Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/175

Rh and got a family—across with my bill. She came back saying that she could make no one hear; and, through my window, I could see she couldn’t. ‘That’s all right,’ I said, ‘There’s no fear for Mr. Robertson’—I’d such a respect for the man—‘he’s sure to pay.’ But, if sure, he’s been precious slow; for, as I say, that three seven four is on my books to this hour.”

“If, as you say, the old gentleman lived alone, he may have been lying dead in the house all the time.”

“That’s what I’ve felt. And, what’s more, I’ve felt that his skeleton may be lying there now.”

“You suggest some agreeable reflections. Do you mean to say that, during all these years, no one has been in the house to see?”

“No one.” He paused; presently adding, in a tone which he intended should be pregnant with meaning, “At least, until shortly before this last Christmas. And I’ve no certainty about that. A man can only draw his own conclusions.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see those shutters? Well, for over twenty years there weren’t any shutters hiding those windows. One morning I looked across the street, and there they were.”

“Someone had put them up in the night?”

“That was my impression. But Mrs. Varley, who lives next door to this, says that she noticed them coming for about a week. Each morning there was another window shuttered. She never mentioned a word of it to me; so that I can only tell you that when I saw them first they were all up.”

“Who was responsible for their appearance?”

“That’s what I should like to know. Directly I clapped eyes on them I went straight across the road, and knocked at the door; thinking that if old Robertson had come back—though he’d be pretty ancient if he had—I might get my money after all; and that if