"What was his motive?"
"Listen, young lady. I don't say that's the solution: I'm just giving you a suggestion. As for motive, it seems that Hogenauer was trying pretty hard to steal something off Keppel; suppose Keppel wanted to return the compliment? According to what Hogenauer said to that fellow Bowers, it looks likely. But on the other hand… I've got a good notion to go along with you two, and keep an eye on you. If the worst came to the worst, my son-in-law might be able to help — "
"Ss-st!" said Evelyn, in the same warning ventriloquial tone Stone had used before. "'Ware dog-collars."
The door of the compartment rasped open. The lean clergyman with the half-glasses, his stiff bearing showing signs of purpose, stood in the aperture and studied me frostily. Then he moved aside. Behind him showed the peering eyes and sandy moustache of the ticket-collector, who looked suspicious but rather sheepish. The parson nodded towards me.
"That is the man," he said.
We hear much of inward groans: I had several of them. Trouble clung obstinately to my coat-tails no matter what the disguise was. I glanced out of the window, trying to adjust my face. We had long ago flashed past Taunton station, and I wondered how long it would be before we reached Bristol. I was pretty certain that no report about me had come from the police; but what did this dominie have up his sleeve? I turned on him in pontifical haughtiness.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the Compleat Clergyman, with dignity a-towering, "but were you by any chance speaking to me?"
"I was, sir," replied my pal, in the same fashion. He had a harsh, precise voice with a trace of colonial accent in it; and before he spoke there was a rasp and whir in his throat, as though a clock were going to strike. "Understand me!"
He held up his hand, and looked from the uneasy ticket-collector to me. "If a genuine mistake has been made, I shall be happy to apologize. I do not affirm, sir, that you are a criminal or even a civil lawbreaker. But I trust I do not go beyond my duty when I say that this masquerading as a clergyman, particularly with the conduct in which you have chosen to indulge to-night, must be, and will be, stopped. Such a mockery of holy orders "
I jumped up,