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His right hand was thrust into his pocket. He was touching his battered hat with the other. "Beg pardon, miss," he said raucously, "name of Jaggs! And I have reported for dooty!" Jack Glover listened gravely to the story which the girl told.
I'm dreadfully sorry, I thought she had gone into Monte Carlo. She's in her room with a bad headache. Will you come and see her?" There was an interval of silence. "Yes, I will come," said Jaggs. Twenty minutes later a taxicab set down the old man at the door, and a maid admitted him and brought him into the saloon. Jean rose to meet him. She looked at the bowed figure of old Jaggs.
He did not fire because there was a chance that it might have been one of the detectives who had promised to keep an eye upon the Villa Casa in view of the murderous threats which Jean had received. Noiselessly he rose and stepped in his rubber shoes to the darker end of the stoep. It was old Jaggs. There was no mistaking him.
And yet she had said nothing but sweet things. When she got back to the flat that night she found that Mr. Jaggs had not been there all the evening. He came in a few minutes after her, wrapped up in an old army coat, and from his appearance she gathered that he had been standing out in the rain and sleet the whole of the evening. "Why, Jaggs," she said impulsively, "wherever have you been?"
"I think she may have done," said the girl defiantly; "what was the third attempt?" "The third attempt," said Jack slowly, "was to infect your bed with a malignant fever." "Jean did it?" said the girl incredulously. "Oh no, that would be impossible." "The child was in your bed. Jaggs saw it and threw two buckets of water over the bed, so that you should not sleep in it." She was silent.
The house in Curzon Street had been bought and she had been a round of furnishers, paper-hangers and fitters of all variety. The trip to the Riviera came at the right moment. She could leave Mrs. Morgan in charge and come back to her new home, which was to be ready in two months. Amongst other things, the problem of the watchful Mr. Jaggs would be settled automatically.
The very sight of the door behind which old Jaggs sat having his "big think" was an irritation to her. She could not sleep for a long time that night for thinking of him sitting in the darkness, and "listening" as he put it, and had firmly resolved on ending a condition of affairs which was particularly distasteful to her, when she fell asleep.
"Let me know when you want this to end, Jean," he said. "It will end almost immediately. Please do not trouble," said Jean, "and there is one other thing, father. If you see Mr. Jaggs in the garden to-night, I beg of you do not attempt to shoot him. He is a very useful man." Her father sank back in his chair. "You're beyond me," he said, helplessly.
"Come in," said Lydia helplessly. "Isn't it right?" asked the girl a little disappointedly. "They sent me my fare. I came up by the first train." "It is quite all right," said Lydia, "only I'm wondering who is running this flat, me or Mr. Jaggs?" Jean Briggerland had spent a very busy afternoon. There had been a string of callers at the handsome house in Berkeley Street. Mr.
"I'm not going to be insulted," almost screamed Lucy, though there was a note of fear in her strident voice. "I'm going to leave to-night." "No you ain't, my dear," said old Jaggs complacently. "You're going to sleep here to-night, and you're going to leave in the morning. If you try to get out of that door before I let you, you'll be pinched."
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