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Tufnell, where the ceilings and mantels are especially fine and the library boasts interesting panelled walls, once enlivened by stained glass windows, when this room was used as a private chapel for the family. Jacobean carving was never ornate. Twenty years later came the Queen Anne period. Queen Anne chairs show a solid splat, sometimes vase-shaped, and strap-work arabesques.
Colwyn, happening to glance over the balusters, saw the motionless figure of Tufnell standing at the bottom of the staircase partly concealed by the group of ornamental shrubs in the hall. His face was turned upwards with an aspect of strained curiosity, but it was immediately withdrawn as his eyes encountered Colwyn's downward gaze. A moment later Colwyn saw him enter the dining-room.
"Have you told them everything?" Miss Heredith spoke to Tufnell. Her dry lips formed the words rather than uttered them, but the old retainer understood her, and bowed without speaking. "What do you wish to do first, Detective Caldew?" she added, turning to him, and speaking with more composure. She was quick to realize that he would take the lead in the police investigations.
It was a curious mixture of song, recitation, addresses, and readings, in which many noble sentiments were uttered, and not a few humorous anecdotes and incidents related. It was presided over by Tufnell, the manager, a soldierly-looking man, who had himself originally been in the army, and who had, for many years, been Miss Robinson's right-hand man.
The stranger then stepping out advanced towards her, and once more bowed. "Miss Alice Tufnell?" he said in a tone of inquiry. "That is my name," she answered, looking at him with a somewhat doubtful expression. He was a young man, tallish and thin, with a complexion burnt to a dark brown, his countenance showing that he had undergone toil, if not probably also sickness and suffering.
Heredith, and the cook was so angry with the questions he asked her that she was going to give a month's warning on the spot, but old Tufnell talked her over, saying that it was only done in the way of duty, no personal reflection being intended. Tufnell begged her pardon for what she'd had to put up with, and the cook granted it, and there the matter ended. But they do say that Mrs.
After dinner they played billiards or auction bridge, and the ladies knitted war socks or sustained themselves till bedtime with copious draughts of the mild stimulant supplied by their favourite lady novelists. At half-past ten o'clock Tufnell entered with a tray of glasses, and the guests partook of a little refreshment.
But Tufnell was pouring out coffee and handing cigars with the slow deliberation of a man sufficiently old to have outlived any illusions about the value of time. Philip Heredith lit a cigarette. Musard waved away the cigar-box and produced a strong black cheroot from the crocodile-skin case. Colwyn declined a cigar, and his coffee remained untasted in front of him.
The back staircase and entrance are never used by the members of the household, and the key, which was inside the door, may have been there for days without being noticed. Tufnell admits that it was only by chance he tried the door yesterday. He had not tried it for weeks before." "I'll have a look at this door later. And now, we had better get to work.
A hireling, beyond question, catering for a demand. I gathered there was a home in Tufnell Park, and three boys to be fed and clothed and educated.... I had the curiosity to buy a copy of his magazine afterwards, and it seemed much the same sort of thing that had worried my mother in my boyhood. There was the usual Christian hero, this time with mutton-chop whiskers and a long bare upper lip.
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