"Where, may I ask, sir?"
"On Chilvers Common."
"Ho!" Wasp stroked a ferocious moustache he wore for the sake of impressing evil-doers; "that's near the Red Deeps?"
"About a mile from the Red Deeps, I believe," said Allen, trying to ease the pain of his foot by resting it.
"And what were you doing there, may I ask, sir?" This time it was not Allen who replied, but his mother. The large, lean woman suddenly flushed and her stolid face became alive with anger. She turned on the little man--well named Wasp from his meddlesome disposition and desire to sting when he could--and seemed like a tigress protecting her cub. "Why do you ask?" she demanded; "do you hint that my son has anything to do with this matter?"
"No, I don't, ma'am," replied Wasp stolidly, "but Mr. Allen talked of the corp being found face downward in the mud. We did find it so--leastways them as found the dead, saw it that way. How did Mr. All----"
"The dream, my good Wasp," interposed Hill airily. "Miss Strode dreamed a dream two nights ago, and thought she saw her father dead in the Red Deeps, face downward. She also heard a laugh--but that's a detail. My son told us of the dream before you came. It is strange it should be verified so soon and so truly. I begin to think that Miss Strode has imagination after all. Without imagination," added the little man impressively, "no one can dream. I speak on the authority of Coleridge, a poet," he smiled pityingly on the three--"of whom you probably know nothing."
"Poets ain't in the case," said Wasp, "and touching Mr. Allen----"
The young engineer stood up for himself. "My story is short," he said, "and you may not believe it, Wasp."
"Why shouldn't I?" demanded the policeman very suspiciously.