“Easily recognised,” I suggested.
“Just so, sir. Though it’ll be—let me see—yes, three years or so since he was here,” he answered. “Oh, I remember him well enough. Stopped here two or three nights, one autumn. A collector of curiosities, I think, sir. I remember I bought him a couple of packing-cases to carry away odds and ends that he’d bought in the town. Considerable trade done in that way here, sir—half those shops you see on the other side are curio shops.”
“How do they keep up their stock?” I asked.
“Ah! that’s a question that a lot of people have put to me, sir,” he replied. “You’d almost think they manufacture things! But the fact is, sir, this is an old part of England, with a lot of old houses about, old country seats, and the like. And families die out, and the stuff they’ve been accumulating for generations comes to auction, and a lot of it gets into these curio shops—that’s how it’s done, sir. Plenty of antiques in those shops, sir, but nothing to what there is in the old houses in the neighbourhood.”
“Do you know a house near here called Palkeney Manor?” I asked, thinking that as this was an intelligent and communicative man I might as well improve my own knowledge. “There is such a place, I think?”
“Palkeney Manor, sir!” he answered readily. “To be sure, sir! Three miles out—fine old house that is—sort of show-place; you can look round it by paying a shilling—all our American customers go there, and the shillings go to the local charities. Oh, yes! that was old Mr. Matthew Palkeney’s. Dead now, he is, and they do say that the lawyers don’t know who the property belongs to—haven’t found out yet, anyway. Fine property it is, too. Queer old gentleman, old Mr. Palkeney!—and that reminds me that I think your friend knew him, sir. Leastways, the last day your friend was here I remember that old Mr. Palkeney drove up in his carriage and gave me a parcel for him—I helped him to pack that parcel in one of the cases I’d bought for him.”
“You’ve an excellent memory,” I remarked.
“Oh, well, one thinks of things, sir,” he answered. “Faces, now, sir, they stir your memory up, don’t you think? And I’ve seen some remarkable faces in my time—faces that you’d remember twenty years after. Some faces, of course, is that ordinary that you never notice ’em. But others——”
At that moment Parslewe put his face through the swing door behind us, and seeing the hall-porter on the steps came out. He had a letter in his hand. Coming to the hall-porter he waved the letter towards the west end of the Market Place.
“Isn’t Sir Charles Sperrigoe’s office just round that corner?” he asked. “Aye? Well, just go and put this note into his letter-box, will you? Then he’ll get it first thing in the morning. Go now, there’s a good fellow!” He turned to me when the man had gone on his errand. “Well, master!” he asked, in his half-cynical, half-humorous fashion. “How does this appeal to your artistic sense?”