'Well, my lad?'
'I suppose you've heard? They've turned up again at the flat. Yes, this
morning.'
'Who have turned up again?'
'That's the point, sir. Some of 'em. And there's been a funeral
ordered.'
'A funeral? Whose funeral? From _us_?
'Yes, sir; but whose--that's another point. You see, I've just run along
to let you know how far I've got. Not that you gave me any instructions.
But when I heard of a funeral--'
'Is it a man's or a woman's?' Hugo demanded, thinking to himself: 'I
must keep calm. I must keep calm.'
'Don't know, sir.'
'But surely the order-book--'
'No order for coffin, sir. Merely the cortege; day after to-morrow;
parties making their own arrangements at cemetery. Brompton.'
'And did none of the porters see who arrived at the flat this morning?'
'None of 'em knows enough to be sure, sir.'
'Well,' said Hugo, 'there isn't likely to be a funeral without a coffin,
and no porter could be blind to a coffin going upstairs.'
'I can't get wind of any coffin, sir.'
'And that's all you've learnt?'
'That's the hang of it, sir--up to now. But I can wire you to-night or
to-morrow, with further particulars.'
Hugo glanced at the carriage-clock in front of him, and thought of the
famine of porters at Waterloo Station in August, and invented several
other plausible excuses for a resolution which he foresaw that he was
about to arrive at.
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