'A sinister, tumbledown
sort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living.'
'I thought it was a bee-farm,' said Lady Wetherby. 'One of the
tradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girl
bicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me she
was named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack's.'
'A blind!' said Mr Pickering, stoutly. 'The girl's the man's
accomplice. It's quite easy to see the way they work. The girl
comes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That's
to lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goes
about cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can't get away from
the fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglaries
down here, and nobody has found out who did them.'
Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently.
'And now,' she said, 'having got us scared stiff, what are you
going to do about it?'
'I am going,' he said, with determination, 'to take steps.'
He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs.
'Bless him!' said Lady Wetherby. 'I'd no idea your Dudley had so
much imagination, Claire. He's a perfect bomb-shell.'
Claire laughed shakily.
'It is odd, though,' said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, 'that this
man should have said that he knew you, when you don't--'
Claire turned impulsively.
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