Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/167

 tidge?" he asked. "If you go a-hunting, you know, you've got to locate your fox first!"

"You mean you've got to take your hounds where a fox is likely to be found!" answered Nottidge. "Go where Mrs. Patello's likely to be found—or heard of!"

"If you can suggest where," said Wedgwood still smiling. "Eh?"

"I reckon old man Patello knows that!" declared Nottidge. "Try that!"

"And I reckon he doesn't!" retorted Wedgwood. "Mrs. P. no doubt told him that she was going to see a sick friend, as he said to me. But I regard the sick friend as a myth!"

Nottidge rubbed the tip of his nose with the knob of his walking stick during a moment's reflection.

"Well, I'll bet there's some news of Mrs. Patello to be got at her own house, anyway!" he said at last. "And if not there what about another place—this Mortover Grange you tell me of. For, if I know anything—I mean if I can put two and two together—I reckon this Janet Clagne woman knows something about her sister's movements! In the plot—that's about it!"

"Now there I am with you!" exclaimed Wedgwood. "My belief is that Mrs. Patello and Janet Clagne have worked"