Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/287

275 in Trudgeon's presence and the doctor's. What's more, I consented."

"That's jolly unpleasant," was my comment, for lack of a better.

The Vicar sat silent for a while, staring across the lawn, while I watched a spider which had let itself down from a branch overhead and was casting anchor on the decanter's rim. With his next question he seemed to have changed the subject.

"Where do you keep your boat now?"

"Renatus Warne has been putting in a new strake and painting her. I shall have her down on the beach to-morrow."

"Ah, so that's it? I cast my eye over the beach this afternoon and couldn't see her. You haven't been trying for the conger lately."

"We'll have a try to-morrow evening if you'll come, Sir. I wish you would."

The Vicar, though he seldom found time for the sport, was a famous fisherman. He shook his head; and then, leaning an arm on the table, gazed at me with sudden seriousness.

"Look here: could you make it convenient to go fishing for conger this next night or two—and to go alone?"

I saw that he had something more to say, and waited.

"The fact is," he went on after a glance towards the house, "I have a ticklish job to carry through—the queerest in all my experience; and unfortunately