But hers would not be a lonely tenancy, however; for "Captain Horatio Burdage" had recently written to Mrs. Condiment that, as the Sleeping Mermaid seemed likely to prove an unprofitable investment after all and to bring her little reward for her labours, he purposed relinquishing it and recalling "Old Joseph" to him; and with that end in view had already secured for the good lady a position as companion-housekeeper to one Miss Ailsa Lorne, who, in the early part of June, would call upon her at her present quarters and personally conduct her and the deaf-and-dumb maid-of-all-work to their future ones.
Here, then, in this bower of bloom, would this dear girl of his heart await the coming of that glorious day when the last act of restitution had been made, the last Vanishing Cracksman debt wiped off the slate, and he could go to her--clean-handed at last--to ask the fulfilment of her promise.
Remembering that, it was a sheer delight to be free from all Yard calls for a time that he might give his whole attention to the work of getting the place ready for her; and day after day he was busy in the high-walled old-world garden--digging, planting, pruning--that when she came it might be brimming over with flowers.
But although he devoted himself mind and body to this task and lived each day within the limits of that confining wall, he had not wholly lost touch with the world at large, for each morning the telephone--installed against the time of Ailsa's tenancy--put him into communication with Mr. Narkom at the Yard, and each night a newspaper carried in to him by Dollops kept him abreast of the topics of the times.
It was over that telephone he received the first assurance that his haste in getting out of Yorkshire had not been an unnecessary precaution, his suspicions regarding the probable action of the Nosworths not ill grounded, for Mr. Narkom was able to inform him that carefully made inquiries had elicited the intelligence that, within two days after the Round House affair, men who were undoubtedly foreigners were making diligent inquiries throughout the West Riding regarding the whereabouts of two men and a boy who had been travelling about in a two-horsed caravan.