“Every one is talking of it. Lots of people are going down to see the spot. I shall go down presently. Do you care to come?” the landlord asked.
I acceded willingly, for I wished to see the place in daylight, and, as one of a crowd of sightseers, I should escape observation.
While I ate my breakfast, the man, full of the mystery, continued discussing it in all its phases. I allowed him to run on, for every word he spoke was, to me, of intense interest.
“The poor Colonel was the very last man to have an enemy who would take his life,” he said.
“But his second wife?”
“Ah!” he said with a knowing air, “he was never quite the same after he married again. They say that she flirted indiscriminately with every man she came across, no matter who he was.”
“As bad as that—eh?”
“Of course I don’t know for certain. I only tell you what I’ve ’eard.”
“Of course, of course,” I said. “People will always talk. But do you really think it’s true that she is as giddy as reported?”
“I really don’t know,” he responded, raising his eyebrows. “These women of the upper ten are a queer lot sometimes.”