This
was, indeed, the Gunner Barling he used to know, with his
smooth-shaven chin and neat brown moustache waxed at the ends and
characteristic "quiff" decorating his brow. And so Desmond and
his man installed themselves at Santona Road.
The house was clean and comfortable, and Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe, for
all her "refaynement," as she would have called it, proved
herself a warm-hearted, motherly soul. Desmond had a small but
comfortably furnished bedroom at the top of the house, on the
second floor, with a window which commanded a view of the
diminutive garden and the back of a row of large houses standing
on the lower slopes of the hill. So precipitous was the fall of
the ground, indeed, that Desmond could look right into the garden
of the house backing on Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's. This garden had a
patch of well-kept green sward in the centre with a plaster nymph
in the middle, while in one corner stood a kind of large
summer-house or pavilion built on a slight eminence, with a
window looking into Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe's' back garden.
In accordance with a plan of action he had laid down in his mind,
Desmond took all his meals at his rooms. The rest of the day he
devoted to walking about the streets of Campden Hill and setting
on foot discreet inquiries after Mrs.
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