"Well now," resumed the superintendent, in a confidential kind of tone, "we can talk at our ease for a minute. Does it not strike you, Sir Karl, as an impartial and impassioned looker-on, that there is something rather curious in the affair, taking one thing with another?" "I fail to catch your meaning, sir," replied Karl, gazing at the superintendent. "I confess no such idea has occurred to me. Curious in what way?" "We shall come to that. Philip Smith has been your agent about six months, I believe." "About that." "Whence did you have him? Where did he live before?" "I really do not know. My mother, the late Mrs. Andinnian, who was occupying Foxwood Court during my absence abroad, engaged him. She became ill herself, was unable to attend to anything, and deemed it well to employ someone to look after my interests." "Report runs in Foxwood--all kinds of gossip have come up to me from the place." The superintendent broke off to add--"that Smith is only your honorary agent, Sir Karl; that he gives it out he is an old friend of the Andinnian family." "I can assure you that Smith is my paid agent. He has a house to live in, and takes his salary quarterly." "The house is exactly opposite the Maze gates?" "Yes," said Karl, beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable at the drift the conversation appeared to be taking. "Is there any truth in the statement that your family knew him in earlier days? You will see in a minute, Sir Karl, why I ask you all this. I conclude there is not." "I understood my mother to imply in her last illness that she had known something of him: but I was not sure that I caught her meaning correctly, and she was too ill for me to press the question. I had never heard of any Smith myself, and the chances were that I misunderstood her. He makes himself useful about the estate, and that is all I have to look to." "Report says also--pardon me for recurring to it, Sir Karl--that he makes himself a very easy kind of agent; seems to do as he likes, work or play, and spends most of his time smoking in his front garden, exchanging salutations with the passers-by and watching his neighbour's opposite gate." Had it been to save his life, Karl Andinnian could not have helped the change that passed over his countenance. What was coming? He strove to be cool and careless, poor fellow, and smiled frankly. "I fancy he is rather idle--and given to smoke too much. But he does well what he has to do for me, for all that. Mine is not a large estate, as you may be aware, and Sir Joseph left it in first-rate condition. There is very little work for an agent." "Well, now, I will ask you a last question, Sir Karl. Do you think Smith's residence at Foxwood is in any way connected with the Maze!" "Connected with the Maze!" echoed Sir Karl, his face never betraying the uneasiness that his beating and terrified heart was beginning to feel all too keenly. "That is, connected with its tenants." "In what way would it be possible?"