Tembarom was rather silent during the first part of their walk, and when he spoke it was of Captain Palliser.
“He’s a fellow that’s got lots of curiosity. I guess he’s asked you more questions than he’s asked me,” he began at last, and he looked at her interestedly, though she was not aware of it.
“I thought,--” she hesitated slightly because she did not wish to be critical,--“I sometimes thought he asked me too many. He asked so much about you and your life in New York, but more, I think, about you and Mr. Strangeways. He was really quite persistent once or twice about poor Mr. Strangeways.”
“He asked if I had seen him, and if you had preferred that I should not. He calls him your mystery, and thinks your keeping him here is so extraordinary.”
“I guess it is, the way he’d look at it,” Tembarom dropped in.
“He was so anxious to find out what he looked like. He asked how old he was and how tall, and whether he was quite mad or only a little, and where you picked him up, and when, and what reason you gave for not putting him in some respectable asylum. I could only say that I really knew nothing about him, and that I hadn’t seen him because he had a dread of strangers and I was a little timid.”
“I wonder,” she said, still hesitating even after her pause--“I wonder if I ought to mention a rather rude thing I once saw him do?”
“Yes, you ought,” Tembarom answered promptly, “I’ve a reason for wanting to know.”
“It was such a singular thing to do--in the circumstances,” she went on obediently. “He knew, as we all know, that Mr. Strangeways must _not_ be disturbed. One afternoon I saw him walk slowly backward and forward before the west room window. He had something in his hand, and kept looking up. That was what first attracted my attention--his queer way of looking up. Quite suddenly he threw something which rattled on the panes of glass; it sounded like gravel or small pebbles. I couldn’t help believing he thought Mr. Strangeways would be startled into coming to the window.”
“He did that twice,” he said. “Pearson caught him at it, though Palliser didn’t know he did. He’d have done it three times, or more than that, perhaps, but I casually mentioned in the smoking-room one night that some curious fool of a gardener-boy had thrown some stones and frightened Strangeways, and that Pearson and I were watching for him, and that if I caught him, I was going to knock his block off--_bing_! He didn’t do it again. Darned fool! And he’d better not try it again when he comes back,” remarked Tembarom.