"Ho! I'm a liar, am I?" Mr. Higgins leapt to his feet. His wife, according to her invariable custom when her menfolk quarreled, began to weep quietly, but persistently. "Get out o' the 'ouse! I ain't goin' to be called names by no young 'ound like you. Get out of it! An' what d'you know about 'er, anyway?"
"What do I know?" Alf laughed with scorn. "I know a dam' sight more'n...."
"Come on, Alf!" urged Bill earnestly in his ear, anxious only to get him away before he made some terrible revelation. Alf allowed himself to be led into the street, where Bill gave him a "dressing down."
"You blinkin' fool," he said. "What the 'ell d'you want to go an' do that for? You'll give the 'ole blinkin' show away if you ain't careful. Nice we should look if any one found out it was us at the Manor!"
"Well," returned Alf, still fermenting, "what's 'e want to go talking like that for? Spies, indeed! What's 'e know about it?"
"That ain't the question," replied Bill seriously. "What I want to know is, what's the police know about it. You 'eard what the paper said about a clew."
"Don't they always say that?"
"Yes, but not so confident as that. If they don't know nothing about it, they say: 'The police 'as a clew,' an' everybody knows they 'aven't got nothing o' the sort. But this says: 'A strong clew, what the police is followin' up.' Did we leave anything be'ind us?"
Rack their brains as they would, they could not remember anything they had left as a clew. The question worried them considerably. Bill made once more his suggestion that Eustace could be employed to set things right, but dropped the idea hastily in face of Alf's reception thereof.