Five EVANS

They found Evans waiting in the dining room. He rose respectfully ontheir entrance.
He was a short thickset man. He had very long arms and a habit ofstanding with his hands half clenched¹. He was clean shaven with small,rather piglike eyes, yet he had a look of cheerfulness and efficiency thatredeemed his bulldog appearance.
Inspector² Narracott mentally tabulated³ his impressions.
“Intelligent. Shrewd and practical. Looks rattled⁴.”
Then he spoke⁵:
“You’re Evans, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Christian names?”
“Robert Henry.”
“Ah! Now what do you know about this business?”
“Not a thing, sir. It’s fair knocked me over. To think of the Capting beingdone in!”
“When did you last see your master?”
“Two o’clock I should say it was, sir. I cleared away the lunch things andlaid the table here as you see for supper. The Capting, he told me as Ineedn’t come back.”
“What do you usually do?”
“As a general rule, I come back about seven for a couple of hours. Not al-ways—sometimes the Capting would say as I needn’t.”
“Then you weren’t surprised when he told you that yesterday youwouldn’t be wanted again?”
“No, sir. I didn’t come back the evening before either—on account of theweather. Very considerate gentleman, the Capting was, as long as youdidn’t try to shirk things. I knew him and his ways pretty well.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“Well, he looked out of the window and he says, ‘Not a hope of Burnabytoday.’ ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ he says, ‘if Sittaford isn’t cut off altogether.
Don’t remember such a winter since I was a boy.’ That was his friend Ma-jor Burnaby over to Sittaford that he was referring to. Always comes on aFriday, he does, he and the Capting play chess and do acrostics. And onTuesdays the Capting would go to Major Burnaby’s. Very regular in hishabits was the Capting. Then he said to me: ‘You can go now, Evans, andyou needn’t come till tomorrow morning.’ ”

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