‘He seems to play the piano very well.’

’Well, as to that, he doesn’t what you may call play, but he’s the best sight-reader in this district, bar me.  I never met his equal.  When you come across any one who can read a thing like the Domestic Symphony right off and never miss his place, you might send me a telegram.  Colclough’s got a Steinway.  Wish I had.’

Mrs Brindley had been looking through the Signal.

‘I don’t see anything about Simon Fuge here,’ said she.

‘Oh, nonsense!’ said her husband.  ’Buchanan’s sure to have got something in about it.  Let’s look.’

He received the paper from his wife, but failed to discover in it a word concerning the death of Simon Fuge.

’Dashed if I don’t ring Buchanan up and ask him what he means!  Here’s a paper with an absolute monopoly in the district, and brings in about five thousand a year clear to somebody, and it doesn’t give the news!  There never is anything but advertisements and sporting results in the blessed thing.’

He rushed to his telephone, which was in the hall.  Or rather, he did not rush; he went extremely quickly, with aggressive footsteps that seemed to symbolize just retribution.  We could hear him at the telephone.

’Hello!  No.  Yes.  Is that you, Buchanan?  Well, I want Mr Buchanan.  Is that you, Buchanan?  Yes, I’m all right.  What in thunder do you mean by having nothing in tonight about Simon Fuge’s death?  Eh?  Yes, the Gazette.  Well, I suppose you aren’t Scotch for nothing.  Why the devil couldn’t you stop in Scotland and edit papers there?’ Then a laugh.  ’I see.  Yes.  What did you think of those cigars?  Oh!  See you at the dinner.  Ta-ta.’  A final ring.

’The real truth is, he wanted some advice as to the tone of his obituary notice,’ said Mr Brindley, coming back into the drawing-room.  ’He’s got it, seemingly.  He says he’s writing it now, for tomorrow.  He didn’t put in the mere news of the death, because it was exclusive to the Gazette, and he’s been having some difficulty with the Gazette lately.  As he says, tomorrow afternoon will be quite soon enough for the Five Towns.  It isn’t as if Simon Fuge was a cricket match.  So now you see how the wheels go round, Mr Loring.’

He sat down to the piano and began to play softly the Castle motive from the Nibelung’s Ring.  He kept repeating it in different keys.

‘What about the mumps, wife?’ he asked Mrs Brindley, who had been out of the room and now returned.

‘Oh!  I don’t think it is mumps,’ she replied.  ’They’re all asleep.’

‘Good!’ he murmured, still playing the Castle motive.

‘Talking of Simon Fuge,’ I said determined to satisfy my curiosity, ‘who were the two sisters?’

‘What two sisters?’

‘That he spent the night in the boat with, on Ilam Lake.’

‘Was that in the Gazette?  I didn’t read all the article.’