It was too dark for the ready reading of faces; but it struck Granville that the approaching footsteps were hasty and unusual. He recalled Alfred’s unaccountable manner of the night before. Indeed, all his movements, during the past two days, were mysterious: up to London first thing in the morning, back late, and not a word to any one; whereas the whole household, as a general rule, were in possession of most of Alfred’s private plans and hopes and fears. But Granville had no time to speculate now. Alfred came straight up to him.
‘I want to speak to you, Gran,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I found you here.’
The step had been suspicious; the voice was worse. It was calm enough, but it was not Alfred’s voice at all. Something had happened. Granville put up his eyeglass; but in that light it did not avail him much.
‘Let us sit down, then,’ said Granville, leading the way to a seat under the trees.
‘What is it about?’
Then Alfred began, in set tones and orderly phrases. The affectation of his manner was almost grotesque.
‘I want a kind of professional opinion from you, Gran, about—let us say, about a case that interests me, rather. That will be near enough to the mark, I think.’
‘Delighted to help you, if I can.’ Granville lounged back carelessly on the garden-seat, but his keen glance lost not a line of the other’s profile, as Alfred bent forward with his eyes upon the ground; and those lines seemed strangely hardened.
‘Thank you. The case is, briefly, this,’ Alfred continued: ‘somebody—no matter who—has been missing for some days. The number of days is of no consequence either. The police were not informed immediately. They only heard of it last night. But, this afternoon, they found——’
Alfred checked himself, sat upright, shifted his position, and met Granville’s gaze.