"I fancy not."
"Is he staying at Foxwood? What is he doing here?"
"He is certainly staying at Foxwood. As to his business, I conclude it is something in the private detective line, Sir Karl."
Mr. Strange, whose attention in passing had been directed to some matter on the other side of the way and not to the lawyer's window, consequently he did not know that he was being watched, had halted a little lower down to speak to the landlord of the Red Lion. All in a moment, as Karl looked at him, the notion flashed into his mind that this man bore a strong resemblance to the description given by Ann Hopley of the man who had invaded the Maze. The notion came to him in the self-same moment that the words of the lawyer fell on his ears--"His business, I conclude, is something in the private detective line." What with the notion, and what with the words, Karl Andinnian fell into a confused inward tumult, that caused his heart's blood to stop, and then course wildly on. Business at Foxwood, connected with detectives, must have reference to his brother, and to him alone.
"A slight-made gentleman with a fair face and light curly hair, looking about thirty," had been Ann Hopley's description; it answered in every particular to the man Karl was gazing at; gazing until he watched him out of sight. Lawyer St. Henry, naturally observant, thought his guest stared after the man as though he held some peculiar interest in him.
"Do you know who that man really is, Mr. St. Henry?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Sir Karl. No reason why I should not, for I have not been told to keep it a secret. Some little time back, my nieces grew full of the new lodger at Mrs. Jinks's; they were talking of him incessantly: A gentleman reading divinity----"
"Why, that's Mr. Cattacomb," interrupted Sir Karl. "He lodges at Mrs. Jinks's."
"Not that ladies' idiot," cried the lawyer, rather roughly. "I beg your pardon, Sir Karl, but the Reverend Guy sometimes puts me out of patience. This man has the upper rooms, Cattacomb the lower----"
"But I--I thought that was a boy: a lad at his studies," reiterated Karl, in some perplexity. "I assumed him to be a pupil of Cattacomb's."