Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/312

 there at the inn I guess—they can't work, this weather."

In this supposition the Superintendent was right; the inn was filled with men, enforcedly idle. Many of them were men working on the sinking of the new colliery; some of them were workers in the adjacent stone-quarries. All were dwellers in the neighbourhood, and the Superintendent began to make enquiries amongst them as to any news of Levigne and Janet Clagne.

None of these men had seen either on the night in question, though both were well-known to all. One man spoke to seeing Levigne earlier in the day; he had passed him, riding in a cab, he said, on the road going towards Mortover Grange. But as to the evening and the night that followed it nobody could say anything: the storm had kept folk indoors.

"Is there any idea as to where they might have gone when they set out from the Grange, mister?" a man asked of Wedgwood, who had explained what he knew of the missing persons' movements. "If us fellows had a notion of that, now"

"They might have gone to Mr. Malcolmson's," replied Wedgwood. "Where does he live?"

"If you'll come outside, on the road, I'll