“Excuse me, sir; I must get him his glass of wine,” said the landlord, hurrying away to the bar. He returned in a moment with a small bottle and a glass and set it down on Muller’s table.
“You don’t mind, sir, if he sits down here?” he asked. “He usually sits here at this table because then he can see if he is needed over at the house.”
“Oh, please let him come here. He has prior rights to this table undoubtedly,” said the stranger politely. The old butler sat down with an embarrassed murmur, as the voluble landlord explained that the stranger had no objection. Then the boniface hurried off to attend to some newly entered customers and the detective, greatly pleased at the prospect, found himself alone with the old servant.
“You come here frequently?” he began, to open the conversation.
“Yes, sir, since my master and myself have settled down here—we travelled most of the time until several years ago—I find this place very convenient. It’s a cosy little room, the wine is good and not expensive, I’m near home and yet I can see some new faces occasionally.”
“I hope the faces that you see about you at home are not so unpleasant that you are glad to get away from them?” asked Muller with a smile.
The old man gave a start of alarm. “Oh, dear, no, sir,” he exclaimed eagerly; “that wasn’t what I meant. Indeed I’m fond of everybody in the house from our dear lady down to the poor little dog.”
Here Muller gained another little bit of knowledge, the fact that the lady of the house was the favourite of her servants, or that she seemed to them even more an object of adoration than the master.
“Then you evidently have a very good place, since you seem so fond of every one.”
“Indeed I have a good place, sir.”
“You’ve had this place a long time?”
“More than twenty years. My master was only eleven years old when I took service with the family.”
“Ah, indeed! then you must be a person of importance in the house if you have been there so long?”
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