“What is Brinkman? A man who cannot tell beer from cider with his eyes shut—Ah, here he is! I have been lamenting the loss Mr. and Mrs. Bredon will be to our desert island. But you too, I suppose, will be for Pullford again before the funeral bake-meats are cold?”
“Me? Oh, I don’t know. . . . My plans are rather vague. The house at Pullford is almost shut up, everybody except the housekeeper away. I daresay I shall stay on a bit. And then, I suppose, go to London to look for another job.”
“With better auspices, I hope. Well, you deserve a rest before you settle down to the collar again. Talking of collars” (he addressed himself to the barmaid, who had just come in with more eggs and bacon), “I wonder if you could represent to Mrs. Davis the desirability of sending some of my clothes to the wash?”
“Raight-ho,” said the barmaid, unconcernedly.
“I thank you; you gratify my least whim. Ah, here is Mr. Leyland! I trust you have slept off the weariness induced by the Coroner’s allocution yesterday?”
“Quite, thanks,” said Leyland, grinning. “Good-morning, Mrs. Bredon. Good-morning, Bredon; I wonder if you could give me ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after breakfast? . . . No, no porridge, thanks; just eggs and bacon.”
“Yes, rather. We might stroll back to the mill-house, if you don’t mind, for I rather think I dropped a packet of pipe-papers there. In fact, I think I’ll go on there and wait for you. No hurry.”
It was some twenty minutes before Leyland turned up, and almost at the moment of his arrival both men heard a very faint click behind them, as if somebody on the further side of the wall, in walking gently, had dislodged a loose stone. They exchanged an instantaneous glance, then Leyland opened up the pre-arranged conversation. There was something curiously uncanny about this business of talking entirely for the benefit of a concealed audience, but they both carried off the situation creditably.
“Well,” began Bredon, “you’re still hunting for murderers?”
“For a murderer, to be accurate. It doesn’t take two men to turn on a gas-jet. And when I say I’m hunting for him, I’m not exactly doing that; I’m hunting him. The motive’s clear enough, and the method’s clear enough, apart from details, but I want to make my case a little stronger before I take any action.”