Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/87

 there in that manuscript which John Wraypoole had brought to Miss Tandy, the cover of which bore one word—Mortover?

"Nice assortment of things to find out!" mused Wedgwood. "However—here, surely, is the place to start work at. And one may as well begin."

He wanted to enter Mortover Grange; to see and have speech with its inhabitants, in particular with its owner, the Philip Mortover whose name had appeared in so many newspapers the day before. And he was thankful that he had a good and plausible excuse for knocking at the door. Wedgwood had a hobby; he spent much of his spare time in sketching and had he been able to give more attention to it would have done well as an artist. In a deep inside pocket of his overcoat he carried a sketching-block and a case of pencils, and smiling at the thought of their present usefulness he made his way along a neglected carriage-road to the front of Mortover Grange, and stepping into the darkness of a stone porch knocked at a door which looked as if it were rarely opened.

It was a long time before any response was made to the detective's summons. He had knocked three times and was thinking of trying another entrance when he heard the sound of obviously rusty bolts being drawn on the other