Sometimes I could have pitied her, she was so greedy, so spiteful, so
friendless. She always made me think of some wicked old pirate putting
into a peaceful port to provision and repair his battered old hulk,
obliged to live on friendly terms with the natives, but his piratical old
nostrils asniff for plunder and his piratical old soul longing to be off
marauding once more. When would that be? Not till the arrival in Paris of
her distinguished American friends, of whom we heard a great deal.
"Charming people, the Bokums of Chicago, the American branch of the
English Beauchamps, you know!" They seemed to be taking an unconscionable
time to get there. She would have insisted on being driven over to
Northchurch to call at the palace, but that the bishop was understood to
be holding confirmations at the other end of the diocese.
I was alone in the house one afternoon sitting by my window, toying with
the key of my safe, and wondering whether I dare treat myself to a peep at
my treasures, when a suspicious movement in the park below caught my
attention. A black figure certainly dodged from behind one tree to the
next, and then into the shadow of the park paling instead of keeping to
the footpath. It looked queer. I caught up my field glass and marked him
at one point where he was bound to come into the open for a few steps.
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