Page:Fletcher - The Middle Temple Murder (Knopf, 1919).djvu/233



Spargo dropped his pen on the desk before him with a sharp clatter that made Mrs. Gutch jump. A steady devotion to the bottle had made her nerves to be none of the strongest, and she looked at the startler of them with angry malevolence.

"Don't do that again, young man!" she exclaimed sharply. "I can't a-bear to be jumped out of my skin, and it's bad manners. I observed that the gentleman's name was Elphick."

Spargo contrived to get in a glance at his proprietor and his editor—a glance which came near to being a wink.

"Just so—Elphick," he said. "A law gentleman I think you said, Mrs. Gutch?"

"I said," answered Mrs. Gutch, "as how he looked like a lawyer gentleman. And since you're so particular, young man, though I wasn't addressing you but your principals, he was a lawyer gentleman. One of the sort that wears wigs and gowns—ain't I seen his picture in Jane Baylis's room at the boarding-house where you saw her this morning?"

"Elderly man?" asked Spargo.

"Elderly he will be now," replied the informant; "but when he took the boy away he was a middle-aged 225