He paused. It was plainly the duty of Doyle to give some information about his guest. But Doyle remained silent.
“He’ll have a power of money, whoever he is,” said Moriarty.
He and the sergeant looked at Doyle and waited. Doyle still remained silent. The door of the office of the Connacht Eagle opened and Thaddeus Gallagher shambled along the street. He was a tall, grizzled man, exceedingly lean and ill-shaven. His clothes, which were shabby, hung round him in desponding folds. His appearance would have led a stranger to suppose that the Connacht Eagle was not a paying property. He greeted Sergeant Colgan and Moriarty with friendly warmth. When he had nothing else to write leading articles about he usually denounced the police, accusing them of various crimes, from the simple swearing away of the liberties of innocent men to the debauching of the morals of the young women of Ballymoy. But this civic zeal did not prevent his being on perfectly friendly terms with the members of the force. Nor did his strong writing rouse any feeling of resentment in the mind of the sergeant. He and Moriarty welcomed the editor warmly and invited him to inspect the car.
Thaddeus Gallagher looked at the car critically. He rubbed his hand along the dusty mud guard, opened and shut one of the doors, stroked the bulb of the horn cautiously, and then turned to Doyle.
“Is it the Lord-Lieutenant you have within in the hotel?” he asked.
He spoke with a fine suggestion of scorn in his voice. As a prominent local politician Thaddeus Gallagher was obliged to be contemptuous of Lords-Lieutenant. Doyle looked offended and at first made no reply. Sergeant Colgan, acting as peacemaker, spoke in a noncommittal, but soothing tone.
“It might be,” he said, “it very well might be.”
“It is not then,” said Doyle. “Nor it’s not the Chief Secretary.”
“If it’s not,” said Gallagher, “it’s some other of them fellows out of Dublin Castle.”
“It’s a high up gentleman surely,” said Sergeant Colgan.