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interview with the laird of Stanesland began on much the same lines as his talk with Bisset. The amiable visitor was shown into the laird's smoking room—an apartment with vast walls like a dungeon and on them trophies from the laird's adventurous days, and proceeded to make enquiry whether Mr. Cromarty was disposed to let his shootings for next season, or, if not, whether he could recommend any others.

As the visitor was in no hurry, he declared, to fix anything up, it was very natural that this conversation, like the morning's, should eventually turn on to the subject of the great local mystery. Through it all Mr. Carrington's monocle was more continually fixed on the other than usual, but if he were looking for peculiarities in the laird's manner or any admissions made either by tongue or eye, he was disappointed. Cromarty was as breezy and as direct as ever, but even when his visitor confessed his extreme interest in such cases of remarkable crime, he (to all seeming) scented nothing in this beyond a not uncommon hobby. There was no doubt, however, of his keenness to discuss the subject. 201