“It’s greatly to our credit,” he said, as he took my arm, and led me out—“that’s one comfort!”
“What is to our credit?” I asked.
“Mr. Blake! you and I are the two worst amateur detectives that ever tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been thirty years in the chemist’s service. He was sent to the bank to pay money to his master’s account—and he knows no more of the Moonstone than the babe unborn.”
I asked what was to be done next.
“Come back to my office,” said Mr. Bruff. “Gooseberry, and my second man, have evidently followed somebody else. Let us hope that they had their eyes about them at any rate!”
When we reached Gray’s Inn Square, the second man had arrived there before us. He had been waiting for more than a quarter of an hour.
“Well!” asked Mr. Bruff. “What’s your news?”
“I am sorry to say, sir,” replied the man, “that I have made a mistake. I could have taken my oath that I saw Mr. Luker pass something to an elderly gentleman, in a light-coloured paletot. The elderly gentleman turns out, sir, to be a most respectable master iron-monger in Eastcheap.”
“Where is Gooseberry?” asked Mr. Bruff resignedly.
The man stared. “I don’t know, sir. I have seen nothing of him since I left the bank.”