Mr. Nevitt, indeed, had laid his
plans deep. He had everybody's secrets all round in his hands, and
he meant to make everybody pay dear in the end for his information.
Mr. Nevitt was free. His holidays were on at Drummond, Coutts and
Barclay's, Limited. He loved the sea, the sun, and the summer. He
was off that day on a projected series of short country runs, in
which it was his intention strictly to combine business and pleasure.
Dartmoor, for example, as everybody knows, is a most delightful and
bracing tourist district; but what more amusing to a man of taste
than to go a round of the Moor with its heather-clad tors, and at
the same time hunt up the parish registers of the neighbourhood
for the purpose of discovering, if possible, the supposed marriage
record of Colonel Kelmscott of Tilgate with the Warings' mother?
For that there WAS a marriage Montague Nevitt felt certain in his
own wise mind, and having early arrived at that correct conclusion,
why, he had quietly offered forthwith, in Plymouth papers, a
considerable reward to parish clerks and others who would supply
him with any information as to the births, marriages, or deaths
of any person or persons of the name of Waring for some eighteen
months or so before or after the reputed date when Guy and Cyril
began their earthly pilgrimage.
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