He went to the office of the contractor who had carried out the alterations. An elderly foreman readily answered his questions.
“Yes, sir. I was in charge of the men who were on the job. It was an easy business. Just an outlet for rain from the road. An old-fashioned affair; been there thirty or forty years, I should think; all the pipes were crumbling away.”
“Why were the repairs effected at this moment?”
“Well, sir, the house was empty quite a while. You see it used to be a school, a place where young gents were prepared for the army. It was closed about a year ago, and it isn’t everybody as wants so many bedrooms. I do hear as how the new tenant has sixteen children.”
“The incoming people have not yet arrived?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you tell me the name of the schoolmaster?”
“Oh, yes. When I was younger I have done a lot of carpenter’s work for him. He was the Reverend Septimus Childe.”
Bruce made a note of the name, and next sought the local police-inspector.
“No, nothing fresh,” said the latter, in reply to a query concerning the woman “found drowned.”