There May Be Danger by Ianthe Jerrold Page A

to go to the Veault and ask Mr. Morrison to show you Gwyn Lupton’s piece of money. Good-day to you, Mrs. Howells, I would not be worrying if I was you about Miss Gilliam’s tongue. There is other people has tongues besides Miss Gilliam, and could use them if they liked.”
    And with this dark observation Gwyn Lupton departed, bumping out with his fist and sticking on the back of his head an ancient felt hat that he had been carrying flattened under his arm.
    â€œIf words could charm away the tooth-ache, Gwyn Lupton’s wife would not be sending for cloves!” observed Mrs. Howells with a smile.
    â€œWhat did he mean by that last bit?” Kate inquired, taking a seat by the counter and studying the selection of cigarettes that shared a little glass case with some dummy packets of chocolate. 
    â€œWell, I dare say as being a carpenter and working a lot in people s houses, Gwyn Lupton gets to know things about the people he works for as they wouldn’t always like to have spread about,” explained Mrs. Howells.
    Kate smiled. No doubt a village carpenter did possess grand opportunities for inspecting the skeletons in his neighbour’s cupboards before putting the doors right!
    â€œThat was what he meant, I expect. There isn’t many houses about here as Gwyn Lupton hasn’t done repairs in, one time and another. Well, I must be getting on with my polishing.”
    â€œCan you remember, Mrs. Howells, Sidney ever saying anything about making a net?”
    â€œA net!” echoed Mrs. Howells, pausing with the flap of the counter held up in her hand. “No, I don’t remember ever he said anything about such a thing. What kind of net?”
    â€œI don’t know. But I’ve just been to the County Library. And I asked the woman there if she could remember anything Sidney Brentwood did or said when he went to the library to take that book out—you know, the one you showed me in his bedroom. And she said that he had asked her whether there was a book in the library about making nets.”
    â€œNet!”
    â€œYes. Apparently he didn’t go into any details, and she didn’t ask for them. She just said that ‘Things for a Boy to Do’ would be the only book in the library that might have a chapter on net-making, and he at once took it out and went off with it.”
    â€œNets!” echoed Mr Howells again, letting her counter fall and shaking her head in a mystified manner. “No, I cannot recollect that Sidney ever said anything at all about nets. Would it be nets for rabbiting, I wonder, or—”
    â€œI don’t know. It seems he just wanted to know how to make a net. It’s queer, isn’t it, Mrs. Howells? What could he have wanted a net for? What are nets used for?”
    â€œWell, for snaring—they uses them sometimes rabbiting, and for keeping haystacks down. And for putting over fruit. But if Sidney had wanted to go rabbit-snaring he could have borrowed a net, there’s plenty about!”
    â€œHe may not have wanted a net, I suppose. He may have just wanted for some reason to know how to make one,” said Kate, though from what she had heard of Sidney Brentwood his interests were more likely to be practical than theoretical.
    A little quiver passed over Mrs. Howells’ broad rosy face. “If that was all he wanted, Corney could have showed him how to do netting! But boys is funny, they will not say what is mostly in their hearts, they gives themselves and everyone else a lot of trouble sooner than speak out, they is like that, boys!”
    Mrs. Howells departed to her polishing in the already brightly polished kitchen, and Kate sat a moment or two in the shop, reflecting on these last remarks. If Sidney had wanted to learn netting sufficiently to look for a book on the subject in the library, and yet had not mentioned his desire to Mr. and Mrs. Howells, it seemed probable that his net-making was