Chapter 23 - Page 2

a more decided course of action.

Confident in the rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense
of overhanging danger closing in around, he resolved, if his mother
would still admit of no approach, to make a desperate appeal to
Affery. If she could be brought to become communicative, and to do
what lay in her to break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the
house, he might shake off the paralysis of which every hour that
passed over his head made him more acutely sensible. This was the
result of his day's anxiety, and this was the decision he put in
practice when the day closed in.

His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the
door open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If
circumstances had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would
have opened the door to his knock. Circumstances being uncommonly
unfavourable, the door stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was smoking
his pipe on the steps.

'Good evening,' said Arthur.

'Good evening,' said Mr Flintwinch.

The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's mouth, as if it
circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his
wry throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the
crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river.

'Have you any news?' said Arthur.

'We have no news,' said Jeremiah.

'I mean of the foreign man,' Arthur explained.

_'I_ mean of the foreign man,' said Jeremiah.

He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat
under his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not
for the first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his
own have got rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and
his safety, that were at issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps
not actively strong; yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as
crusty as an old jackdaw. Such a man, coming behind a much younger
and more vigorous man, and having the will to put an end to him and
no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that solitary place at
a late hour.

While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts
drifted over the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr
Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his
neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious
expression upon him; more as if he were trying to bite off the stem
of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying
it in his own way.

'You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call,
Arthur, I should think,' said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped
to knock the ashes out.

Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he