So he whistles it off and marches on.

Arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn’s stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, “Who is that?  What are you doing there?”

“I ask your pardon, sir.  It’s George.  The sergeant.”

“And couldn’t George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?”

“Why, no, sir, I couldn’t.  At any rate, I didn’t,” says the trooper, rather nettled.

“Have you changed your mind?  Or are you in the same mind?” Mr. Tulkinghorn demands.  But he knows well enough at a glance.

“In the same mind, sir.”

“I thought so.  That’s sufficient.  You can go.  So you are the man,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, “in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?”

“Yes, I am the man,” says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down.  “What then, sir?”

“What then?  I don’t like your associates.  You should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man.  Gridley?  A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.”

With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise.

Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them to him.  “A pretty character to bear,” the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs.  “A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!” And looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.  This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill humour.  But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Ironmaster

Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a figurative point of view, upon his legs.  He is at his place in Lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds, and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended, and eke into Sir Leicester’s bones.  The blazing fires of faggot and coal—­Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest—­that blaze upon the broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods, sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy.  The hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to supply the fires’ deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester’s need.  Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to town for a few weeks.