THE CONFIDING LANDLORD
The clerk presently ushered in a short, thick-set, round-faced man, apparently of thirty to thirty-five years of age, whose chief personal characteristics lay in a pair of the smallest eyes ever set in a human countenance and a mere apology for a nose. But both nose and eyes combined somehow to communicate an idea of profound inquiry as the round face in which they were placed turned from the solicitor to the man from London, and a podgy forefinger was lifted to a red forehead.
"Servant, gentlemen," said the visitor. "Fine morning for the time of year!"
"Take a chair, Mr. Pickard," replied Eldrick. "Let me see—from the Green Man, at Whitcliffe, I believe?"
"Landlord, sir—had that house a many years," answered Pickard, as he took a seat near the wall. "Seven year come next Michaelmas, any road."
"Just so—and you want to see me about the advertisement in this morning's paper?" continued Eldrick. "What about it—now?"
The landlord looked at Eldrick and then at Eldrick's companion. The solicitor understood that look: it meant that what his caller had to say was of a private nature.
"It's all right, Mr. Pickard," he remarked reassuringly. "This gentleman is here on just the same business—whatever you say will be treated as confidential—it'll go no further. You've something to tell about my late clerk, James Parrawhite."
Pickard, who had been nervously fingering a white billycock hat, now put it down on the floor and thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers as if to keep them safe while he talked.
"It's like this here," he answered. "When I saw that there advertisement in the paper this mornin', says I to my missus, 'I'll away,' I says, 'an' see Lawyer Eldrick about that there, this very day!' 'Cause you see, Mr. Eldrick, there is summat as I can tell about yon man 'at you mention—James Parrawhite. I've said nowt about it to nobody, up to now, 'cause it were private business atween him and me, as it were, but I lost money over it, and of course, ten pound is ten pound, gentlemen."