"That is the queer part of it. So far as I know, I was the only Southam thereabouts."
Mr. Cleaver laughed.
"According to your own statement, it appears that, to put it mildly, there is at least a possibility of your being the James Southam we have been instructed to find. Frankly, Mr. Southam, we know very little more about the matter than you do yourself. We have simply been instructed to discover the present address of James Southam, at one time of Dulborough, and we have done so."
"Is that the case?"
From their manner the day before I had suspected that Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton might be merely, as it were, lay figures, and that it was somebody else who held the strings.
"There is something else I should like to mention: I wish to change my hotel." Mr. Cleaver stared.
"Change your hotel? Why? Isn't it good enough?"
"It is not that exactly. It is the domestic arrangements which are not to my taste."
"The domestic arrangements? What do you mean?"
I did not know how to explain; or rather, I did not know how much to explain.