"Gone to the Scarnham Arms, Mr. Neale," replied the housekeeper. "She wouldn't stay here, though her room was all ready for her. Said she wouldn't stop two seconds in a house that belonged to men who suspected her uncle! So she's gone across there to take rooms. Do—do the partners suspect Mr. Horbury of something, Mr. Neale?"
Neale shook his head and turned away.
"I can't tell you anything, Mrs. Carswell," he answered. "If either Mr. Chestermarke or Mr. Joseph wish to give you any information, they'll give it themselves. But I can say this on my own responsibility—if you know of anything—anything, however small!—that would account for Mr. Horbury's absence, out with it!"
"But I don't—I know nothing but what I've told," said Mrs. Carswell. "Literally nothing!"
"Nobody knows anything," remarked Neale. "That's the worst of it. Well—we shall see."
He went away from the house and crossed the Market-Place to the Scarnham Arms, an old-world inn which had suffered few alterations during the last two centuries. And there inside its wide hall, superintending the removal of various articles of luggage which had just arrived from the station and in conversation with a much interested landlady, he found Betty Fosdyke.
"I may be here for weeks, and I shall certainly be here for days," that young lady was saying. "Put all these things in the bedroom, and I'll have what I want taken into the sitting-room later. Now, Mrs.
