It
seems to fit in with my notion that she had something under her cloak,
when she left the cottage. No! not something to destroy--for, in that
case, where would have been the need of all these precautions to prevent
my tracing the place at which her walk ended? Something to hide is, I
think, the better guess of the two. Perhaps, if we go on to the cottage,
we may find out what that something is?"
At this proposal, my detective-fever suddenly cooled. "You don't want
me," I said. "What good can I do?"
"The longer I know you, Mr. Betteredge," said the Sergeant, "the more
virtues I discover. Modesty--oh dear me, how rare modesty is in this
world! and how much of that rarity you possess! If I go alone to the
cottage, the people's tongues will be tied at the first question I
put to them. If I go with you, I go introduced by a justly respected
neighbour, and a flow of conversation is the necessary result. It
strikes me in that light; how does it strike you?"
Not having an answer of the needful smartness as ready as I could have
wished, I tried to gain time by asking him what cottage he wanted to go
to.
On the Sergeant describing the place, I recognised it as a cottage
inhabited by a fisherman named Yolland, with his wife and two grown-up
children, a son and a daughter.
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