“That's really why I came to you. I understood from him you knew the place well.”
“Oh, yes. Always did. It originally belonged to some connections of mine.”
“The Misses Moultrie, I suppose. How interesting! They must have loved the place before the country round about was built up.”
“They were very fond of it indeed.”
“I don't wonder. So restful and sunny. I don't see how they could have brought themselves to part with it.”
Now it is one of the most constant peculiarities of the English that in polite conversation—and I had striven to be polite—no one ever does or sells anything for mere money's sake.
“Miss Agnes—the youngest—fell ill” (he spaced his words a little), “and, as they were very much attached to each other, that broke up the home.”
“Naturally. I fancied it must have been something of that kind. One doesn't associate the Staffordshire Moultries” (my Demon of Irresponsibility at that instant created 'em), “with—with being hard up.”
“I don't know whether we're related to them,” he answered importantly. “We may be, for our branch of the family comes from the Midlands.”
I give this talk at length, because I am so proud of my first attempt at detective work. When I left him, twenty minutes later, with instructions to move against the owner of Holmescroft, with a view to purchase, I was more bewildered than any Doctor Watson at the opening of a story.