“Of course.�
“The relationship between you was so distant that, of course, there was no physical likeness between you, was there?�
“Oh, none at all that anybody ever spoke about.�
“All valets are smooth of face, by necessity of their calling, and you have always worn the mustache and Vandyke beard, haven’t you? Every picture of you that I have seen in the papers has had it so.�
“I haven’t shaved my face or upper lip since I entered college, and that was nearly thirty years ago,� was the quick reply.
Again the detective relapsed into silence—with a purpose.
After a moment he began to speak of the beauty of the day, for it was a perfect one, and he drew his companion’s attention to patches of the snow that had fallen during the night upon the landscape they were passing.
And while he did that he did another thing—in an utterly abstracted manner, as if he had no thought of what he was doing.
He removed his cigar case from his pocket a second time, helped himself to a cigar, and then, as if with second thought, passed the case to Lynne while he sought his match safe.
He struck the match and held the flame of it out for the other to light by, and then applied it to his own cigar; and so they smoked on in silence for another distance, until the detective said: