With that she went down to the kitchen regions; she was no respecter of persons, and she thanked God she had plenty of her own business to mind, and never troubled herself poking into other people’s.  Consequently, though she might wonder what a man of Rawson-Clew’s appearance should want with her lodgers, she did not let it interfere with her work, or take the edge off her tongue in the heated argument she held with the milkman, who came directly after.

Rawson-Clew found his way up the stairs; they were steep, and had rather the appearance of having been omitted in the original plan of the house, and squeezed in as an afterthought, when it was found really impossible to do without.  There was no window to give light to them, or air either; hence, no doubt, the antiquity of the flavour of cabbage and fried bacon with hung about them.  But Rawson-Clew, when he ascended, found the second door without trouble; there was not room to get lost.  He knocked; he half expected to hear Julia’s voice; it seemed to him probable that she was the person referred to as “one of them.”  But it was a man who bade him enter, and, unless his memory played him false, not Captain Polkington.

It was not the Captain, it was Johnny Gillat.  He was reading the newspaper—­Captain Polkington had it in the morning, he in the afternoon; he wore, or attempted to (they fell off rather often), very old slippers indeed, and a coat of surprising shabbiness which he reserved for home use.  For a moment he stared at his visitor in astonishment, and Rawson-Clew apologised for his intrusion.  “I was looking for Captain Polkington,” he said.  “I was told he was probably here.”

“Ah!” Mr. Gillat exclaimed, his face lighting into a smile.  “Of course, of course!  Captain Polkington’s out just now, but he’ll be in soon.  Come in, won’t you; come in and wait for him.”

He hospitably dragged forward the shabby easy-chair.  “Try that, won’t you?” he said.  “It’s really comfortable—­not that one, that’s a little weak in the legs; it ought to be put away; it’s deceptive to people who don’t know it.”

He pushed the offending chair against the wall, his slippers flapping on his feet, so that he thought it less noticeable to surreptitiously kick them off.  “My name’s Gillat,” he went on.  “Captain Polkington is an old friend of mine.”

“Mr. Gillat?” Rawson-Clew said.  He remembered the name, and something Julia had said about the bearer of it.  It was he who had given her the big gold watch she wore, and he of whom she had seemed fond, in a half-protecting, half-patient way, that was rather inexplicable—­at least it was till he saw Mr. Gillat.

“Perhaps,” Rawson-Clew said, “you can tell me what I want to know—­it is about Miss Julia Polkington.  I met her in Holland during the summer.”

He may have thought of giving some idea of intimacy, or of explaining his interest; but, if so, he changed his mind; anything of the kind was perfectly unnecessary to Mr. Gillat, who did not dream of questioning his reason.