At a wooden table
in front of the window, which normally looked out on this landscape,
sat two men in plain clothes, but with something of a military
bearing, for indeed they were the two chiefs of the detective
service of that district. The senior of the two, both in age and
rank, was a sturdy man with a short white beard, and frosty eyebrows
fixed in a frown which suggested rather worry than severity.
His name was Morton, and he was a Liverpool man long pickled in the
Irish quarrels, and doing his duty among them in a sour fashion not
altogether unsympathetic. He had spoken a few sentences to his
companion, Nolan, a tall, dark man with a cadaverous equine Irish
face, when he seemed to remember something and touched a bell which
rang in another room. The subordinate he had summoned immediately
appeared with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
"Sit down, Wilson," he said. "Those are the depositions, I
suppose."
"Yes," replied the third officer. "I think I've got all there is to
be got out of them, so I sent the people away."
"Did Mary Cregan give evidence?" asked Morton, with a frown that
looked a little heavier than usual.
"No, but her master did," answered the man called Wilson, who had
flat, red hair and a plain, pale face, not without sharpness.
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