“A little thing of your own?”
“Those words, Mr. Shotter, will appear on the title page of the history of Valley Fields, which I am compiling—a history dealing not only with its historical associations, which are numerous, but also with those aspects of its life which my occupation as house agent has given me peculiar opportunities of examining. I get some queer clients, Mr. Shotter.”
Sam was on the point of saying that the clients got a queer house agent, thus making the thing symmetrical, but he refrained.
“It may interest you to know that a very well-known criminal, a man who might be described as a second Charles Peace, once resided in the very house which you are renting.”
“I shall raise the tone.”
“Like Charles Peace, he was a most respectable man to all outward appearances. His name was Finglass. Nobody seems to have had any suspicion of his real character until the police, acting on information received, endeavoured to arrest him for the perpetration of a great bank robbery.”
“Catch him?” said Sam, only faintly interested.
“No; he escaped and fled the country. But I was asking you what made you settle on Valley Fields as a place of residence. You would seem to have made up your mind very quickly.”
“Well, the fact is, I happened to catch sight of my next-door neighbours, and it struck me that they would be pleasant people to live near.”
Mr. Cornelius nodded.