The officer took the paper; read it, turned it over and over; looked it up and down; read it again. Then he gave his mouth a rather comical twist; then he looked at Madge with eyes which he probably intended to be pregnant with meaning.
"Hum!" He paused to cogitate. "I suppose you know there's been a burglary here before?"
"I know nothing of the kind. We have only been here six weeks, and are quite strangers to the place."
"There was. Something more than a year ago. The house was empty at the time. The man who did it was caught at the job--and our chap got pretty well knocked about for his pains. But that wasn't the only time we've had business at this house; our fellows have been here a good many times."
"Neither my friend or I had the slightest notion that the house had such a reputation."
"I daresay not. It's been empty a good long time. I expect the stories which were told about it were against its letting."
"What sort of stories?"
"All sorts--nonsense, most of them."
"Were the people who lived here named Ossington?"
"Ossington?" The officer screwed his mouth up into the comical twist which it seemed he had a trick of giving it. "I believe it was, or, at any rate, something like it. A queer lot they were--very."