Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/211

200 "I hate him already," Reggie murmured.

"That's quite easy," said Lomas. "Well, he's a clever second-rater, that's what it comes to."

"Poor devil," Reggie murmured.

"There's swarms of them in the service. The only odd thing about Sandford is that he don't seem to have any origins. Like that fellow in the Bible who had no ancestors—Melchizedek, was it? Well, Mrs. Sandford had no beginning either. She wasn't native to Llanfairfechan—that's the place. She came there when Sandford was a small kid. Nobody there knows where from. He says he don't know where from. Nobody knows who his father was. He says he don't know. He says she left no papers of any sort. She had an annuity, and the fifty pounds a year she left him was in Consols. He never knew of any relations. Nobody in Llan-what's-its-name can remember anybody ever coming to see her. And she died ten years ago."

"You might say it looked as if she wanted to hide," said Superintendent Bell. "But, Lord, you can't tell. Might be just a sorrowful widow. It takes 'em that way sometimes."

"Has anybody ever shown any interest in Melchizedek?" said Reggie.

"O Lord, no! Nobody ever heard of him out of his Department. And there they all hate him. But he's the sort of fellow you can't keep down."

"Poor devil," Reggie murmured again.