"Did you?" repeated Polke. "Come, now!"
"Well, Mr. Polke," said the elder woman, "we didn't. But, of course, we know what's going on—couldn't very well not know, now could we, Mr. Polke? And we can tell you something that may have to do with things."
"Out with it, then!" commanded Polke. "Keep nothing back."
"Well," said the woman, "there was somebody stirring about this house in the middle of Saturday night—between, say, one and two o'clock in the morning—Sunday morning, of course. Both me and Jane here heard 'em—quite plain. And we thought naught of it, then—leastways, what we did think was that it was Mr. Horbury. He often came in very late. But when we found out next morning that he'd never come home—why, then, we did think it was queer that we'd heard noises."
"Did you mention that to Mrs. Carswell?" asked Polke.
"Of course!—but she said she'd heard nothing, and it must have been rats," replied the elder woman.
"But I've been here three years and I've never seen a rat in the place."
"Nor me!" agreed the housemaid. "And it wasn't rats. I heard a door shut—twice. Plain as I'm speaking to you, Mr. Polke."
Polke reflected a minute and then turned away.
"All right, my lasses!" he said. "Well, keep all this to yourselves. Here—I'll tell you what you can do. Send Miss Fosdyke a nice cup of tea into the study—send us all one!—we can't leave what we're doing just yet. And a mouthful of bread and butter with it. Come along, Jones," he continued, leading the constable away. "Here, you step round to old Mr. Batterley's—you know where he lives—near the Castle. Mr. Polke's compliments, and would he be so good as to come to the bank-house and help us a bit?—he'll know what I mean. Bring him back with you."