“There! why don’t you take advice when it’s given you, old chap?” said the sergeant. “You know what we’ve come about, though, I dessay?”
“Know what you’ve come about!” said D. Wragg; “why, of course I do. You’ve come about that there gent’s friend’s dorg, same as they’ve been together about it before, and I helped ’em into getting of it; but you’re in the wrong box this time, so I tell you. But what do you expect you’re going to do?”
“What’s the good of being a fool, Wragg? The game’s up; so you may just as well give in quietly, and not go into a pack of stuff about dogs.”
But D. Wragg protested again that he knew they must be come about some dog or another, till, assuming an injured air, he took out his pipe and lit it, and then stood with folded arms, jerking himself about, and muttering, while, without further ceremony, the police, accompanied in every movement by Sir Francis and Harry Clayton, thoroughly searched the house, beginning with the underground kitchen, and then proceeding upwards, but not until due precautions had been taken to prevent the escape of the inmates.
“This is all very well, sir, you know,” said the sergeant; “but of course we don’t expect to find anything more than a clue of some kind, and I’ve my doubts even about that. Old Wragg does not look so much like a foxy terrier for nothing. Whatever has been done, I don’t give the old chap credit for having bungled it; but, all the same, it seemed the thing to come—not quite regular, you know,” he added, confidentially, “but we’ll risk that.”
Room after room was examined, until the second floor was reached, and here Harry expected to find the abode of Canau. His heart accelerated its beating—perhaps though only with the ascent; but he thought, all the same, that here would Janet be, and perhaps with her Patty Pellet, for he knew how strong was the tie between them.
It proved to be as he anticipated, for Janet and Patty stood by the window, and with them Mrs Winks, who had hurried up-stairs at the first arrival of the visitors, to spare the girls from needless alarm.
“I trust you will not lay this intrusion to my charge,” said Clayton, approaching. “You gave me your word that you knew nothing of my friend’s disappearance, and I believed you.”
“And then to prove your faith, you brought the police here to search our rooms,” said Janet, fiercely, as she turned away.
“Do not be unjust,” said Harry; “information has been given to us that my poor friend was seen to enter this house upon the night of his disappearance, and was not seen to return.”