Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/212

202 He left us to kick our heels in the hall while he went upstairs again. In about ten minutes, and just as my all-consuming impatience was well-nigh exhausted he returned, bringing with him the sleepy barman.

"These gentlemen want some information about a man who was here to-night," the landlord said by way of introduction. "Perhaps you can give it?"

"What was he like, sir?" asked the barman of the inspector.

The latter, however, turned to me.

"Tall, slim, with a sallow complexion," I said, "black hair and very dark restless eyes. He came in here with the Hon. Mr. Wetherell's coachman."

The man seemed to recollect him at once.

"I remember him," he said. "They sat in No. 5 down the passage there, and the man you mention ordered a nobbler of rum for his friend and a whisky for himself."

"That's the fellow we want," said the inspector. "Now tell me this, have you ever seen him in here before?"

"Never once," said the barman, "and that's a solemn fact, because if I had I couldn't have forgotten it. His figurehead wouldn't let you do that. No, sir, to-night was the first night he's ever been in here."

"Did anyone else visit them while they were in the room together?"

"Not as I know of. But stay, I'm not so certain. Yes; I remember seeing a tall good-looking chap come down the passage and go in there. But it was sometime, half-an-hour maybe, after I took in the drinks."

"Did you see him come out again?"

"No. But I know the coachman got very drunk and had to be carried out to the carriage."