Spargo gauged the character of the house at which he called as soon as the door was opened to him.  There was the usual smell of eggs and bacon, of fish and chops; the usual mixed and ancient collection of overcoats, wraps, and sticks in the hall; the usual sort of parlourmaid to answer the bell.  And presently, in answer to his enquiries, there was the usual type of landlady confronting him, a more than middle-aged person who desired to look younger, and made attempts in the way of false hair, teeth, and a little rouge, and who wore that somewhat air and smile which in its wearer—­under these circumstances—­always means that she is considering whether you will be able to cheat her or whether she will be able to see you.

“You wish to see Miss Baylis?” said this person, examining Spargo closely.  “Miss Baylis does not often see anybody.”

“I hope,” said Spargo politely, “that Miss Baylis is not an invalid?”

“No, she’s not an invalid,” replied the landlady; “but she’s not as young as she was, and she’s an objection to strangers.  Is it anything I can tell her?”

“No,” said Spargo.  “But you can, if you please, take her a message from me.  Will you kindly give her my card, and tell her that I wish to ask her a question about John Maitland of Market Milcaster, and that I should be much obliged if she would give me a few minutes.”

“Perhaps you will sit down,” said the landlady.  She led Spargo into a room which opened out upon a garden; in it two or three old ladies, evidently inmates, were sitting.  The landlady left Spargo to sit with them and to amuse himself by watching them knit or sew or read the papers, and he wondered if they always did these things every day, and if they would go on doing them until a day would come when they would do them no more, and he was beginning to feel very dreary when the door opened and a woman entered whom Spargo, after one sharp glance at her, decided to be a person who was undoubtedly out of the common.  And as she slowly walked across the room towards him he let his first glance lengthen into a look of steady inspection.

The woman whom Spargo thus narrowly inspected was of very remarkable appearance.  She was almost masculine; she stood nearly six feet in height; she was of a masculine gait and tread, and spare, muscular, and athletic.  What at once struck Spargo about her face was the strange contrast between her dark eyes and her white hair; the hair, worn in abundant coils round a well-shaped head, was of the most snowy whiteness; the eyes of a real coal-blackness, as were also the eyebrows above them.  The features were well-cut and of a striking firmness; the jaw square and determined.  And Spargo’s first thought on taking all this in was that Miss Baylis seemed to have been fitted by Nature to be a prison wardress, or the matron of a hospital, or the governess of an unruly girl, and he began to wonder if he would ever manage to extract anything out of those firmly-locked lips.