The uncle died six months ago, Houston and Prince tell me, and Hugesson
Gastrell has inherited everything he left. They say that they have
ascertained that Gastrell's parents died when he was quite a child, and
that this uncle who has died has been his guardian ever since."

"That sounds right enough. What more do you want to know?"

"It somehow seems to me very strange that I should have come to know
this man, Gastrell, without introduction of any kind--even have become
intimate with him. On the day after he had come to my house by accident,
he called to fetch a pair of gloves which, in his confusion on the
previous evenin', he had left in the hall. He asked if he might see me,
and then he again apologized for the mistake he had made the night
before. We stayed talkin' for, I suppose, fully half an hour--he's an
excellent talker, and exceedingly well-informed--and incidentally he
mentioned that he was lookin' for a house. From his description of what
he wanted it at once struck me that my Cumberland Place house would be
the very thing for him--I simply can't afford to live there now, as you
know, and for months I have been tryin' to let it. I told him about it,
and he asked if he might see it, and--well, the thing's done; he has it
now, as I say, on a seven years' lease."

"Then why worry?"

"I am not worryin'--I never worry--the most foolish thing any man can do
is to worry. All I say is--I should like to know somethin' more about
the feller. He may be quite all right--I have not the least reason for
supposin' he isn't--but my wife has taken a strong dislike to him. She
says she mistrusts him. She has said so from the beginnin'. After he had
asked to see me that mornin', the mornin' he called for his gloves, and