“I must get back,” he said. “I intended to see Dr. Ravenshaw, but I shall leave that until later. Can I get a conveyance back to Penzance?”
“There is a public wagonette. I am not sure when it goes, but it starts from ‘The Three Jolly Wreckers’ at the other end of the churchtown.”
“‘The Three Jolly Wreckers!’ That’s rather a cynical name for a Cornish inn, isn’t it?”
“Oh, the Cornish people are not ashamed of the old wrecking days, I assure you.”
He accompanied Barrant to the door with the lamp, which he held above his head to light him down the garden path. Barrant, glancing back, saw him looking after him, his face outlined in the darkness by the yellow rays of the lamp.
Chapter XIV
Barrant found the inn at the dark end of a stone alley, with the sound of tipsy singing and shuffling feet coming through the half-open door. He made his way up three granite steps into a side-entrance, catching a glimpse through a glass partition of shaggy red faces and pint pots floating in a fog of tobacco smoke. A stout landlord leaned behind the bar watching his customers with the tolerant smile of a man who was making a living out of their merriment. He straightened himself as he caught sight of Barrant, and opened the sliding window. The detective inquired about the wagonette, and learnt that it had not yet arrived.
“The roouds is rough, and old Garge Crows takes his time,” said the landlord, eyeing Barrant with a heavy stare. “‘Tain’t as thow ‘e had a passel of passergers to be teeren rownd after.”
“Can you give me some supper while I’m waiting?”