"Good-evening, Gaffer," said Jack, respectfully. "This is my friend, Dick Mercer. He's a Boy Scout from London."
"Knew it! Knew it!" said Gaffer Hodge, with a senile chuckle. "I said they was from Lunnon this afternoon when I seen them fust! Glad to meet you, young maister."
Then Jack described Graves as well as he could from his brief sight of him, and Dick helped by what he remembered.
"Did you see him come into town this afternoon, Gaffer?" asked Jack.
"Let me think," said the old man. "Yes—I seen 'um. Came sneaking in, he did, this afternoon as ever was! Been up to the big house at Bray Park, he had. Came in in an automobile, he did. Then he went back there. But he was in the post office when you and t'other young lad from Lunnon went by, maister!" nodding his head as if well pleased.
This was to Dick, and he and Jack stared at one another. Certainly their visit to Gaffer Hodge had paid them well.
"Are you sure of that, Gaffer?" asked Jack, quietly. "Sure that it was an automobile from Bray Park?"
"Sure as ever was!" said the old man, indignantly. Like all old people, he hated anyone to question him, resenting the idea that anyone could think he was mistaken. "Didn't I see the machine myself—a big grey one, with black stripes as ever was, like all their automobiles?"
"That's true—that's the way their cars are painted, and they have five or six of them," said Jack.
"Yes. And he come in the car from Lunnon before he went there—and then he come out here. He saw you and t'other young lad from Lunnon go by, maister, on your bicycles. He was watching you from the shop as ever was!"