Edward looked down the pavement in the direction pointed out by the woman, and saw a man approaching. He proceeded a few steps to meet him.
Edward was impatient, and to a certain extent still a countryman, who had not, after the manner of city men, subdued the natural impulse to speak out the ruling thought without preface. He said in a quiet tone to the stranger, ‘One word with you—do you remember a lady lodger of yours of the name of Mrs. Manston?’
Mr. Brown half closed his eyes at Springrove, somewhat as if he were looking into a telescope at the wrong end.
‘I have never let lodgings in my life,’ he said, after his survey.
‘Didn’t you attend an inquest a year and a half ago, at Carriford?’
‘Never knew there was such a place in the world, sir; and as to lodgings, I have taken acres first and last during the last thirty years, but I have never let an inch.’
‘I suppose there is some mistake,’ Edward murmured, and turned away. He and Mr. Brown were now opposite the door next to the one he had knocked at. The woman who was still standing there had heard the inquiry and the result of it.
‘I expect it is the other Mr. Brown, who used to live there, that you want, sir,’ she said. ‘The Mr. Brown that was inquired for the other day?’
‘Very likely that is the man,’ said Edward, his interest reawakening.
‘He couldn’t make a do of lodging-letting here, and at last he went to Cornwall, where he came from, and where his brother still lived, who had often asked him to come home again. But there was little luck in the change; for after London they say he couldn’t stand the rainy west winds they get there, and he died in the December following. Will you step into the passage?’