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to Stella, which I would post the next morning, and while I ate heartily,I mused about the type of small house we might afford to live in after our marriage, if Mr Bentley were to continue to give me so much responsibility in the firm, so that I might feel justified in asking for an increase in salary.
    All in all, and with the half-bottleof claret that had accompanied my supper, I prepared to go up to bed in a warm glow of well-being and contentment.
    ‘You’ll be here for the auction, I take it then, sir,’ the landlord waited by the door, to bid me goodnight.
    ‘Auction?’
    He looked surprised. ‘Ah – I thought you would have come up for that – there’s a big auction of several farms that lie just south of here, and it’s market daytomorrow as well.’
    ‘Where is the auction?’
    ‘Why here, Mr Kipps, in the public bar at eleven o’clock. We generally have such auctions as there are at the Gifford Arms, but there hasn’t been one so big as this for a good many years. Then there’s the lunch afterwards. We expect to serve upwards of forty lunches on market day, but it’ll be a few more than that tomorrow.’
    ‘Then I’m sorry I shallhave to miss it – although I hope I shall be able to have a stroll round the market.’
    ‘No intention to pry, sir – only I made sure you’d come for the auction.’
    ‘That’s all right – quite natural that you should. But at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, I’m afraid that I have a sombre engagement. I’m here to attend a funeral – Mrs Drablow, of Eel Marsh House. Perhaps you knew of her?’
    His faceflickered with … what? Alarm, was it? Suspicion? I could not tell, but the name had stirred some strong emotion in him, all signs of which he endeavoured to suppress at once.
    ‘I knew of her,’ he said evenly.
    ‘I am representing her firm of solicitors. I never met her. I take it she kept rather out of the way, for the most part?’
    ‘She could hardly do otherwise, living there,’ and he turned awayabruptly in the direction of the public bar. ‘I’ll wish you goodnight, sir. We can serve breakfast at any time in the morning, to your convenience.’ And he left me alone. I half moved to call him back, for I was both curious and a little irritated by his manner, and I thought of trying to get out of him exactly what he had meant by it. But I was tired and dismissed the notion, putting his remarksdown to some local tales and silliness which had grown out of all proportion, as such things will do in small, out of the way communities, which have only themselves to look to for whatever melodrama and mystery they can extract out of life. For I must confess I had theLondoner’s sense of superiority in those days, the half-formed belief that countrymen, and particularly those who inhabited theremoter corners of our island, were more superstitious, more gullible, more slow-witted, unsophisticated and primitive, than we cosmopolitans. Doubtless, in such a place as this, with its eerie marshes, sudden fogs, moaning winds and lonely houses, any poor old woman might be looked at askance; once upon a time, after all, she would have been branded as a witch and local legends and tales werestill abroad and some extravagant folklore still half-believed in.
    It was true that neither Mr Daily nor the landlord of the inn seemed anything but sturdy men of good commonsense, just as I had to admit that neither of them had done more than fall silent and look at me hard and a little oddly, when the subject of Mrs Drablow had arisen. Nonetheless, I had been left in no doubt that there wassome significance in what had been left un said.
    On the whole, that night, with my stomach full of home-cooked food, a pleasing drowsiness induced by good wine, and the sight of the low fire and inviting, turned-back covers of the deep, soft bed, I was inclined to let myself enjoy the whole business, and to be amused by it, as adding a touch of spice and local colour to my expedition, and