Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/78

 lour and had drunk a cup or two of scalding hot tea he decided that he might have found a worse base for his operations. This hotel, too, had been, as he knew, the base of John Wraypoole's operations; a word or two from himself to landlord or landlady would doubtless produce a certain amount of reminiscence of the dead man's recent visit. But Wedgwood said nothing of any knowledge of Wraypoole: his notion was to go slow and keep an intelligent look-out.

Himself a country-bred man, Wedgwood knew that if you want to hear the news of any market-town or rural neighbourhood there is no better place in which to pick it up than the inn-parlour, of an evening. Thither resort the gossips and wise-acres of the place; the news which circulates from one to the other differs vastly from that obtainable in the columns of a newspaper in that it is first-hand, un-edited, and unexpurgated; where the over-scrupulous editor or sub-editor is afraid of a possible suit for libel, your true tavern-knight fears none. And when Wedgwood had eaten his modest dinner he sought out the bar-parlour and with his pipe in his mouth and a glass at his elbow posted himself in a comfortable corner and prepared to keep his ears open.

The room was empty when he entered it, save