Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/91

 Wedgwood turned to the young man who stood lumpishly watching him.

"Merely your permission, sir, to make a sketch or two of your lovely old house if you've no objection," said the detective. "I could have drawn it from the road outside, but I wished to be polite."

The young man laughed—the laugh of a man who scorns what he has no understanding of.

"Oh, you can draw the place if you like—no objection!" he answered, churlishly. "Do you want to come in?"

"Thank you, sir, no!" answered Wedgwood.

"I'll select a favourable point from your courtyard. Many thanks to you."

He lifted his hat to the girl, who during the conversation had lingered at the door, and re-crossing the cobble-paved yard selected a suitable angle from which to make his sketch, and perching himself on a low wall began to work. The door closed again; he heard bolts drawn and keys turned. But at the end of half an hour when he had completed an outline of walls and gables, the girl suddenly rounded a corner of the house and, shyly smiling, came up to him.

"May I look?" she asked. "I like pictures."

"Certainly—but there's not much of a picture so far," answered Wedgwood. "I'm only