“I haven’t got any children,” said Julius loudly.
“She may marry again,” he said considerately. “She is probably in the prime of life. There may still be happiness for her.”
“You ain’t half putting the wind up me!” he said fretfully.
“To-night I sleep in sound of your voice. Have no hesitation in calling me. Perhaps I may arrive in time to save you. I pray that this may be. I like you. We are--who knows?--kinsmen. He who strikes you, strikes me--Guiseppi Dempsi.”
Mr. Superbus got up; his knees were without strength, his tongue was parched.
“Well, if you’re sleeping here, and Mr. Bobbie is sleeping here, there doesn’t seem any call for me to stay, does there? Not that it worries me. Far from it. Danger is always welcome to a Superbus. It’s my good lady I’m thinking of. I was going to sleep in this room. Seems silly.”
“I shall be on hand,” said Mr. Dempsi, and examined the short-barrelled revolver he had taken from his hip pocket.
“I’m a match for any man of my own weight,” he said, his voice trembling as he thought of the terrible risk which any burglar of his own weight would run, “if he’ll only give me a chance. But they don’t give you a chance. They’re on you before you know where you are--is that fair?”
Dempsi did not answer. Aunt Lizzie had chosen that moment to wander into the room. Julius seized the opportunity to steal from the unnecessary gaiety that shone through Mr. Dempsi’s sympathy--his eagerness to frame epitaphs which Julius would never see, his cold-blooded plottings for the future of his good lady.
The atmosphere of a kitchen, however clean and well-ordered it may be, is calculated to pall on any man of intellect and genius. It needs the gross mind of a materialist, a man like the husband of Heloise (Gordon’s expression was one of distaste as he thought of that man) to appreciate the lingering fragrance of long-baked and long-consumed pies, the everlasting aroma which the spluttering hot oven has sent forth from time to time through the years, to permeate the homely furniture, and through that medium to retain its delicate nidus for the joy of those lovers of good food to whom such smells were appetising.
Gordon had read everything that was readable. He had skipped through two cookery books, and had read the old newspapers in the wood cupboard. The almanac above the kitchen range he knew by heart, so that he could have told you the exact date when everybody of importance was born, married or assassinated.