The landlord seated himself in silence, and watched his visitor. After a few minutes had passed in silence, Reginald Ainslie laid down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair.
‘Is your name Dipping?’
‘It is so, sir.’
‘Will you please to tell me,’ continued Ainslie, ‘the particulars of how you became possessed of this scrap of paper?’
Old Hobb waxed extremely uncomfortable under the visitor’s fixed gaze; he scratched his bald skull, looked wistfully round the room, and then asked in an affrighted whisper: ‘Be you anything to do with the magistrates, sir?’
Reginald shook his head.
‘If you’re not, sir,’ went on the landlord, evidently very much relieved, ‘would you mind first letting me know your reason for askin’ those questions?’
‘My reason for asking them,’ answered Reginald, ‘is because your reply may prove to be of serious importance to me. I have ridden a long way, a very long way, and solely on purpose to communicate with the landlord of this inn upon a subject which may prove the means of benefiting us both.—Do you remember a gentleman named Sir Carnaby Vincent?’
Hobb started a little at the abruptness of the question, but answered: ‘Ay, sir, that I do. And haven’t I good cause to remember him? That bit of paper, sir, I have always fancied belonged to the poor gentleman. I found it on the stairs while the red-coats were searchin’ his room; they must ha’ passed it somehow.’
‘That was on the night when he was shot here—was it not?’