sing from the bank? Are those jewels
really missing? You see," concluded Starmidge, looking round his circle
of listeners, "there's an awful lot to take into account."

At that moment Polke's domestic servant tapped at the door and put her
head inside the room.

"If you please, Mr. Polke, there's Mrs. Pratt, from the Station Hotel,
would like a word with you," she said.

The superintendent hurried from the room--to return at once with a
stout, middle-aged woman, who, as she entered, raised her veil and
glanced half-suspiciously at Polke's other visitors.

"All friends here, Mrs. Pratt," said the superintendent reassuringly.
"You know young Mr. Neale well enough. This lady is Mr. Horbury's
niece--anxious to find him. That gentleman's a friend of mine--you can
say aught you like before him. Well, ma'am!--you think you can tell me
something about this affair? What might it be, now?"

Mrs. Pratt, taking the chair which Starmidge placed for her at the end
of the table, nodded a general greeting to the company, and lifting her
veil and untying her bonnet-strings, revealed a good-natured
countenance.

"Well, Mr. Polke," she said, turning to the superintendent, "taking your
word for it that we're all friends--me being pretty sure, all the same,
that this gentleman's one of your own profession, which I don't object
to--I'll tell you what it is I've come up for, special, as it were, and
me not waiting until after closing-time to do it. But that town-crier's
been down our way, and hearing him making his call between our house and
the station, and learning what it was all about, thinks I to myself,
'I'd best go up and see the super and tell him what I know.' And,"
concluded Mrs. Pratt, beaming around her, "here I am!"

"Ay--and what do you know, ma'am?" asked Polke. "Something, of course."

"Or I shouldn't be here," agreed Mrs. Pratt, smoothing out a fold of her
gown. "Well--Saturday afternoon, the time being not so many minutes
after the 5.30 got in, and therefore you might say at the outside twenty
minutes to six, a strange gentleman walked across from the station to
our hotel, which is, as you're all well aware, exactly opposite. I
happened to be in the bar-parlour window at the time, and I saw him
crossing--saw, likewise, from the way he looked about him, and up at the
town above us, that he'd never been in Scarnham before. And happen I'd
best tell you what like he was, while the recollection's fresh in my
mind--a litt