“I’d better begin before lunch. Mr. Foss came to me with a parcel in his hand and asked me to take it over to Hincheldene post office. He wanted it registered. He offered to let me take the car if I wished; but I preferred to walk over. I like the fresh air.”
“And then?” demanded the Inspector with an unconscious plagiarism of his Chief.
“Immediately after lunch, I set out and walked through the grounds towards Hincheldene village. I didn’t hurry. It was a nice afternoon for a walk. By and by I met a keeper, and he told me I couldn’t go any farther in that direction. He’d orders to turn back any one, he said. I talked to him for a minute or two, and explained where I was going; and I pulled the parcel out of my pocket as a guarantee of good faith. He didn’t know me, you see. And when I got the parcel out, I noticed the label quite by chance.”
“Ah, you do look at addresses after all!” interjected the Inspector.
“Quite by chance,” Marden went on, without taking any notice of the thrust. “And I saw that Mr. Foss had made a mistake.”
“How did you know that,” Inspector Armadale demanded, with the air of a cat pouncing on a mouse. “You said you’d taken no interest in his correspondence and yet you knew this parcel was directed to a wrong address. Curious, isn’t it?”
Marden did not even permit himself to smile as he discomfited the Inspector.
“He’d left out the name of the town. An obvious oversight when he was writing the label.”
“Well, go on,” growled the Inspector, evidently displeased at losing his score.
“As soon as I saw that, I knew it was no good taking the thing to the post office as it was. So I asked the keeper a question or two about the shortest way to Hincheldene without getting on to the barred ground. Then I turned and came home again, intending to ask Mr. Foss to complete the address on the parcel.”