“Well, it’s funny you should say that, sir, because as it happens I do. Next door but one the shop is, and that’s the only place they sell it in the village. Barring the Three Swans and the Crown, of course; and the Three Swans being over a mile outside the village, you could hardly expect him to go there for it, could you?”
“Certainly not,” Roger agreed with an air of great seriousness. “No, I couldn’t possibly expect that. Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer, I suppose. Thank you so much for letting me look round.” He held something out toward her which the landlady received with ready palm.
“And welcome, I’m sure,” she said genially. “Thank you kindly, sir. And if there’s anything else you want to see, you’ve only got to ask. Wouldn’t like to have a look round his bedroom, I suppose, now you’re here?”
“No, I don’t think we need trouble about that. Come along, Anthony. Good-morning, madam.”
They were shown into the road and Roger turned to the left.
“Some day,” remarked Anthony chattily, “I must match you against that woman, if I can find somebody to put up a purse. You’ll enter the ring directly after breakfast and talk to each other till one of you gives up. If either of the combatants is found at the time of the contest to be suffering already from clergyman’s sore throat, he or she forfeits the stake-money and all bets are null and void. Queensbury rules, no kidney-punch, towels and sponges to be provided by⸺”
“Cease prattling, Anthony,” Roger remarked in tolerant tones, diving into a shop in their left. “We’re going in here.”
They went in.
“By the way,” Roger opened the conversation, having paved the way by buying an ounce of tobacco that he didn’t want. “By the way, this is the same brand as poor Mr. Meadows used to smoke, isn’t it? You remember; the clergyman who died next door but one last week.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said the village grocer. “We all knew him here. But he didn’t smoke that, sir. Crown and Anchor Coarse Cut was what he always bought.”