in all this with greedy ear's.
"Ha!" he said, "when you took in the letter, might you have looked at the postmark, my friend?"
With an access of color, the footman admitted that he had been curious enough to do so.
"And the postmark was Kingston, Jamaica," said he.
"It recalls my youth," said Cicero. "Ah! they were happy, happy days!"
"What was Mr. Marlow, sir?"
"A planter of--of--rice," hazarded Gramp. He knew that there were planters in the West Indies, but he was not quite sure what it was they planted. "Rice--acres of it!"
"Well, he didn't make his money out of that, sir," growled the coachman.
"No, he did not," admitted the professor of elocution. "He acquired his millions in Mashonaland--the Ophir of the Jews."
This last piece of knowledge had been acquired from Slack, the schoolmaster.
"He was precious careful not to part with none of it," said the footman.
"Except to Dr. Warrender," said the cook. "The doctor was always screwing money out of him. Not that it was so much 'im as 'is wife. I can't abear that doctor's wife--a stuck-up peacock, I call her. She fairly ruined her husband in clothes. Miss Sophy didn't like her, neither."
"Dick's child!" cried Gramp, who had by this time procured a cigar from the footman. "Ah! is little Sophy still alive?"
He lighted the cigar and puffed luxuriously.
"Still alive!" echoed Mrs. Crammer, "and as pretty as a picture. Dark 'air, dark eyes--not a bit like 'er father."
"No," said Cicero, grasping the idea. "Dick was fair when we were boys. I heard rumors that little Sophy was engaged--let me see--to a Mr. Thorold."
"Alan Thorold, Esquire," corrected the coachman gruffly; "one of the oldest families hereabouts, as lives at the Abbey farm. He's gone with her to the seaside."
"To the seaside? Not to Brighton?"
"Nothin' of the sort--to Bournemouth, if you know where that is."
"I know some things, my friend," said Cicero mildly. "It was Bournemouth I meant--not unlike Brighton, I think, since both names begin with a B. I know that Miss Marlow--dear little Sophy!--is staying at the Imperial Hotel, Bournemouth."
"You're just wrong!" cried Thomas, falling into the trap; "she is at the Soudan Hotel. I've got the address to send on letters."
"Can I take them?" asked Gramp, rising. "I am going to Bournemouth to see little Sophy and Mr. Thorold. I shall tell them of your hospitality."
Before the footman could reply to this generous offer, the page-boy of the establishment darted in much excited.
"Oh, here's a go!" he exclaimed. "Dr. Warrender's run away, an' the Quiet Gentleman's followed!"
"Wot d'ye mean, Billy?"
"Wot I say. The doctor ain't bin 'ome all night, nor all mornin', an' Mrs. Warrender's in hysterics over him. Their 'ousemaid I met shoppin' tole me."
The servants looked at one another. Here was more trouble, more excitement.
"And the Quiet Gentleman?" asked the cook with ghoulish interest.
"He's gone, too. Went out larst night, an' never come back. Mrs. Marry thinks he's bin murdered."
There was a babel of voices and cries, but after a moment quiet was restored. Then Cicero placed his hand on the boy's head.
"My boy," he said pompously, "who is the Quiet Gentleman? Let us be clear upon the point of the Quiet Gentleman."
"Don't you know, sir?" put in the eager cook. "He's a mystery, 'aving bin staying at Mrs. Marry's cottage, she a lone widder taking in boarders."
"I'll give a week's notice!" sobbed the scullery-maid. "These crimes is too much for me."
"I didn't say the Quiet Gentleman 'ad been murdered," said Billy, the page; "but Mrs. Marry only thinks so, cos 'e ain't come 'ome.'
"As like as not he's cold and stiff in some lonely grave!" groaned Mrs. Crammer hopefully.
"The Quiet Gentleman," said Cicero, bent upon acquiring further information--"tall, yellow-bearded, with a high forehead and a bald head?"
"Well, I never, sir!" cried Jane, the housemaid. "If you ain't describing Dr. Warrender! Did you know him, sir?"
Cicero was quite equal to the occasion.
"I knew him professionally. He attended me for a relaxed throat. I was vox et præterea nihil until he cured me. But what was this mysterious gentleman like? Short, eh?"
"No; tall and thin, with a stoop. Long white hair, longer beard and black eyes like gimblets," gabbled the cook. "I met 'im arter dark one evenin', and I declare as 'is eyes were glow-worms. Ugh! They looked me through and through. I've never bin the same woman since."
At this moment a raucous voice came from the inner doorway.
"What the devil's all this?" was the polite question.
Cicero turned, and saw a heavily-built man surveying the company in general, and himself in particular, anything but favorably. His face was a mahogany hue, and he had a veritable tangle of whiskers and hair. The whole cut of the man was distinctly nautical, his trousers being of the dungaree, and his pea-jacket plentifully sprinkled with brass buttons. In his ears he wore rings of gold, and his clenched fists hung by his side as though eager for any emergency, and "the sooner the better." That was how he impressed Cicero, who, in nowise fancying the expression on his face, edged towards the door.
"Oh, Joe!" shrieked the cook, "wot a turn you give me! an' sich news as we've 'ad!"
"News!" said Joe uneasily, his eyes still on Cicero.
"Mrs. Warrender's lost her husband, and the Quiet Gentleman's disappeared mysterious!"
"Rubbish! Get to your work, all of you!"
So saying, Joe drove the frightened crowd hither and thither to their respective duties, and Cicero, somewhat to his dismay, found himself alone with the buccaneer, as he had inwardly dubbed the newcomer.
"Who the devil are you?" asked Joe, advancing.
"Fellow," replied Cicero, getting into the doorway, "I am a friend of your late master. Cicero Gramp is my name. I came here to see Dick Marlow, but I find he's gone aloft."
Joe turned pale, even through his tan.
"A friend of Mr. Marlow," he repeated hoarsely. "That's a lie! I've been with him these thirty years, and I never saw you!"
"Not in Jamaica?" inquired Cicero sweetly.
"Jamaica? What do you mean?"
"What
