“Quite so,” cut in Vail. “What has all this to do with--?” “I was coming to that. We were standing there on the steps, jawing about it, the wife and me, when up comes this Mr. Creede. He’d been sitting on the porch there and he’d overheard us. He hands me his card and he says: ‘You can get into Vailholme if you’re a mind to,’ he says. ‘Most excloosive hotel in the Berkshires. Not like any other place in America. Best food. Best rooms. They never advertise. So they aren’t full up,’ he says. ‘They try to keep folks away. But give Mr. Vail this card and tell him I’ll know who to go to with information if he refuses to take in people who can’t get accommodations elsewhere; and he’ll take you in.’ I thought maybe he was jollying me.” “I--” “He looked kind of funny while he talked to me,” prattled Mosely, unheeding. “So I asked the day clerk at the Red Lion about it. The clerk said he knew you run a hotel, because he’d read about it in the paper. And he guessed you weren’t full up. So here I came. And your--your head waiter, I s’pose he is, he told me you didn’t have but four folks stopping here with you just now. So that means you’ve got rooms left. What rates for--” A despairing grunt from Vail checked at last the flow of monologue. Thaxton was aware of a deep yearning to hunt up Osmun Creede and murder him. Well did he understand the inner meaning of Creede’s hint as to the lodging of information in case Vail should refuse to obey the terms of the will whereby he held tenure of Vailholme. And he knew Osmun was quite capable of keeping his word. Vailholme was dear to Thaxton. He was not minded to lose it through any legal loophole. He was profoundly ignorant of the law. But he remembered signing an agreement to fulfill all the conditions of his great-uncle’s will before assuming ownership of the property. “I am obliged,” he said, haltingly, “to take in any travelers who can pay my prices. Probably that is what Mr. Creede meant. But I have no adequate provision--or provisions--for guests. I don’t think you’d care for it, here; even for a single day. Why not go on to North Adams, to the--” “No, thanks, friend,” disclaimed Joshua Q. Mosely, with a leer of infinite cunning. “This isn’t the first time the wife and I have been steered away from excloosive joints. We know the signs. And we want to stop here. So here we stop. For the night, anyhow. We know our rights. And we know the law. Now, once more, what’s your rates for us? Put a price on the--” “Your chauffeur will have to bunk in at one of the rooms over the garage,” said Vail, morbidly aware that the butler and a maid and the second man were still listening from the hallway. “And I can’t give you and Mrs. Mosely a room with a bath. I’ll have to give you one without. And you’ll have to eat at the only table I have--the table where I and my four personal guests will dine.”