning it over so that she could see both sides.
"It is one of the Bank envelopes; I don"t recognise anything else," she replied.
Taking the letter from the cover, he spread it open and held it out.