Anglers' Arms

The Anglers' Arms serves as Bobby Jones's base in Staverley while he investigates the events surrounding Lady Frances Derwent's supposed accident and The Grange. He takes rooms there under the assumed identity of Edward Hawkins, chauffeur to Lady Frances Derwent, and uses the inn's everyday traffic and talk to learn what the village believes. The inn's role changes when Moira Nicholson comes looking for him: in its small private sitting room, Bobby hears her fear that Dr Jasper Nicholson intends to kill her and discovers how closely the danger at The Grange is tied to the Bassington-ffrench household.

A base for disguise and inquiry

Bobby successfully takes up his quarters at the Anglers' Arms as he begins the part of Edward Hawkins. His disguise includes chauffeur's livery, a small moustache, a changed voice, and a stiff manner unlike his own. The inn thus gives him both lodging and a place from which to perform the identity that allows his investigation to proceed. He makes a deliberate effort to act like the superior being he imagines a chauffeur to be, and the attention of the young women working there encourages him in the role.

The inn is also a source of local information. Bobby cultivates its landlord, a genial man, and lets details emerge in conversation. The talk turns to Lady Frances Derwent's accident at Merroway Court, which has become a prominent subject in Staverley. A young man named Reeves is said to have witnessed it, giving the story the appearance of independent confirmation. Bobby recognizes that the account is false, but the gossip shows how quickly a convincing public version of an event can take hold.

Rumor about The Grange

Conversation at the inn supplies Bobby with a second, more disturbing lead. Those present repeat a story about a young woman who escaped from The Grange in her nightgown, crying not to be taken back. The doctor and nurses found her and returned her to the institution; afterward, the doctor reportedly explained her behavior as a persecution mania. The account comes through local talk rather than a confirmed witness account, and Bobby allows for the possibility that prejudice against a newcomer and a foreign-run institution has distorted it.

Even with that caution, the story stays with him. Bobby knows The Grange lies across the village from Merroway Court, and after the gathering breaks up he sets out in that direction to investigate. The inn therefore acts as a point of departure: its rumors do not prove what happens inside the institution, but they give Bobby a reason to look beyond the official appearance of a place that claims to cure drug users.

The private sitting room and Moira's arrival

On returning to the Anglers' Arms, Bobby learns that a woman is waiting for him in the landlord's small private sitting room. He assumes the visitor must be Lady Frances Derwent, but instead finds the girl whose photograph he has seen. She is dressed in black, sits rigidly upright, and is so nervous that her hands tremble and repeatedly close and open against the chair. The inn's ordinary lodging-house setting becomes the scene of a direct appeal for help.

The woman identifies herself as Moira Nicholson, wife of Dr Jasper Nicholson. She tells Bobby that she believes her husband is trying to murder her, citing a series of incidents that appeared accidental: a car backed toward her, and a substance was put in the wrong bottle. She says the strain of watching for danger and trying to protect herself is exhausting her. Her account gives the inn a new importance in the investigation: here Bobby hears a personal testimony that connects the apparent accidents to a deliberate threat.

Moira also names a possible motive. She believes Dr Jasper Nicholson wants to marry Sylvia Bassington-ffrench and is trying to bring Sylvia's husband, Henry Bassington-ffrench, to The Grange as a patient. Bobby already knows Henry takes morphia. Moira suspects that Dr Jasper Nicholson supplies it and that treatment at The Grange would give him an opportunity to make Henry worse or cause something to happen to him. These are Moira's suspicions, not yet an established account of the plot, but they join the earlier rumor about The Grange to the danger she describes in her own life.

Narrative significance

The Anglers' Arms links two kinds of knowledge that the investigation must test: village rumor and private disclosure. In the public company of the inn, Bobby hears stories about the supposed accident and an escape from The Grange, both subject to uncertainty. In the landlord's sitting room, Moira speaks from immediate fear and supplies names, relationships, and a proposed motive. The movement from communal gossip to a frightened visitor's account makes the inn an information threshold between what Staverley says and what its concealed conflicts may mean.

The inn also reflects Bobby's investigative method. He does not arrive with official authority; he adopts a false identity, listens, and follows leads whose truth is not yet secure. Its everyday social setting helps that method work, while the false story of Lady Frances Derwent's accident demonstrates how easily appearances can be manufactured. By the time Moira finds him there, the Anglers' Arms has become more than a convenient place to stay: it is where Bobby's cover supports inquiry and where that inquiry first receives a direct account of the threat surrounding The Grange.