Merriman joined in the laughter against him.
“It wasn’t forty-anything, you old blighter,” he said good-humoredly. “It was 4 on the road, and 3 at the mill, and I’m as sure of it as that you’re an amiable imbecile.”
“Inconclusive,” murmured Jelfs, “entirely inconclusive. But,” he persisted, “you must not hold back material evidence. You haven’t told us yet what you had at lunch.”
“Oh, stow it, Jelfs,” said Hilliard, a thin-faced, eager-looking young man who had not yet spoken. “Have you no theory yourself, Merriman?”
“None. I was completely puzzled. I would have mentioned it before, only it seemed to be making a mountain out of nothing.”
“I think Jelfs’ question should be answered, you know,” Drake said critically, and after some more good-natured chaff the subject dropped.
Shortly after one of the men had to leave to catch his train, and the party broke up. As they left the building Merriman found Hilliard at his elbow.
“Are you walking?” the latter queried. “If so I’ll come along.”
Claud Hilliard was the son of a clergyman in the Midlands, a keen, not to say brilliant student who had passed through both school and college with distinction, and was already at the age of eight-and-twenty making a name for himself on the headquarters staff of the Customs Department. His thin, eager face, with its hooked nose, pale blue eyes and light, rather untidy-looking hair, formed a true index of his nimble, somewhat speculative mind. What he did, he did with his might. He was keenly interested in whatever he took up, showing a tendency, indeed, to ride his hobbies to death. He had a particular penchant for puzzles of all kinds, and many a knotty problem brought to him as a last court of appeal received a surprisingly rapid and complete solution. His detractors, while admitting his ingenuity and the almost uncanny rapidity with which he seized on the essential facts of a case, said he was lacking in staying power, but if this were so, he had not as yet shown signs of it.
He and Merriman had first met on business, when Hilliard was sent to the wine merchants on some matter of Customs. The acquaintanceship thus formed had ripened into a mild friendship, though the two had not seen a great deal of each other.