“Bring him here, then, Foggo.”
“No, Mr. Fred: he would take it far kinder if you would just step out to the gate.”
And this was what Fred finally did. He found the landlord of the “Dun Cow” exceedingly embarrassed, not knowing how to begin his story. He took off his blue bonnet at the sight of Fred, and began to twirl it round and round in his hands.
“It’s about an accident that’s happened,” said John.
“Do you want me to do anything? I’m very much occupied; if it’s anything Foggo could do——”
“Na, it’s not Foggo I want” (he said Foggy, after the fashion of his locality), “it’s just yoursel’. There was a gentleman came to lodge in my house last night. We whiles get a stranger—that’s not very particular.”
“A gentleman?”
“A gentleman with a beard.” The man eyed Fred very closely, who did not know what to reply.
“Yes,” he said, with a little catch of his breath, “and what then?”
“The gentleman must have gone down, so far as we can see, very early to take a bath in the sea. Nobody heard him go out. My own idea is he never was in after he got his supper. He first went to the door for a smoke, and my impression is——”