“Then I suppose every lady in the Dale uses them,” I remarked jestingly.
“Most of them,” she agreed. “I do—see, here is one”—and she extracted a specimen from her own abundant head-covering. “A few may get some others when they go into Midlington, but most come here for them. Lady Clevedon had three boxes only a week ago.”
“Lady Clevedon,” I echoed, “then they must be an aristocratic brand. Does her ladyship do her own shopping?”
“Oh, they are good enough. No, Lady Clevedon didn’t come for them—Miss Kitty fetched them. She said they were for Lady Clevedon, but she took some for herself too, so I suppose she wears them.”
Evidently the hairpin was not going to be of much use to me, at all events as a means of identification. There would be too many of them about the Dale for that.
When I reached Stone Hollow again I found Detective Pepster awaiting me, looking, for him, a little disconsolate.
“Well,” was my greeting, “how has Fate treated you?”
“No luck, none at all,” Pepster said gloomily. “I am just back from Dublin with no news. Clevedon went to Dublin on February 20th, but there all trace of him ended. I could learn nothing.”
“I have been more fortunate than you,” I returned smilingly. “I can carry him a bit farther than that. He was in Midlington on February 22nd and left there on the morning of the 23rd.”
“Do you know that?”