“Tell me how it struck you. Sometimes the uninformed brain is vouchsafed a gleam of unconscious genius.”
Winter appeared to be devoting his mind to circumventing the vagaries of a fragile tobacco-leaf. He was a man of powerful build, over forty, heavy but active, deep-chested, round-headed, with bulging blue eyes which radiated kindliness and strength of character. The press photographer described him accurately to Grant. The average Londoner would have taken him for a county gentleman on a visit to the Agricultural Show at Islington, with a morning at Tattersall’s as a variant. Yet, Sam Weller’s extensive and peculiar knowledge of London compared with his as a freshman’s with a don’s of a university. It would be hard to assess, in coin of the realm, the value of the political and social secrets stowed away in that big head.
“First, I must put a question or two,” he said, smiling at a baby which cooed at him from the shaded depths of a passing perambulator. “Is there another woman?”
“Yes, the postmaster’s daughter, Doris Martin.”
“Shy, pretty little bird, of course?”
“Everything that is good and beautiful.”
“Is Grant a Lothario?”
“Excellent chap. Quarter of an hour before the murder he was giving Doris a lesson in astronomy in the garden of The Hollies.”
“Never heard it called that before.”
“This time the statement happens to be strictly accurate.”