"I shouldn't think so. He never told me his name, because, as I say, things never got as far as that. He was a youngish man —- between thirty and thirty-five, I should say. Nice looking, very dark, fairly…'
"Dark?" Margaret faltered.
"Yes, very dark. Black hair and eyebrows, rather a tanned complexion, fairly tall. My dear, what is all this about? Why are you so anxious to know what he looked like?"
"Well! - well, we - we met someone at a party who - who seemed rather interested in the Priory, and we suspected he wanted to buy it," Margaret explained. "Did he seem keen to when you saw him?"
"Not to the extent of badgering me to forward an offer. He didn't even make one."
"I wish you'd tell me just what he did say," Margaret begged.
"I'll try, since you make such a point of it," Mr. Milbank said, still rather surprised. "He said he had been asked to make some inquiries about a house which he understood had been standing empty for several years. I assumed he was acting for someone else, but of course he may have merely put it that way. Lots of people do, if they don't want you to think they're set on buying a thing. He said he hoped he was not too late in coming to see me, as he had heard that someone else had been after the house."
Margaret's eyes were fixed intently on the solicitor's face. "Oh! He'd heard that, had he? Did he say how?"
"No, and I'm afraid I didn't ask him. I told him that you had no thought of selling. Let me see: what did he say tie it? Yes, I think he said:" Then there'snot ruth in what I heard — that the present owners are considering an offer they have received?" I assured him that you were entertaining no such idea, that you had, in fact, definitely refused to sell. After that I think he chatted for a few minutes about the place. Something he said about having seen the house from his car made me suspect that he might be this man, Robinson, or whatever his name is, trying a new way of getting the Priory. I asked him whether I was not right in supposing he had written to me before concerning this matter. Whether it was he, or someone behind him who wrote I really don't know, but I distinctly remember that he did not answer for a moment. Which made me all the more certain, as you can imagine. However, I wasn't particularly interested, so I didn't go into it. He said it was quite possible that his friend had written to me, but no doubt I'd had a great many such letters, or something of the sort. I'm a busy man, as you know, and I thought I'd wasted enough time on the matter. So when he said that in the event of your wishing to sell after all, he hoped I'd let him know before you accepted any other offer, I fear I rather cut him short, and told him that I did not think he need worry himself, as for one thing you had no wish to sell the Priory, and for another the only other offer I had received on your behalf was entirely tentative. He still didn't seem satisfied, and even went so far as to request me not to advise my other client of any change in your decision before letting him know. So I told him that in any case it would be quite out of my power to do so since I had only an old poste-restante address to write to. That did seem to settle him, and he went off- quite forgetting, by the way, to leave me his address!"
"I see," Margaret said slowly. "Yes - I think that sounds like the man we thought was after the place. Thanks awfully for telling me."