And the tall ex-detective entered, and looked with a silky simper stealthily to the right and to the left from the corners of his eyes, and glided in, shutting the door behind him.
Uncle David received this man without even a nod. He eyed him sternly, from his chair at the end of the table.
“Sit in that chair, please,” said he, pointing to a seat at the other end.
The ex-policeman made his best bow, and turning out his toes very much, he shuffled with his habitual sly smirk on, to the chair, in which he seated himself, and with his big red hands on the table began turning, and twisting, and twiddling a short pencil, which was a good deal bitten at the uncut end, between his fingers and thumbs.
“You came here to see Mr. Longcluse?” asked David Arden.
“A few words of business at his desire. Sir, I ask your parding, I came, Sir, by his wishes, not mine, which has brought me here at his request.”
“And who am I, do you suppose?”
The man, still smiling, looked at him shrewdly. “Well, I don't know, I'm sure; I may 'a' seen you.”
“Did you ever see that gentleman?” said David Arden, as Mr. Longcluse entered the room.
The ex-detective looked also shrewdly at Longcluse, but without any light of recognition. “I may have seen him, Sir. Yes, I saw him in Saint George's, Hanover Square, the day Lord Charles Dillingsworth married Miss Wygram, the hairess. I saw him at Sydenham the second week in February last when the Freemasons' dinner was there; and I saw him on the night of the match between Hood and Markham, at the Saloon Tavern.”