"Your guardian returned, I believe, at intervals to England?" I had never told him this.
"Yes. At least I suppose so, or he would not have been in London."
"Did he visit then at Vaughan Park?"
"Not once within my memory."
"Thank you. I will ask no more. It is a strange story; but I have known several much more strange. Of one thing be assured. I shall catch the criminal. I need not tell you that I heard much of this case at the time."
"Were you sent down to Gloucestershire?"
"No. If I had been--well, I will not say. But I was not then in my present position. Had I been so, it would have become my special department."
"Pray keep me no more in suspense. Tell me what you think."
"That I must not do, or you should know it at once, for my opinion is formed. It would be a breach of duty for me to tell you now."
"Oh," I cried in my disappointment, "I wish I had never seen you."