The parcel was closed when he was in the room a
half-hour before. Ingolby had opened it since, had been called out, and
had forgotten to cover the things up or put them away.
"Sit down," Jim said to the Romany, still covering the disguise. Then he
raised them in his arms, and passed with them into another room,
muttering angrily to himself.
The Romany had seen, however. They were the first things on which his
eyes had fallen when he entered the room. A wig, a false beard, and
workman's clothes! What were they for? Were these disguises for the
Master Gorgio? Was he to wear them? If so, he--Jethro Fawe--would watch
and follow him wherever he went. Had these disguises to do with
Fleda--with his Romany lass?
His pulses throbbed; he was in an overwrought mood. He was ready for any
illusion, susceptible to any vagary of the imagination.
He looked round the room. So this was the way the swaggering, masterful
Gorgio lived?
Here were pictures and engravings which did not seem to belong to a new
town in a new land, where everything was useful or spectacular. Here was
a sense of culture and refinement. Here were finished and unfinished
water-colours done by Ingolby's own hand or bought by him from some
hard-up artist earning his way mile by mile, as it were.
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