Although it was afternoon the bolts and locks of the front door had to be unfastened in answer to their knock. When at last the door was opened a shrivelled little old woman, rather wicked-looking in a comic way, and rather begrimed, stood there.
“Mr Frank Whitmarsh?” she replied to Carrados’s polite inquiry; “oh yes, he lives here. Frank,” she called down the passage, “you’re wanted.”
“What is it, mother?” responded a man’s full, strong voice rather lazily.
“Come and see!” and the old creature ogled Carrados with her beady eyes as though the situation constituted an excellent joke between them.
There was the sound of a chair being moved and at the end of the passage a tall man appeared in his shirt sleeves.
“I am a stranger to you,” explained Carrados, “but I am staying at the Bridge Inn and I heard of your wonderful escape on Thursday. I was so interested that I have taken the liberty of coming across to congratulate you on it.”
“Oh, come in, come in,” said Whitmarsh. “Yes ... it was a sort of miracle, wasn’t it?”
He led the way back into the room he had come from, half kitchen, half parlour. It at least had the virtue of an air of rude comfort, and some of the pewter and china that ornamented its mantelpiece and dresser would have rejoiced a collector’s heart.
“You find us a bit rough,” apologized the young man, with something of contempt towards his surroundings. “We weren’t expecting visitors.”
“And I was hesitating to come because I thought that you would be surrounded by your friends.”