"Yessir. Deaf as a blooming hitching post in the left ear, and the right one not up to no great figger, either. A thundering good man though, one of the best."
"God bless my soul! Deaf, and yet——"
Here Mr. Overton's voice dropped off suddenly, and he did the rest of his thinking in silence. The thoughts themselves were anything but complimentary to a police force which retained deaf men on its active list and could send out nothing better than this precious pair of illiterates to investigate an important case.
"The duke does some funny things sometimes," he said to himself as he walked over to the spot where he had tethered his horse and began to unfasten it. "And that's what Scotland Yard takes the rate-payers' good money to support, eh? Good lord!"
He rejoined the two undesirables a moment later, and with the horse's bridle over his arm, walked on beside Cleek while Mr. Markham dropped back a few paces into the rear and clumped along in heavy-footed, listless style.
Mr. Overton, too, was silent for a time—as if the apparent inefficiency of these two upon whose perspicacity the duke was relying rather weighed upon his spirits, and he saw little more hope of getting to the bottom of this perplexing affair than if it had been left to the local constabulary. Cleek was sorry for that. He could see that the man was of a hearty, jovial disposition, and likely to be a rather pleasant companion for a long walk. He therefore set out to put him more at his ease and to start the conversational ball rolling.
"Fine country this, Mr. Overton," he said, looking round over the wide sweep of green land. "Reminds me of Australia, them trees and fields. Though I never was there; but I've seen the photographs. Brother's a sailor on the P. and O.—fetched back heaps of 'em. Hello! Wot price that church spire away over there to the left? Will that be St. Saviour's?"
"Yes."
"Church where the goings on takes place, ain't it? The bell-ringing and the like. Reckon I must have a look at that place some time to-morrow."
"Not until to-morrow, Mr. Headland?"