There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and Rathbury wagged his head sagely.

"Lay you anything the dead man was a Colonial, Mr.Spargo," he remarked.

"Well, now, I suppose that's the landlord and landlady." There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge on which lay a register book.

They were middle-aged folk: the man, a fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured, thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an enquiring gaze.

Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.
"You the landlord of this house, sir ?" he asked.