Mr. Pogram, who was finishing his Sunday after-lunch cigar, was a short, clean-shaved man with strong cheeks and those rather lustful gray-blue eyes which accompany a sturdy figure.  He rose when they were introduced, and, uncrossing his fat little thighs, asked what he could do for them.

Felix propounded the story of the arrest, so far as might be, in words of one syllable, avoiding the sentimental aspect of the question, and finding it hard to be on the side of disorder, as any modern writer might.  There was something, however, about Mr. Pogram that reassured him.  The small fellow looked a fighter—­ looked as if he would sympathize with Tryst’s want of a woman about him.  The tusky but soft-hearted little brute kept nodding his round, sparsely covered head while he listened, exuding a smell of lavender-water, cigars, and gutta-percha.  When Felix ceased he said, rather dryly: 

“Sir Gerald Malloring?  Yes.  Sir Gerald’s country agents, I rather think, are Messrs. Porter of Worcester.  Quite so.”

And a conviction that Mr. Pogram thought they should have been Messrs. Pogram & Collet of Transham confirmed in Felix the feeling that they had come to the right man.

“I gather,” Mr. Pogram said, and he looked at Nedda with a glance from which he obviously tried to remove all earthly desires, “that you, sir, and your nephew wish to go and see the man.  Mrs. Pogram will be delighted to show Miss Freeland our garden.  Your great-grandfather, sir, on the mother’s side, lived in this house.  Delighted to meet you; often heard of your books; Mrs. Pogram has read one—­let me see—­’The Bannister,’ was it?”

“‘The Balustrade,’” Felix answered gently.

Mr. Pogram rang the bell.  “Quite so,” he said.  “Assizes are just over so that he can’t come up for trial till August or September; pity—­great pity!  Bail in cases of arson—­for a laborer, very doubtful!  Ask your mistress to come, please.”

There entered a faded rose of a woman on whom Mr. Pogram in his time had evidently made a great impression.  A vista of two or three little Pograms behind her was hastily removed by the maid.  And they all went into the garden.

“Through here,” said Mr. Pogram, coming to a side door in the garden wall, “we can make a short cut to the police station.  As we go along I shall ask you one or two blunt questions.”  And he thrust out his under lip: 

“For instance, what’s your interest in this matter?”

Before Felix could answer, Derek had broken in: 

“My uncle has come out of kindness.  It’s my affair, sir.  The man has been tyrannously treated.”

Mr. Pogram cocked his eye.  “Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt!  He’s not confessed, I understand?”

“No; but—­”

Mr. Pogram laid a finger on his lips.