Now the expression “heard a good deal about him” raised a covert smile on more than one face round the table.
“Ben Halse lives up in the Lumisana district,” answered the hostess. “But it’s an out-of-the-way place, and not easily got at.”
“All the better. I like out-of-the-way places. They’re so jolly interesting. That’s why I pricked out a cross-country course here.”
The speaker was a tall man, broad-shouldered and well set up, with a square, intellectual head; fair, clear-eyed and self-possessed, and might have been in the late thirties, i.e. in his very prime. He had arrived at Ezulwini the evening before, on horseback, and his baggage for the present consisted of what that unreliable animal could carry strapped across the saddle.
“By the way,” said another man at the table, “I heard something about Ben Halse being due here just about now. Heard anything about it, Mrs Shelford?”
“No.”
“Perhaps he’s going to the opposition shop,” said the other mischievously.
“He can if he likes,” was the crisp retort. “Only Ben Halse and ourselves have known each other all our lives, so I don’t think there’s much fun in that remark.”
“That’s all there was in it, anyhow,” was the answer. “Now I think of it the report came through some of the police.”
“Now, Mrs Shelford, you mustn’t say it,” cut in another man, in mock warning, he, incidentally, holding rank as Inspector in that useful corps.