“I don’t think I have ever seen a cloak like that in Cartordale,” she replied.
“I saw one yesterday,” I said, “and I wondered who the wearer was. Never mind, perhaps I shall see her—I mean it—again. It was the pattern of the cloak that took my fancy.”
I am not quite sure why I added that last phrase, though if Martha noticed anything she kept a perfectly straight face.
“A grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves?” said the little maid who entered the room at that moment and to whom the housekeeper propounded the question. “Why, yes’m, that’s Miss Kitty Clevedon—lives with her ladyship, you know. There are two gentlemen to see the master,” she added.
“Bring them in,” I said. “Who are they? Do you know them?”
“One of them is Sergeant Gamley, of the County Police,” Susan replied, “but the other is a stranger and did not give his name.”
“Bring them in,” I repeated.
Sergeant Gamley was in uniform, a tall, thin man with a long hatchet face and an air of important solemnity which he never shed. His companion was rather more rotund in build, with puffy red cheeks above which peered small, keen eyes that did not seem to linger long on anything, but which for all that missed nothing. Abraham Pepster was chief of the detective force at Peakborough, the county town, and one may judge to some extent his prevailing characteristic by the fact that his nickname among disrespectful subordinates was “Gimlet-eyes.” It was, however, Sergeant Gamley who opened the conversation on this particular occasion.
“We have called, Mr. Holt,” he said, “with regard to the tragedy at White Towers. Sir Philip Clevedon—”
“A tragedy—of what nature?” I interrupted. “I have heard nothing of it. There is nothing in the papers about it, is there? Or have I missed it?”