The grocer added less than his usual modicum of water to his whisky. His aspect was gloomy. So also were the aspects of Mr. Franks, the butcher, who had strolled across for news, and Walter Beavens, the wheelwright, who had come on a similar errand.
“It’s almost as bad,” Mr. Craske declared, “as the week after the murder. Every one went about then, as it were, on tiptoe. Now this burglary, taken by itself, ain’t anything to make special mention of. Why, Mr. Johnson himself, he was in the morning after it happened, and he treated it mostly as a joke.”
“It’s my belief,” Mr. Pank pronounced, “that there’s something more serious brewing. There’s Inspector Cloutson come to stop in the village. There’s Major Holmes, the Chief Constable, up and down from the Hall all day. There’s Mr. Johnson, he don’t come near any more. Mr. Fielding—him we took for a schoolmaster and whom they do say was a kind of detective—he ain’t been in. And Mr. Rawson—why, no one ain’t seen him for four days. We shall have news before long, and bad news, I’m afraid it may be.”
“There’s wild talk going about,” Mr. Craske sighed, “and what it may mean, no one can say for sure, but what I do say is, reason is reason, and is it likely that any one here could have a grudge against a poor old harmless fellow like Mr. Endacott? All this talk of Images and Chinese documents and suchlike seems as though it had come out of the pages of one of these serial novels as folks read in the newspapers. I don’t take no stock of such stuff.”
Mr. Franks pushed his tankard across to be refilled.
“There’s one bit of bad news, at any rate, may be sprung upon us at any moment,” he said. “They do say that every servant in the Hall had a month’s notice yesterday. I heard that from Miss Shane, the housekeeper’s niece.”
The landlord shook his head gloomily.
“Things do seem to be pointing that way,” he admitted, “and Mr. Rawson keeping away and all. If so be that it’s true, it will be a sad loss. The Squire be a proud man in his way, but he be a true gentleman, and so be Mr. Henry, and a more popular young gent than Mr. Gregory has never been known in the county. It’s a wonderful property to have to give up.”
“We’ll get some one here, I suppose,” Mr. Craske predicted pessimistically, “who’s made pots of money by being careful, and goes on saving pots the same way. Some of those big houses, the way they do go through their books and talk about the Stores to you! Why, here’s Mr. Rawson.”
The butler entered, solemn, ponderous and dignified as ever. He raised his black bowler hat in acknowledgment of the greetings which assailed him from all sides and sank slowly into a chair.