"I must hurry home. There are accounts to be made up. And
Robinson and others will be telegraphing to Knoleworth and London. I must
attend to all that, because dad gets flustered if several messages are
handed in at the same time."
"Come and have tea, then, about four o'clock. The ravens will have
fled by then."
"The ravens?"
"The police, you dear child, and the reporters, and the
photographers--the flock of weird fowl which gathers from all points of
the compass when the press gets hold of what is called 'a first-rate
story,' By midday I shall be in the thick of it. But, thank goodness,
they will know nothing to draw them your way until the inquest takes
place, and not even then if _I_ can manage it."
"Don't mind me, Mr. Grant. You must not keep anything back on my account.
I'll try and come at four. But I may be very busy in the office. By the
way, you ought to know. Miss Melhuish came here on Sunday evening. She
arrived by the train from London. I--happened to notice her as she passed
in the Hare and Hounds 'bus. She took a room there, at the inn, I mean,
and came to the post office twice yesterday. When I heard her name I
recognized her at once from her photographs.
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