"And Bede Greatorex too, you say?"
"I fancy he can."
Looking into each other's eyes, those two deep men, there ensued a silence. "If it wasn't this woman," whispered Butterby, "perhaps it was another."
The clerk opened his lips to speak in hasty impulse: but he closed them again, still looking hard at the officer.
"Whether it was or not, the woman was not Alletha Rye."
"Then," said Mr. Butterby, following out his own private thoughts, and giving the table an emphatic slap, which caused the frugal luncheon tray to jingle, "this thing will never be brought to trial."
"I don't much think it will," was the significant answer. "But you will consent to what I ask? I won't be away long. A quarter of an hour will suffice for my interview with Bede Greatorex."
Weighing chances and possibilities, as it lay in the business of Mr. Butterby to do; knowing who the man before him was, with the suspicion attaching to him, he thought it might be as well to keep him under view. There was no apparent intention to escape; the clerk seemed honest as the day on this present purpose, and strangely earnest; but Mr. Butterby had learnt to trust nobody.
"I'll go with yon," said he. "Tompkins will keep matters safe here. Come on. Hang me if this case ever had its fellow: it turns one about with its little finger."