“A certain knotty and highly difficult little problem which I had the felicity of solving about two years ago,” Roger replied modestly. “That made me realise my own powers, so to speak. But I can’t tell you names or anything like that, because it’s a most deadly secret. In fact, you’d better not ask me anything about it at all.”
“Right-ho, I won’t, if it’s a secret,” Anthony promised.
Roger looked slightly disappointed.
Chapter II.
Girls and Murder
Ludmouth village is nearly a mile away from its station. On arriving at the latter Roger and Anthony put their traps in the combined ticket-office, porter’s room, luggage depot and cloakroom, and proceeded to make enquiries regarding hotels.
“ ’Otel?” repeated the combined porter, station-master and ticket-inspector, scratching the top of his head with an air of profound cogitation. “Why, there ain’t no ’otel ’ereabouts. Leastaways, not what you might call an ’otel, there ain’t.”
“Well, a pub, then,” rejoined Roger a trifle irritably. The journey had been a long and tiresome one, and since changing at Bournemouth they had seemed to progress at the rate of ten miles an hour. For one who was as eager to get going as Roger had been all that day, few things could have been more maddening than the journey as habitually performed between Bournemouth and Ludmouth. It is not to say that the train does not go fast when it is going, but stations seem to demoralise it completely; it sits down and ruminates for a matter of twenty minutes in each one before it can bring itself to go on to the next. “What’s the name of the best pub in Ludmouth?”
The combination chuckled hoarsely. “The best pub?” he echoed with considerable amusement. “The best pub, hey? Oho! Hoo!”
“I’ve said something funny,” Roger pointed out to Anthony. “You see? The gentleman is amused. I asked the name of the best pub, so no wonder he’s convulsed with mirth.”
Anthony inspected the combination with some attention. “I don’t think he’s laughing at you at all. I think he’s just seen a joke that Gladstone made in 1884.”