"Let us say a phrenologist?"
"Pooh! do I look like a charlatan?"
"No, indeed, Fanks! Eh, Fanks," repeated Axton, struck with a sudden idea, and pushing his chair away from that of his companion. "Why, you're a detective down here about that—that suicide."
"What wonderful penetration!" said Octavius, laughing. "How did you hit upon that idea, my friend?"
Roger Axton's hand went up to his fair moustache, which hardly concealed the quivering of his lips, and he laughed in an uneasy manner.
"Circumstantial evidence," he said at last, hurriedly. "The barmaid told me that a London detective called Fangs was down here on account of the—the suicide, and allowing for her misuse of the name, and your unexpected presence here, it struck me—"
"That I must be the man," finished Fanks, shooting a keen glance at the somewhat careworn face of his school friend. "Well, you are perfectly right. I am Octavius Fanks, of Scotland Yard, detective, formerly Octavius Rixton, of nowhere in particular, idler. You don't seem to relish the idea of my being a bloodhound of the law."
"I—I—er—well, I certainly don't see why a detective shouldn't be as respectable as any other man. Still—"
"There's a kind of Dr. Fell dislike towards him," responded Octavius, composedly. "Yes, that's true enough, though intensely ridiculous. People always seem to be afraid of a detective. I don't know why, unless, maybe, it's their guilty conscience."
"Their conscience?" faltered Axton, with an obvious effort.