"Excuse me, mum, but do you happen to know a Mr Charles Denton?"
The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but
noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly
respectable, replied bluntly, in a pronounced Lancashire dialect,--
"Yes, I do. What may you want with him?"
"I want to see him on some important business," was my vague reply. "Is
he at home?"
"No, he ain't," was the woman's response. "Mr Denton lodges with me,
but 'e's up in London just now, and 'e's been there this four months."
"In London!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, but I don't know his address. When he goes away 'e never leaves
it. He's lodged with me this two years, but I don't think 'e's been
here more than six months altogether the whole time."
"Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?"
"Yes, quite a lot," answered the good woman. The letter sent by the
dead man might be among them!
"It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton--about a
registered letter. I've come from London on purpose."
"From London!" ejaculated the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.
"Yes. I wonder whether you'd mind me looking at the letters, if it is
among them I'd know he had not received it. The fact is," I added in
confidence, "there's a big lawsuit pending, and if he hasn't got the
letter then the other side can't take any action against him."
"Then you're on his side?" she asked shrewdly.
"Of course I am. I came down to explain matters to him. If I can
ascertain that he didn't get the letter then that's all I want. I'm a
stranger, I know," I added, "but as it is in Mr Denton's interest I
don't think you'll refuse."
She hesitated, saying she thought she ought to ask her husband when he
returned from the mill. But by assuring her of her lodger's peril, and
that I had to catch the six-thirty train back to London, I at last
induced her to admit me to the house, and there in the small, clean,
front parlour which was given over to her lodger when he was there, she
took a quantity of letters from a cupboard and placed them before me.
Among the accumulated correspondence were quite a number of registered
letters, and several little packets which most likely contained articles
of value.
While I chatted with the woman with affected carelessness, pretending to
be on very friendly terms with her lodger, I quickly fixed upon the
letter in question, a registered envelope directed in a man's educated
hand, and bearing the Blandford post-mark.
In order, however, to divert her attention, I took up another letter,
declaring that to be the important one, and that the fact of his not
having received it was sufficient to prevent the action being brought.
"I'm very glad of that," she declared in satisfaction. "Mr Denton is
such a quiet gentleman. When he's here he hardly ever goes out, but
sits here reading and writing all day."
"Yes," I agreed, "he's very studious--always was--but a very excellent
friend. One of the very best."
"So my husband always says. We only wish he was here more."
"I saw him in London about a month ago," I remarked, in order to sustain
the fiction.
How I longed to open that letter that lay so tantalisingly before me.
But what could I do? Such a thing was not to be thought of. Therefore,
I had to watch the woman gather the correspondence together and replace
them in the cupboard.