“A very intelligent-looking officer, I am sure,” Mr. Fentolin remarked. “Gerald, go and meet him, if you please. I should like to speak to him out here.”
The dog-cart had drawn up at the front door, and the inspector had already alighted. Gerald intervened as he was in the act of questioning the butler.
“Mr. Fentolin would like to speak to you, inspector,” he said, “if you will come this way.”
The inspector followed Gerald and saluted the little group solemnly. Mr. Fentolin held out his hand.
“You got my telephone message, inspector?” he asked.
“We have not received any message that I know of, sir,” the inspector replied. “I have come over here in accordance with instructions received from headquarters—in fact from Scotland Yard.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Fentolin assented. “You’ve come over, I presume, to make enquiries concerning Mr. John P. Dunster?”
“That is the name of the gentleman, sir.”
“I only understood to-day from my friend Lord Saxthorpe,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “that Mr. Dunster was being enquired about as though he had disappeared. My nephew brought him here after the railway accident at Wymondham, since when he has been under the care of my own physician. I trust that you have nothing serious against him?”
“My first duty, sir,” the inspector pronounced, “is to see the gentleman in question.”