Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/34

 "He was not a writer. I have heard him say, often, that he had no instinct to write. That is, I mean, to write books, or even articles. He could draw up a pedigree with any man living, or prepare a table of statistics on one of his subjects, but that was as far as his writing went. I should imagine that this manuscript you mention as having been taken by him to Miss Tandy, and now missing, was some pedigree he had prepared. But whose, of course, one has no idea."

Wedgwood considered matters awhile. He was a leisurely thinker, and when any factor in a case was presented to him, liked to meditate on it before going further. "If he'd been coming here all these years, regularly," he said at last, looking round the great dome-topped library. "He must be pretty well known to other frequenters. I mean, there must be somebody here who knew him well, if not intimately."

"I don't think so," answered the man to whom he was talking. "He was a recluse—as far as I had knowledge of him. I never remember seeing him in conversation with anybody here. There," he continued, pointing to a table near at hand, "is the place he always occupied—you'd find him there from ten o'clock until five every day. But I question if he ever spoke to a soul here except to one of us, or to