"Seldon wants you. Get on your tunic as quick as you can. He is in a devil of a hurry."
Inspector Seldon was seated in the taxi-cab when Flack appeared. He had been impatiently drumming his fingers on the door of the cab.
"Jump in, man," he said angrily. "What has kept you all this time?"
Flack breathed stertorously to show that he had been running and was out of breath, but he made no reply to the official rebuke. Inspector Seldon turned to him and remarked severely:
"Why didn't you let me know that Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned from
Scotland?"
Flack looked astonished.
"But he hasn't returned, sir," he said. "He's away for a month at least," he ventured to add.
"Who told you that?"
"The housemaid at Riversbrook—before he went away."
"H'm." The inspector's next question contained a moral rebuke rather than an official one. "You're a married man, Flack?"