Hewitt had stepped out for a few minutes, and I was sitting alone in his private room, when I became conscious of some disturbance in the outer office. An excited female voice was audible making impatient inquiries. Presently Kerrett, Hewitt’s clerk, came in with the message that a lady--Mrs. Geldard was the name on the visitor’s slip that she had filled up--was anxious to see Mr. Hewitt, at once, and failing himself, had decided to see me, whom Kerrett had calmly taken it upon himself to describe as Hewitt’s confidential assistant. He apologised for this, and explained that he thought, as the lady seemed excited, it would be as well to let her see me to begin with, if there was no objection, and perhaps she would begin to be coherent and intelligible by Hewitt’s arrival, which might occur at any moment. So the lady was shown in. She was tall, bony, and severe of face, and she began as soon as she saw me: “I’ve come to get you to get a watch set on my husband. I’ve endured this sort of thing in silence long enough. I won’t have it. I’ll see if there’s no protection to be had for a woman treated as I am--with his goings out all day ‘on business’ when his office is shut up tight all the time. I wanted to see Mr. Hewitt himself, but I suppose you’ll do, for the present at any rate though I’ll have it sifted to the bottom and get the best advice to be had, no matter what it costs though I _am_ only a woman with nobody to confide in or to speak a word for me and I’m not going to be crushed like a fly as I’ll soon let him know.”
Here I seized a short opportunity to offer Mrs. Geldard a chair, and to say that I expected Mr. Hewitt in a few minutes.
“Very well, I’ll wait and see him. But you have to do with the watching business, no doubt, and you’ll understand what it is I want done; and I’m sure I’m justified, and mean to sift it to the bottom, whatever happens. Am I to be kept in total ignorance of what my husband does all day when he is supposed to be at business? Is it likely I should submit to that?”
I said I didn’t think it likely at all, which was a fact. Mrs. Geldard appeared to be about the least submissive woman I ever saw.
“No, and I won’t, that’s more. Nice goings on somewhere, no doubt, with his office shut up all day and the business going to ruin. I want you to watch him. I want you to follow him to-morrow morning and find out all he does and let me know. I’ve followed him myself this morning and yesterday morning, but he gets away somehow from the back of his office, and I can’t watch on two staircases at once, so I want you to come and do it, and I’ll--”