Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/231

222 How he passed his time I cannot say, for I never had the curiosity to enter the outhouse while he was there, and immediately after his return to London I ordered Willet to throw away everything that it contained, and to whitewash the place thoroughly. If he had been so careless as to blow himself up or to drink oxalic acid, I should have regarded the accident as outside my responsibility after the confidence which his own father had expressed. I saw very little of him except at mealtimes, and I have since learned that when I was out he persuaded the cook (this self-effacing boy who would never be a nuisance) to let him smuggle down to the tool-house food not only for himself but also to feed, at my expense, a youth of the village whom he selected as an associate.

This person, Blithers by name, was the son of the local chemist, and although I understand that at home he showed a marked dislike for his father's business, he professed to become so attracted to Bobbie's society that he willingly and even enthusiastically accepted the position of honorary assistant in the tool-house. This, at least, was the view presented by the invaluable Willet in response to a hint on my part that he might occasionally find it necessary to loiter about the door of the shed and to look in at the windows as he passed, but one does not go through life without learning to become sceptical of these disinterested friendships, and the importance which a young person in Blithers's position would receive among his ordinary companions if he could claim a connection however remote, with "The Grange," supplies a much more reasonable explanation.

The incentive on Bobbie's part is even less creditable, for it is now established beyond all doubt that the unhappy Blithers, in order to ingratiate himself, pilfered (yes, I am sorry that I am unable to substitute a milder