Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/140

 on the detective in a searching, continued gaze. For the rest of him he was attired in a fashionable and expensive suit of rather loud, check tweed, he had a briar pipe between his teeth and a formidable ash-plant stick under his left armpit, and his hands were plunged in the pockets of his trousers. And at his heels, as if it were the shadow of himself, walked an Airedale terrier.

"This gentleman's come to ask about her," the landlady was saying as she came into the room, indicating the detective. "Of course I can't tell either of you anything—I know nothing!"

The young man still examining Wedgwood with steady scrutiny, took his pipe out of his mouth and addressed him.

"Who may you be?" he demanded curtly.

"I might put the same question to you!" returned Wedgwood with a smile. "But I won't! I understand you're the young gentleman who's been enquiring here and at the British Museum for Miss Mortover and that you knew her pretty well. Now instead of asking you the question you asked me I'll ask another: 'Have you been in Miss Mortover's confidence?"

"I was—until this happened," answered the young man. "Thought so, anyhow!"