Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/316

284 "Then you told me that he wasn't."

"Nor I didn't tell you that neither," said the waiter angrily.

"Then what the devil did you tell me?" To this further question the waiter sulkily declined to give any answer, and soon afterwards left the room. Toogood, as soon as he had done his breakfast, rang the bell, and the same man appeared. "Will you tell Mr. Stringer that I should be glad to see him if he's disengaged," said Mr. Toogood. "I know he's bad with the gout, and therefore if he'll allow me, I'll go to him instead of his coming to me." Mr. Stringer was the landlord of the inn. The waiter hesitated a moment, and then declared that to the best of his belief his master was not down. He would go and see. Toogood, however, would not wait for that; but rising quickly and passing the waiter, crossed the hall from the coffee-room, and entered what was called the bar. The bar was a small room connected with the hall by a large open window, at which orders for rooms were given and cash was paid, and glasses of beer were consumed,—and a good deal of miscellaneous conversation was carried on. The barmaid was here at the window, and there was also, in a corner of the room, a man at a desk with a red nose. Toogood knew that the man at the desk with the red nose was Mr. Stringer's clerk. So much he had learned in his former rummaging about the inn. And he also remembered at this moment that he had observed the man with the red nose standing under a narrow archway in the close as he was coming out of the deanery, on the occasion of his visit to Mr. Harding. It had not occurred to him then that the man with the red nose was watching him, but it did occur to him now that the man with the red nose had been there, under the arch, with the express purpose of watching him on that occasion. Mr. Toogood passed quickly through the bar into an inner parlour, in which was sitting Mr. Stringer, the landlord, propped among his cushions. Toogood, as he had entered the hotel, had seen Mr. Stringer so placed, through the two doors, which at that moment had both happened to be open. He knew therefore that his old friend the waiter had not been quite true to him in suggesting that his master was not as yet down. As Toogood cast a glance of his eye on the man with the red nose, he told himself the old story of the apparition under the archway.

"Mr. Stringer," said Mr. Toogood to the landlord, "I hope I'm not intruding."

"O dear, no, sir," said the forlorn man. "Nobody ever intrudes coming in here. I'm always happy to see gentlemen,—only, mostly, I'm so bad with the gout."