Superintendent Galloway looked at Colwyn with as much animation on his heavy features as though he had lighted on some new and important discovery. Colwyn, who had finished his breakfast and was not particularly interested in the conversation, strolled out with the intention of smoking a cigar outside the front door. In the passage he encountered Ann, bearing a tray with two cups and saucers, a pot of tea and some bread and butter which she proceeded to carry upstairs. Colwyn wondered for whom the breakfast was intended. There were three people upstairs--the father, his daughter, and the poor mad woman, and the breakfast was laid for two. The appearance of the innkeeper descending the stairs, answered the question. Colwyn accosted him as he came down. "You're a late riser, Benson." "Yes, sir, it's a bit difficult to handle Mother in the morning: the only way to keep her quiet is for me to stay with her until Peggy is ready to go to her and give her her breakfast. Mother is quiet enough with Peggy and me, but nobody else can do anything with her, and sometimes nobody can do anything with her except my daughter. She spends a lot of time with her, sir." The innkeeper looked more like a bird than ever as he proffered this explanation, standing at the foot of the stairs dressed as he had been the previous night, with his bright bird's eyes peering from beneath his shock of iron-grey hair at the man in front of him. Colwyn noticed that his hair had been recently wet, and plastered straight down so that it hung like a ridge over his forehead--just as it had been the previous night. Colwyn wondered why the man wore his hair like that. Did he always affect that eccentric style of hairdressing, or had he adopted it to alter his personal appearance--to disguise himself, or to conceal something? "It's no life for a young girl," said the detective, in answer to the innkeeper's last remark. "I know that, sir. But what am I to do? I cannot afford to keep a nurse. Peggy never complains. She's used to it. But if you'll excuse me, sir. I must go and get the room ready for the inquest." "What room is it going to be held in?" "Superintendent Galloway told me to put a table and some chairs into the last empty room off the passage leading into the kitchen. It's the biggest room in the house, and there are plenty of chairs in the lumber room upstairs." "It should do excellently for the purpose, I should think," said Colwyn.