"Why, the young woman up at Exham Park--Miss Arnott."
CHAPTER XXXII
[THE HOUSEMAID'S TALE]
Mr And Mrs Granger looked at each other. Then the husband dropped down into the chair which he had just vacated with a sound which might be described as a snort; it was perhaps because he was a man of such plethoric habit that the slightest occasion for surprise caused him to emit strange noises. His wife caught at the edge of the table with both her hands.
"Lawk-a-mussy!" she exclaimed. "To think of Jim Baker saying that!"
"It seems to me," observed Mr Nunn, with an air of what he perhaps meant to be rhadamanthine severity, "that if there's anything in what that chap says somebody ought to have had their suspicions before now. I don't say who."
This with a very meaning glance at Mr Granger.
"Suspicions!" cried the lady. "Why, Mr Nunn, there ain't been nothing but suspicions! I shouldn't think there was a soul for ten miles round that hasn't been suspected by someone else of having done it. You wouldn't have had my husband lock 'em all up! Do you believe Jim Baker?"
"That's not the question. It's evidence I want, and it's for evidence, Mr Granger, I've come to you."
"Evidence of what?" gasped the policeman. "I don't know if you think I keep evidence on tap as if it was beer. All the evidence I have you've got--and more."