"Do you know who that man really is, Mr. St. Henry?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Sir Karl. No reason why I should not, for I have not been told to keep it a secret. Some little time back, my nieces grew full of the new lodger at Mrs. Jinks's; they were talking of him incessantly: A gentleman reading divinity----"
"Why, that's Mr. Cattacomb," interrupted Sir Karl. "He lodges at Mrs. Jinks's."
"Not that ladies' idiot," cried the lawyer, rather roughly. "I beg your pardon, Sir Karl, but the Reverend Guy sometimes puts me out of patience. This man has the upper rooms, Cattacomb the lower----"
"But I--I thought that was a boy: a lad at his studies," reiterated Karl, in some perplexity. "I assumed him to be a pupil of Cattacomb's."
"It is the man you have just watched down the street, Sir Karl. Well, to go on. My nieces were always talking of this new gentleman, a Mr. Strange, who had come to Foxwood to get up his health, and to read up for some divinity examination. That was their account. They said so much about him that I got curious myself: it was a new face, you see, Sir Karl, and girls go wild over that. One morning when I was starting for the office, the gig at the door, Jane ran out to me. 'Uncle,' she said, 'that's Mr. Strange coming down Mrs. Jinks's steps now: you can see him if you look.' I did look, Sir Karl, and saw the gentleman you have just seen pass. His face struck me at once as one that I was familiar with, though at the moment I could not tell where I had seen him. Remembrance came to me while I looked--and I knew him for an officer connected with the detective force at Scotland Yard."
Karl drew a long breath. He was listening greedily.
"About a year ago," resumed the lawyer, "my agent in London, Mr. Blair, had occasion to employ a detective upon some matter he was engaged in. I was in London for a few days at that time, and saw the man twice at Blair's--and knew him again now. It was this same Mr. Strange."
"And you say Strange is not his right name?"
"Well, I can't tell you the right one, Sir Karl, for I cannot remember it. I am sure of one thing--that it was not Strange. It was a longer name, and I think rather a peculiar name; but I can't hit upon it. He must be down here on some private business, and has no doubt his own reasons for keeping incog. I recollect Blair told me he was one of the astutest officers in the detective force."