“I am not sure that I know very much about him,” Pepster said. “You see, he never came under my survey professionally, though according to accounts that was rather by way of good luck than actual desert. When they were children, brother and sister were inseparable and were always up to mischief of some sort. Their parents died when they were babies and they went to live at White Towers with old Lady Clevedon. When she went back to Hapforth House on the death of her husband, they went with her and in due time were packed off to school—”
“Yes, all that is common knowledge,” I interrupted. “But what about Ireland?”
“He is a captain in the 2nd Peakshires and they are stationed in Ireland.”
“But apparently he isn’t in Ireland now.”
“I don’t know that he isn’t. He went off on leave which began on February 20th and started for Dublin. But whether he ever reached that city or what he did next nobody knows.”
“They were very fond of each other, these two, I suppose.”
“Meaning the brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“They were inseparable until their school-days came.”
I lay back in my basket chair and sent a long wraith of blue smoke curling and winding towards the ceiling.