“Needed, man!” He pulled himself up once more. “I’m sorry, Gunnet, but I’m afraid I shall have to haul you away from your supper. I won’t keep him longer than I can help, Mrs. Gunnet,” he went on as his eye fell on the meal she had been just about to dish up.
Gunnet heaved himself reluctantly into his tunic and buttoned it, his eyes on the troubled face of his visitor.
“Look here, sir,” he said weightily. “I’d better know what it’s all about. You can talk in front of the missus, here. She knows when to keep a still tongue in her head.”
Leslie gripped the back of the chair behind which he was standing. His throat seemed to have grown suddenly dry.
“There’s a woman up at the farm, in my sitting-room,” he said, his voice unnaturally quiet. “And she’s dead.”
Gunnet stared at him for a moment in silence, then, with an assumption of officialdom that contrasted almost comically with his usual bluff good-humour, pulled out his notebook.
“A woman? Who is she?”
“I don’t know. Never seen her before, to my knowledge. I found her when I got back this evening.”
Gunnet unhooked his great-coat and got slowly into it.
“Better keep the rest till we get there. And don’t you get talking, Mother,” he added gruffly as he went out.