“What news?” Pen asked uneasily.
“Why, everyone’s in quite a pucker up at Wroxhall, us being quiet folk, and not used to town-ways. But there’s my boy Jim come in saying there’s one of they Bow Street Runners come down by the Mail. What he may want, surely to goodness there’s none of us knows! They do say as how he stopped off at Calne, and come on easy-like to Wroxhall. And there he be, poking his nose into respectable houses, and asking all manner of questions! Well, what I say is, we’ve nothing to hide, and he may come here if he pleases, but he will learn nothing.”
“Is he coming here?” asked Pen, in a faint voice.
“Going to all the inns hereabout, by what they tell me,” responded the landlady. “Jim took the notion into his head it’s all along of the stage-coach which you and your good uncle was on, sir, for seemingly he’s been asking a mort of questions about the passengers. Our Sam looks to see him here inside of half an hour. “Well,” I says, “let him come, for I’m an honest woman, and there’s never been a word said against the house, not to my knowledge!” Your breakfast will be on the table in ten minutes, sir.”
She bustled into the parlour, leaving Pen rather pale, and Jimmy Yarde suddenly thoughtful. “Runners, eh?” said that worthy, stroking his chin. “There now!”
“I have never seen one,” said Pen, with a creditable show of nonchalance. “It will be most interesting. I wonder what he can want?”
“There’s no telling,” replied Jimmy, his lashless eyes dwelling upon her in a considering stare. “No telling at all. Seems to me, though, he won’t be wanting a flash young chub like you.”
“Why, of course not!” replied Pen, forcing a laugh.
“That’s what I thought,” said Jimmy, transferring his gaze to the long coat which had been flung across one of the tables. “Might that be your toge, young shaver?”
“Yes, but I didn’t need it after all. It is much warmer outside than I thought it would be.”
He picked it up, shook out its folds, and gave it to her. “Don’t you go leaving things about in common taprooms!” he said austerely. “There’s plenty of files—ah, even in these quiet parts!—would be glad to get their dabblers on to a good toge like that.”
“Oh yes! Thank you! I’ll take it upstairs!” said Pen, glad of an opportunity to escape.
“You couldn’t do better,” approved Jimmy. “Then we’ll have a bit of food, and though I don’t hold with harmen in general—which is to say, with Law-officers, young shaver—why, I’m a peaceable man, and if any such be wishful to search me, they’re welcome.”
He strolled into the parlour, with the air of one whose conscience is clean, and Pen hurried off upstairs, to tap urgently on Sir Richard’s door.
His voice called to her to come in, and she entered to find him putting the finishing touches to his cravat. He met her eyes in the mirror, and said: “Well, brat?”
“Sir, we must leave this place instantly!” said Pen impetuously. “We are in the greatest danger!”
“Why? Has your aunt arrived?” asked Sir Richard, preserving his calm.
“Worse!” Pen declared. “A Bow Street Runner!”
“Ah, I thought you were a house-breaker in the first place!” said Sir Richard, shaking his head.
“I am not a house-breaker! You know I am not!”
“If the Runners are after you, it is obvious to me that you are a desperate character,” he replied, slipping his snuff-box into his pocket. “Let us go downstairs, and have some breakfast.”
“Please, dear sir, be serious! I am sure that my Aunt must have set the Runner on to me!”
“My dear child, if there is any one thing more certain than another it is that Bow Street has never heard of your existence. Don’t be silly!”
“Oh!” She heaved a sigh of relief. “I do trust you are right, but it is just the sort of thing Aunt Almeria would do!”
“You are the best judge of that, no doubt, but you may take it from me that it is not in the least the sort of thing a Bow Street Runner would do. You will probably find that the man he wants is our friend Mr Yarde.”
“Yes, at first I thought that too, but he says the Runner is welcome to search him if he wants to.”
“Then it is safe to assume that Mr Yarde has disposed of whatever booty it was he ran off with. Breakfast!”
In considerable trepidation, Pen followed him down to the parlour. They found Jimmy Yarde discussing a plate of cold beef. He greeted Sir Richard with a grin and a wink, obviously quite unabashed by his previous encounter with him that morning, to which he referred in the frankest terms. “When I meet up with a leery cove, I don’t bear malice,” he announced, raising a tankard of ale. “So here’s your wery good health, guv’nor, and no hard feelings!”
Sir Richard seemed to be rather bored, and merely nodded. Jimmy Yarde fixed him with a twinkling eye, and said: “And no splitting to any harman about poor old Jimmy boning your lobb, because he never did, and you know well it’s in your pocket at this wery moment. What’s more,” he added handsomely, “I wouldn’t fork you now I has your measure, gov’nor, not for fifty Yellow Boys!”
“I’m glad of that,” said Sir Richard.
“No splitting?” Jimmy said, his head on one side.
“Not if I am allowed to eat my breakfast in peace,” replied Sir Richard wearily.
“All’s bowman then!” said Jimmy, “and not another word will you hear from me, guv’nor, till we gets to Bristol. Damme if I don’t ride outside the rattler, just to oblige you!”
Sir Richard looked meditatively at him, but said nothing. Pen sat down facing the window, and watched the road for signs of a Bow Street Runner.
Contary to the landlady’s expectations, the Runner did not reach the inn until some little time after the breakfast covers had been removed, and Jimmy Yarde had strolled out to lounge at his ease on a bench set against the wall of the hostelry.
The Runner entered the inn by way of the yard at the back of it, and the first person he encountered was Sir Richard, who was engaged in settling his account with the landlord. Miss Creed, at his elbow, drew his attention to the Runner’s arrival by urgently twitching his coat sleeve. He looked up, with raised brows, saw the newcomer, and lifted his quizzing-glass.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Runner, touching his hat. “Me not meaning to intrude, but being wishful to speak with the landlord.”
“Certainly,” said Sir Richard, his brows still expressive of languid surprise.
“At your convenience, sir: no hurry, sir!” said the Runner, retreating to a discreet distance.
The sigh which escaped Miss Creed was one of such profound relief that it was plain her alarms had not until that moment been allayed. Sir Richard finished paying his shot, and with a brief: “Come, Pen!” tossed over his shoulder, left the taproom.
“He didn’t come to find me!” breathed Pen.
“Of course he didn’t.”
“I couldn’t help being a little alarmed. What shall we do now, sir?”
“Shake off your very undesirable travelling-acquaintance,” he replied briefly.
She gave a gurgle. “Yes, but how? I have such a fear that he means to go with us to Bristol.”
“But we are not going to Bristol. While he is being interrogated by that Runner, we, my child, are going to walk quietly out by the back door, and proceed by ways, which I trust will not prove as devious as the tapster’s description of them, to Colerne. There we shall endeavour to hire a vehicle to carry us to Queen Charlton.”
“Oh, famous!” cried Pen. “Let us go at once!”
Five minutes later they left the inn unobtrusively, by way of the yard, found themselves in a hayfield, and skirted it to a gate leading into a ragged spinney.
The village of Colerne was rather less than three miles distant, but long before they had reached it Sir Richard was tired of his portmanteau. “Pen Creed, you are a pestilent child!” he told her.
“Why, what have I done?” she asked, with one of her wide, enquiring looks.
“You have hailed me from my comfortable house—”