“Her name is Miss Rendall-Smith. Her father, old Canon Rendall-Smith, was Rector of Binver for a long time, a learned old man, I believe, but rather a bore. He died some years before the war—I should think it would be about 1910, and left her very badly off; she left the neighbourhood then—that was just before I came. Some time during the early part of the war she came back, apparently in much better circumstances, for she took that old brick house with the white window-frames that stands next the Church and looks as if it was the Rectory but isn’t. She lives there still; she did a good deal of public work during the war, subscriptions and things, but I never actually came across her. She’s a fine-looking woman still, Campbell told me—by the way, there was no reticence about Campbell. He showed me a more recent portrait of her which he was very proud of, and told me he thought it was a pity a lady like that didn’t marry. Altogether, we seem to have struck a public character, and a very good woman, by all that’s said of her.” “H’m,” said Reeves, “and Brotherhood kept a portrait of her—or rather, Brotherhood in his capacity as Davenant kept a portrait of her, and took it away with him when he meant to leave these parts for a bit. It seems to me she ought to be able to tell us something about him.” “Good Lord!” said Marryatt, “you aren’t going to introduce yourself to _her_ as the _Daily Mail_ reporter? Hang it all, it’s one thing to take in Mrs. Bramston——” “And another thing to take in Miss Rendall-Smith, because she’s a lady? I’m afraid that seems to me mere sentimentalism.” “What I meant was, if you present yourself to Miss Rendall-Smith as a reporter, she’ll turn you out of the house.” “Ye-es. There’s something in that. But then, I wouldn’t say I’d come from the _Daily Mail_; I’d say I’d come from the _County Herald_, and that I was commissioned to do a write-up of Brotherhood as a prominent local personage.” “But how,” objected Carmichael, “would you explain the fact that you were coming to her? Remember, it isn’t certain that she knew Brotherhood at all, that is, in his own person. You see it was not to Brotherhood but to Davenant that she gave the photograph. And natural enough—if I had been in that position, I would sooner have gone courting as Davenant than as Brotherhood.” “I could simply pretend I was coming to her as to one of the oldest residents.” “Tactful Openings, Number One,” suggested Gordon, crumbling his bread. “No, Reeves, it won’t do. I’d like to see you dressed up as a reporter again, because I think there’s something very fetching about it. But I don’t believe that even in that disguise you will win the heart of a mature female. You’ll have to think out some other dodge.” “I suppose you’d like me to burgle her house while she’s out,” said Reeves, with unnecessary irritation. “But you don’t want to see her house,” objected the literal-minded Gordon, “you want to see her.”