“Did Colonel Strangway leave no children?”
“Neither chick nor child.”
“Do you know if his widow is still living?”
“No, sir. That is the last I ever heard of him or his.”
“What about the younger brother?”
“I believe he must be dead too, though I can’t give you chapter and verse. He never married, didn’t Mr. Frederick—not to my knowledge. He went on board a man-of-war before he was fifteen, and at five and twenty he was a splendid officer and as fine a young man as you need wish to see; but he was too fond of the bottle. China was the ruin of him, some folks said, and he got court-marshalled out there, not long after they sacked that there Summer Palace there was so much talk about; and then he contrived to pass into the mercantile marine, which was a come-down for a Strangway, and for a few years he was one of their finest officers, a regular dare-devil; could sail a ship faster and safer than any man in the service; used to race home with the spring pickings of tea, when tea wasn’t the cheap muck it is now, and when there weren’t no Suez Canal to spoil sport. But he took to his old games again, and he got broke again, broke for drunkenness and insubordination; and then he went and loafed and drank in Jersey—where, it’s my belief, he died some years ago.”
“You have no positive information about his death?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“There was one daughter, I think?”
“Yes, there was a daughter, Miss Eva. I taught her to ride. There wasn’t a finer horsewoman in Dorsetshire, but a devil of a temper—the real Strangway temper. I wasn’t surprised when I heard she’d married badly; I wasn’t surprised when I heard she’d run away from her husband.”