tric coupe stood
at his private door, and his own luggage and Simon Shawn's luggage--for
Simon never entrusted his master to other hands--lay on the roof of the
coupe. Simon, anxiously looking at his watch, chatted with the driver.
Hugo had been stopped on emerging from the lift by the chief accountant
concerning some technical question. At length he came out into the
street.

'Shaving it close, aren't we, Simon?' he remarked, and sprang into the
vehicle, and Simon banged the door and sprang on to the box, and they
seemed to be actually off, much to the relief of Simon, who wanted a
holiday badly.

But they were not actually off. At that very instant, as the driver
pulled his lever, Albert Shawn came frantically into the scene from
somewhere, and signalled the driver to wait. Simon cursed his brother.

'Mr. Hugo,' Albert whispered, as he put his head into the coupe.

'Well, my lad?'

'I suppose you've heard? They've turned up again at the flat. Yes, this
morning.'

'Who have turned up again?'

'That's the point, sir. Some of 'em. And there's been a funeral
ordered.'

'A funeral? Whose funeral? From _us_?

'Yes, sir; but whose--that's another point. You see, I've just run along
to let you know how far I've got. Not that you gave me any instructions.
But when I heard of a funeral--'

'Is it a man's or a woman's?' Hugo demanded, thinking to himself: 'I
must keep calm. I must keep calm.'

'Don't know, sir.'

'But surely the order-book--'

'No order for coffin, sir. Merely the cortege; day after to-morrow;
parties making their own arrangements at cemetery. Brompton.'

'And did none of the porters see who arrived at the flat this morning?'

'None of 'em knows enough to be sure, sir.'

'Well,' said Hugo, 'there isn't likely to be a funeral without a coffin,
and no porter could be blind to a coffin going upstairs.'

'I can't get wind of any coffin, sir.'

'And that's all you've learnt?'

'That's the hang of it, sir--up to now. But I can wire you to-night or
to-morrow, with further particulars.'

Hugo glanced at the carriage-clock in front of him, and thought of the
famine of porters at Waterloo Station in August, and invented several
other plausible excuses for a resolution which he foresaw that he was
about to arrive at.

'You've made me miss my train,' he said, pretending to be annoyed.

'Sorry, sir. Simon, the governor isn't going.'

Simon descended from the box for confirmation, a fratricide i