“If I was really up to my job I suppose I’d tell you that detectives knew everything, or at least that I did, but I never make any mystery between friends, leastwise when there isn’t any. I knew you were ill because I was down at Warren Lodge a month ago looking for you and Miss Cheyne told me, and I was expecting you to call because I wrote asking you to do so. However, if you didn’t get my letter, why then it seems to me I owe the pleasure of this visit to something else.”
“You’re quite right,” said Cheyne. “You do. But before we get on to that, tell me what you called and wrote about.”
“I’ll do so, sir. I called because I had got some information for you, and when I didn’t see you I wrote for the same reason asking you to look in here.”
The man spoke civilly and directly, but yet there was something about him which rubbed Cheyne up the wrong way—something furtive in his manner, by which instinctively the other was repelled. It was therefore with rather less than his usual good-natured courtesy that Cheyne returned: “Well, here I am then. What is your information?”
“I’ll tell you, sir. But first let me recall to your mind what I—acting for my firm—was asked to find out.” He stressed the words “acting for my firm,” and as he did so shot a keen questioning glance at Cheyne. The latter did not reply, and Speedwell, after pausing for a moment, went on:
“I was employed—or rather my firm was employed”—what his point was Cheyne could not see, but he was evidently making one—“my firm was employed by the manager of the Edgecombe Hotel to investigate a case of alleged drugging which had taken place in the hotel. That was all, wasn’t it?”
“That or matters arising therefrom,” Cheyne replied cautiously.
The detective smiled foxily.
“Ah, I see you have taken my meaning, Mr. Cheyne. That or matters arising directly therefrom. That, sir, is quite correct. Now, I have found out something about that. Not much, I admit, but still something. Though whether it is as much as you already are cognizant of is another matter.”
Cheyne felt his temper giving way.