"How about that Miss Maitland," he said, "the young lady secretary?"
Willitts had the pipe in his mouth and was pressing the tobacco down with his thumb. He spoke through closed teeth:
"What about her?"
"Well, what sort is she? You needn't tell me she's good looking, for I saw her once in the post office and she's a peach."
The valet leaned forward and felt in his coat pocket for matches. The movement presented his face in full to Mr. Larkin's glance, and the detective noticed that its bright alertness had diminished, that a slight film of stolidity had formed over it like ice over a running stream. The man had removed his pipe and held it in one hand while he scrabbled round in his coat with the other.
"She's a very fine young lady; nothing but good's ever been said of her in my hearing. And very competent in her work—they say—and she would be, or Mrs. Janney wouldn't keep her."
He found the matches and, sitting upright, lit one and applied it to the pipe bowl. The detective, with his eyes ready to swerve to the landscape, hazarded a shot at the bull's-eye.
"They were saying—or more hinting I guess you'd call it—that Mr. Price was—er—getting to look her way too often."
Willitts was very still. The watching eyes noticed that the flame of the match burned steady over the pipe bowl; for a moment the valet's breath was held. Then, without moving, his voice peculiarly quiet, he said:
"Now I'd like to know who told you that?"