This was not encouraging, but I persisted.
“A very remarkable case, isn’t it?” I said, trying to appear at ease.
“A most unpleasant business,” he replied curtly.
My obstinacy was now aroused, so I drew a chair up and sat down.
“Mr. Stuart, I hope you won’t think me very impertinent if I ask you whether you have any reason to be dissatisfied with your two servants?”
He now looked thoroughly alarmed.
“No; why do you ask?”
“You probably know that the identity of the dead man has never been established?” I continued.
“On the contrary,” interrupted Mr. Stuart, “I am just reading an account of how it has been ascertained that the body is that of a man called Greywood.”