Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/110

 or twice, and I recognized him—at least I thought I did, and I made bold to ask him if he wasn't John Wraypoole that I'd known many a year ago. He admitted it, and we had a glass or two together, but he told me that he didn't want it noised abroad that he was here—at least, who he was. He was down here, he said, on a bit of private and important business, of a very confidential nature. So of course I said nothing to anybody."

"To be sure!" assented the other. "Just so! And of course he wouldn't tell you what the business was?"

"He didn't—but I heard later that he'd spent a good bit of time examining the parish registers at Ashlowe—went to the parson about 'em, of course. No, he gave me no idea of what you might call the exact nature of his business. But I saw him again, here in Netherwell before he went away, though not to speak to. He was talking to that woman that keeps house for young Mortover."

"Janet Clagne, eh?"

"The same! I saw him and her—it was market-day—standing talking together outside Chipchase's confectioner's shop in the Horsefair—they had their heads close together—same as if they were discussing something of importance. And I was thinking of going up