“Ow! ow! that’s bad. And the bit husband-creature danglin’ at her petticoat’s tail one day, and awa’ wi’ the sunrise next mornin’—have they baith taken leg-bail together?”
“I know nothing of him; I never saw him. You saw him. Tell me—what was he like?”
“Eh! he was joost a puir weak creature. Didn’t know a glass o’ good sherry-wine when he’d got it. Free wi’ the siller—that’s a’ ye can say for him—free wi’ the siller!”
Finding it impossible to extract from Mr. Bishopriggs any clearer description of the man who had been with Anne at the inn than this, Blanche approached the main object of the interview. Too anxious to waste time in circumlocution, she turned the conversation at once to the delicate and doubtful subject of the lost letter.
“There is something else that I want to say to you,” she resumed. “My friend had a loss while she was staying at the inn.”
The clouds of doubt rolled off the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs. The lady’s friend knew of the lost letter. And, better still, the lady’s friend looked as if she wanted it!
“Ay! ay!” he said, with all due appearance of carelessness. “Like eneugh. From the mistress downward, they’re a’ kittle cattle at the inn since I’ve left ‘em. What may it ha’ been that she lost?”
“She lost a letter.”
The look of uneasy expectation reappeared in the eye of Mr. Bishopriggs. It was a question—and a serious question, from his point of view—whether any suspicion of theft was attached to the disappearance of the letter.
“When ye say ‘lost,’” he asked, “d’ye mean stolen?”