“That's the name they give the Bishop's Folly, my Lord,” said the landlord, with a half grin.
“What business have these people to know I am here at all? Why must they persecute me? You told me, Cutbill, that I was not to be discovered.”
“So I did, my Lord, and I made the 'Down Express' call you Mr. Morris, of Charing Cross.”
His Lordship winced a little at the thought of such a liberty, even for a disguise, but he was now engaged with the note, and read on without speaking.
“Nothing could be more courteous, certainly,” said he, folding it up, and laying it beside him on the table. “They invite me over to—what's the name?—Castello, and promise me perfect liberty as regards my time. 'To make the place my headquarters,' as he says. Who are these Bramleighs? You know every one, Cutbill; who are they?”
“Bramleigh and Underwood are bankers, very old established firm. Old Bramleigh was a brewer, at Slough; George the Third never would drink any other stout than Bramleigh's. There was a large silver flagon, called the 'King's Quaigh,' always brought out when his Majesty rode by, and very vain old Bramleigh used to be of it, though I don't think it figures now on the son's sideboard,—they have leased the brewery.”
“Oh, they have leased the brewery, have they?”
“That they have; the present man got himself made Colonel of militia, and meant to be a county member, and he might, too, if he had n't been in too great a hurry about it; but county people won't stand being carried by assault. Then they made other mistakes; tried it on with the Liberals, in a shire where everything that called itself gentleman was Tory; in fact, they plunged from one hole into another, till they regularly swamped themselves; and as their house held a large mortgage on these estates in Ireland, they paid off the other incumbrances and have come to live here. I know the whole story, for it was an old friend of mine who made the plans for restoring the mansion.”
“I suspect that the men in your profession, Cutbill, know as much of the private history of English families as any in the land?”
“More, my Lord; far more even than the solicitors, for people suspect the solicitors, and they never suspect us. We are detectives in plain clothes.”