did not want to
"register."

"Can you what?" said Doyle.

"Register," said the stranger.

"I don't know can you," said Doyle. "This is a backward place, but you
might try them at the police barrack. The sergeant's an obliging man,
and if the thing can be done I wouldn't doubt but he'd do it for you."

"You don't kind of catch on to my meaning," said the stranger. "What I
want is to stop a day or two in your hotel."

Doyle suddenly realised the possibilities of the situation.

"You can do that of course," he said, "and welcome. I'd be glad if we
had a gentleman like yourself every day of the week."

He turned as he spoke and shouted for Mary Ellen.

"Business pretty stagnant?" said the stranger.

"You may say that. Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen! Come here, I say."

The stranger got out of his car. He looked up and down the empty street.

"Guess," he said, "since I travelled in this slumbrous old country of
yours I've seen considerable stagnation, but this licks the worst I've
struck yet. Your town pretty well fathoms the depths. Are the folks here
alive at all?"

"They are, of course."

Doyle looked round him as he spoke. He saw a good deal that the stranger
missed. Sergeant Colgan and Constable Moriarty standing well back inside
the barrack door, were visible, dim figures in the shadow, keenly alert,
surveying the stranger. Young Kerrigan, the butcher's son, crouched,
half concealed, behind the body of a dead sheep which hung from a hook
outside the door of his father's shop. He too was watching. One side of
the window blind of the Connacht Eagle office was pulled aside. Thaddeus
Gallagher was without doubt peering at the motor-car through a corner of
the window. Three small boys were lurking among the packing cases which
stood outside a shop further down the street. Doyle felt justified in
repeating his statement that many of the inhabitants of Ballymoy were
alive.

"There is," he said, "many a one that's alive enough, though I don't say
but that business might be brighter. Mary Ellen, I say, come here."

Mary Ellen appeared at the door of the hotel. She had improved her
appearance slightly by putting on an apron. But she had not found time
to wash her face. This was not her fault. Washing is a serious business.
In Mary Ellen's case it would have taken a long time if it were to be in
the least effective. Doyle's call was urgent.

"Why didn't you come when you heard me calling you?" he said.

Mary Ellen l