"Yes, I suppose it does. In the daytime Harry could find people to tell him which way Graves was going, couldn't he?"
"Yes. That's just what I meant."
"Oh, I say, won't Gaffer Hodge be in bed and asleep?"
"I don't think so. He doesn't seem to like to go to bed. He sits up very late, and talks to the men when they start to go home from the Red Dog. He likes to talk, you see. We'll soon know–that's one thing. We'll be there now in no time."
Sure enough, the old man was still up when they arrived. He was just saying good-night, in a high, piping voice, to a little group of men who had evidently been having a nightcap in the inn next to his house. When he saw Jack he smiled. They were very good friends, and the old man had found the boy one of his best listeners. The Gaffer liked to live in the past; he was always delighted when anyone would let him tell his tales of the things he remembered.
"Good-evening, Gaffer," said Jack, respectfully. "This is my friend, Dick Mercer. He's a Boy Scout from London."
"Knew it! Knew it!" said Gaffer Hodge, with a senile chuckle. "I said they was from Lunnon this afternoon when I seen them fust! Glad to meet you, young maister."
Then Jack described Graves as well as he could from his brief sight of him, and Dick helped by what he remembered.
"Did you see him come into town this afternoon. Gaffer?" asked Jack.
"Let me think," said the old man. "Yes–I seen 'um. Came sneaking in, he did, this afternoon as ever was! Been up to the big house at Bray Park, he had. Came in in an automobile, he did. Then he went back there. But he was in the post office when you and t'other young lad from Lunnon went by, maister!" nodding his head as if well pleased.