"Well, sir, I hope you are satisfied. You may take my word for it that you never will."
"Think not?" he carelessly said, looking about him.
"Any way, I am not sorry that you have been through them subterranean places underground," she resumed. "My mistress and I have never ventured to look what was in them, and she has not much liked the thought of their being there. We got Hopley to go down one day, but his shoulders stuck in a narrow part, and he had to force 'em back and come up again."
The detective stepped into the green-house, and stood a moment admiring the choice flowers and some purple grapes ripening above. Ann Hopley had gathered her herbs when he came out, and stood with them in her hand.
"If you'd like to take a few flowers' sir, I'm sure Mrs. Grey would not wish to object. Or a bunch of grapes. There's some ripe."
"Thank you, not now."
He pulled open the tool-house door, only partly closed, and looked in on Hopley. The old man was cleaning it out. Sweeping the floor with a besom and raising a cloud of dust enough to choke a dozen throats, he was hissing and fizzing over his work.
Hopley looked very decrepid to-day: his swollen knees were bent and tottering: his humped back was all conspicuous as he stood; while his throat was enveloped in some folds of an old scarlet comforter.
"Mr. Hopley, I think," said the detective, politely. "Will you please tell me the name of the gentleman that's staying here?"
But Hopley, bent nearly double over his work, took no notice whatever. His back was towards the detective; and he kept on his hissing and fizzing, and scattering his clouds of dust.