Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/194



It needed but one glance at Miss Tandy's face to see that she had something of serious importance to communicate; that same glance showed, too, that whatever that something was, Miss Tandy had lost no time in hurrying to tell it. On all previous occasions whereon Wedgwood had encountered Miss Tandy she had always struck him as being remarkably prim and proper in her attire, as regarded her head-dress, her gown, and her foot-wear. But she presented herself to him and the inspector in a get-up which made Wedgwood immediately think of the days in which he had seen his own mother accoutred for that terrible domestic campaign known to English housewives as spring-cleaning. Miss Tandy's head was tied up in what was neither more nor less than a duster—a spotlessly clean duster, but still a duster. Her spinster-like figure was swathed in a gigantic pinafore of brown holland; a pair of old gloves protected her hands; her feet were encased in ancient list slippers. And—sure proof, not of abstraction, but that she had been