第52章

"Were you at any time in the habit of seeing your uncle frequently?""I never saw him more than twice in my life--on each occasion when I was a mere child.""Then you could have had no very strong personal regard for him?"'Regard for him! I should have been ashamed to feel any regard for him.He disgraced us wherever he went.""May I ask if any family motive is involved in your anxiety to recover his remains?""Family motives may enter into it among others--but why do you ask?""Because, having heard that you employ the police to assist your search, I was anxious to know whether you had stimulated their superiors to make them do their best in your service by giving some strong personal reasons at headquarters for the very unusual project which has brought you here.""I give no reasons.I pay for the work I want done, and, in return for my liberality, I am treated with the most infamous indifference on all sides.A stranger in the country, and badly acquainted with the language, I can do nothing to help myself.

The authorities, both at Rome and in this place, pretend to assist me, pretend to search and inquire as I would have them search and inquire, and do nothing more.I am insulted, laughed at, almost to my face.""Do you not think it possible--mind, I have no wish to excuse the misconduct of the authorities, and do not share in any such opinion myself--but do you not think it likely that the police may doubt whether you are in earnest?""Not in earnest!" he cried, starting up and confronting me fiercely, with wild eyes and quickened breath."Not in earnest!

_You_ think I'm not in earnest too.I know you think it, though you tell me you don't.Stop; before we say another word, your own eyes shall convince you.Come here--only for a minute--only for one minute!"I followed him into his bedroom, which opened out of the sitting-room.At one side of his bed stood a large packing-case of plain wood, upward of seven feet in length.

"Open the lid and look in," he said, "while I hold the candle so that you can see."I obeyed his directions, and discovered to my astonishment that the packing-case contained a leaden coffin, magnificently emblazoned with the arms of the Monkton family, and inscribed in old-fashioned letters with the name of "Stephen Monkton," his age and the manner of his death being added underneath.

"I keep his coffin ready for him," whispered Alfred, close at my ear."Does that look like earnest?"It looked more like insanity--so like that I shrank from answering him.

"Yes! yes! I see you are convinced," he continued quickly; "we may go back into the next room, and may talk without restraint on either side now."On returning to our places, I mechanically moved my chair away from the table.My mind was by this time in such a state of confusion and uncertainty about what it would be best for me to say or do next, that I forgot for the moment the position he had assigned to me when we lit the candles.He reminded me of this directly.

"Don't move away," he said, very earnestly; "keep on sitting in the light; pray do! I'll soon tell you why I am so particular about that.But first give me your advice; help me in my great distress and suspense.Remember, you promised me you would."I made an effort to collect my thoughts, and succeeded.It was useless to treat the affair otherwise than seriously in his presence; it would have been cruel not to have advised him as Ibest could.