She brought the paper to him, a sort of blank wonderment written in her eyes as they scanned his face.
"It's the strangest thing," she said with a shake of the head, "the very strangest! But every single man in this establishment has the same-size foot, Mr. Deland. There's nothing but tens among them. It seems a queer coincidence, surely!"
Cleek pursed his lips up to a whistle of amazement.
"Gad! it certainly does. Every man-jack of 'em, then? Jarvis, and Batchett, and your bailiff Tavish, and McGubbins? Every one of them?"
"What a memory you have!" she countered amazedly. "Yes, every one of them. Except Mr. Tavish. And his are elevens, he tells me."
"Didn't give away any reason for asking, I hope, Miss Duggan?" put in Cleek at this juncture, with an arching of the brows and a keen look into her upthrown face.
"Indeed I didn't. In fact, I threw them off the scent most successfully by taking a pair of Ross's boots along with me and pretending I didn't know whose they were. Batchett soon put me right. 'Them's Mr. Ross's—Sair Ross, if ye please, m'm,' he said, using Ross's new title (poor old boy! He won't like it a bit, either. He thinks titles are anathema!). But Mr. Tavish, of course, didn't know whose they were, nor did the old gardener, McGubbins, nor Jarvis, either. Only they said they weren't theirs. And then, of course, told me the sizes they took. So, you see, Mr. Deland, you can't blame Angus for that, can you?"
He smiled at her and shook his head.
"You've missed your vocation. You ought to have been a lady-detective, using those methods," he replied lightly. "But it's odd—deuced odd! I'll take a look at their feet whenever I get the chance. Don't bother any more, Miss Duggan. I'll get to the bottom of this thing somehow or other, before the next few days, and don't make any mistake about that. That's all you can do for me. So go along, and lie down and have a proper rest. I'm going to interview Mr. Narkom again. What time is tea, by the way?"
"Half-past four. If you'd like it sent to your rooms with Mr. Narkom——"