answered, with a sly chuckle. "Highly eccentric gentleman, Mr. Parslewe, and uncommonly fond of having his own way, and going his own way, and taking his own line about everything. There isn't one of his brother magistrates in all Northumberland who isn't aware of that, Mr. Craye! Then, you have no idea of where we are going just now?"
"No idea whatever!" I answered.
"Well, as he said you could go with us, I may as well tell you," he remarked, with an other laugh. "We're going to the house and shop of one Bickerdale, a whitesmith and coppersmith, in a side street just up here. That's where Mr. Parslewe's gone."
Of course, I might have known it! I felt myself an ass for not having thought of it before. But I started, involuntarily.
"The name seems familiar to you," suggested the inspector.
"Yes, I know it!" I asserted. "I've been in that shop. Oh! so he's there, is he?"
"That's where we're to look for him, anyway," he replied. "But whether we do find him there, or, if we do, under what conditions it'll be, that I don't know. However, we're
