Information Received by E.R. Punshon

length on, apparently, the advantages of one special make of motor car over all others. His companion, whom Bobby did not recognize, tried to get in a word or two, but each time he opened his mouth was beaten down and silenced by the steady flood of the other’s eloquence that finally swept him clean out of the room, though as he departed he did succeed in getting in one final shot when Mitchell at last paused for breath.
    â€˜I don’t agree with you,’ he said and vanished.
    â€˜There you are wrong,’ said Mitchell with intense conviction.
    Then he turned to Bobby, who was aware all at once of an odd conviction that the whole time Mitchell had been talking motoring, his attention had in fact been concentrated upon Bobby – and also that the concentration of Mitchell’s attention was a formidable thing.
    â€˜Name?’ Mitchell asked, suddenly brief.
    â€˜Owen, Robert Owen,’ Bobby answered.
    â€˜Service?’
    â€˜Three years, a little more.’
    â€˜Age?’
    â€˜Twenty-five two months back,’ answered Bobby, and thought to himself: ‘You knew all that before.’
    â€˜Don’t like night clubs, do you?’ Mitchell fired at him next.
    â€˜No, sir.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Some do, some don’t,’ said Bobby. ‘I don’t. That’s all.’
    â€˜Wasn’t it you gave Higgins April the Fifth for the Derby last year?’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ answered Bobby, just a trifle uneasily, for the regulations against gambling are severe.
    â€˜Jolly well Higgins did on it, too,’ said Mitchell enviously. ‘I suppose you did, too?’
    Bobby shook a melancholy head.
    â€˜I put my ten bob on Orwell,’ he confessed sadly.
    â€˜That’s life, that is,’ declared Mitchell profoundly. ‘Know a good thing, pass it on to the other fellow, pass it by yourself. Next time you’ll know better – perhaps. Got anything good for to-morrow?’
    Bobby remembered suddenly the butler’s double. He offered that.
    â€˜A long shot but it might come off,’ he said.
    Mitchell gravely made a note of it.
    â€˜I might risk half-a-crown, and I might not,’ he observed. ‘What’s this about a fellow you saw cutting off through the garden next door?’
    Bobby told his tale as briefly as he could; and he noticed that though Mitchell listened intently enough, he made no notes. This meant, Bobby felt sure, that Mitchell had already seen the caretaker of ‘Elmhurst’ and heard his story in full.
    â€˜Bad luck the caretaker smoothed those footprints the chap left under where he climbed the wall,’ Mitchell observed. ‘You didn’t think to stop him?’
    â€˜No, sir,’ said Bobby.
    He made no attempt to offer any excuse, for he had an idea that Mitchell knew already everything he could say. And he thought also that Mitchell, talkative himself, was likely to prefer few words in others.
    â€˜You think there was blood on the glass on the top of the wall as if the chap had cut himself while climbing over?’ Mitchell continued.
    â€˜Yes, sir. The left hand probably, judging from the position. Also I take it he must have been a young man and active from the way he got over the wall. And the caretaker says he threw a ripe tomato at him and hit him on the back, so his coat should show a stain.’
    â€˜Till he’s cleaned it,’ commented Mitchell. ‘Still, it’s something. So is the cut hand. Only was he the murderer, or was he only after apples, or was it something else altogether? What about this elderly man you say you saw?’
    Bobby recounted how he had noticed him, noticed that he seemed interested in the house, and how his description tallied with that of the elderly man who had spoken to Sergeant Doran but had referred to the tragedy as to a case of suicide.
    â€˜Funny points about this case,’ commented Mitchell.
    â€˜How did he know