Chapter 39

It was Mr. Hutchinson who, having an eye on the window, first announced an arriving carriage.

"Some of 'em's comin' from the station," he remarked. "There's no young woman with 'em, that I can see from here."

"I thought I heard wheels." Miss Alicia went to look out, agitatedly. "It is the gentlemen. Perhaps Lady Joan--" she turned desperately to the duke. "I don't know what to say to Lady Joan. I don't know what she will say to me. I don't know what she is coming for, Little Ann, do keep near me!"

It was a pretty thing to see Little Ann stroke her hand and soothe her.

"Don't be frightened, Miss Temple Barholm. All you've got to do is to answer questions," she said.

"But I might say things that would be wrong--things that would harm him."

"No, you mightn't, Miss Temple Barholm. He's not done anything that could bring harm on him."

The Duke of Stone, who had seated himself in T. Tembarom's favorite chair, which occupied a point of vantage, seemed to Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby when they entered the room to wear the aspect of a sort of presidiary audience. The sight of his erect head and clear-cut, ivory- tinted old face, with its alert, while wholly unbiased, expression, somewhat startled them both. They had indeed not expected to see him, and did not know why he had chosen to come. His presence might mean any one of several things, and the fact that he enjoyed a reputation for quite alarming astuteness of a brilliant kind presented elements of probable embarrassment. If he thought that they had allowed themselves to be led upon a wild-goose chase, he would express his opinions with trying readiness of phrase.

His manner of greeting them, however, expressed no more than a lightly agreeable detachment from any view whatsoever. Captain Palliser felt this curiously, though he could not have said what he would have expected from him if he had known it would be his whim to appear.

"How do you do? How d' you do?" His Grace shook hands with the amiable ease which scarcely commits a man even to casual interest, after which he took his seat again.

"How d' do, Miss Hutchinson?" said Palliser. "How d' do, Mr. Hutchinson? Mr. Palford will be glad to find you here."

Mr. Palford shook hands with correct civility.

"I am, indeed," he said. "It was in your room in New York that I first saw Mr. Temple Temple Barholm."

"Aye, it was," responded Hutchinson, dryly.

"I thought Lady Joan was coming," Miss Alicia said to Palliser.

"She will be here presently. She came down in our train, but not with us."

"What--what is she coming for?" faltered Miss Alicia.

"Yes," put in the duke, "what, by the way, is she coming for?"

"I wrote and asked her to come," was Palliser's reply. "I have reason to believe she may be able to recall something of value to the inquiry which is being made."