"Your servant, gentlemen," she said. "Your rooms are ready, and dinner will be ready, too, when you are. This way, if you please."
"A very fine old house this, ma'am," observed Mr. Pawle as they followed her up a curious staircase, all nooks and corners. "And you have, no doubt, been long in it?"
"Born in it, sir," said the landlady, with a laugh. "Our family—on one side—has been here two hundred years. This is your room, sir—this is your friend's." She paused, and with a significant look, pointed to another door. "That," she said, "is the room which Mr. Ashton had when he was here."
"Ah! We are very anxious to know what you can tell us about him, ma'am," said Mr. Pawle.
Mrs. Summers paused, and again glanced significantly at her visitors.
"I wish I knew the meaning of what I shall tell you," she answered.
CHAPTER IX
LOOKING BACKWARD
On the principle that business should never be discussed when one is dining, Mr. Pawle made no reference during dinner to the matter which had brought Viner and himself to the Ellingham Arms. He devoted all his attention and energies to the pleasures of the table; he praised the grilled soles and roast mutton and grew enthusiastic over some old Burgundy which Mrs. Summers strongly recommended. But when dinner was over and he had drunk a glass or two of old port, his eyes began to turn toward the door of the quaint little parlour in which he and Viner had been installed, and to which the landlady had promised to come.
"I confess I'm unusually curious about what we're going to hear, Viner," he said, as he drew out a well-filled cigar-case. "There's an atmosphere of mystery about our presence and our surroundings that's like an apéritif to an already hungry man. Ashton, poor fellow, comes over to this quiet, out-of-the-way place; why, we don't know; what he does here we don't know, yet—but all the circumstances, up to now, seem to point to secrecy, if not to absolute romance and adventure."