His plan of remaining above-stairs in readiness to retreat to the cellar upon the arrival of a Runner was frustrated by the tiresome conduct of these gentlemen, who seemed to spend the entire afternoon prowling around the house. Twice Eustacie was startled by an inquiring face at the parlour window, and three times did Clem report that one of the officers was round the back of the house by the stables, hobnobbing with the ostler and the postboys. Even Sir Hugh became aware of an alien presence in the inn, and complained when he came down to dinner that a strange fellow had poked his head into his bedchamber while he was pulling off his boots.
“A demmed, rascally-looking fellow with a red nose,” he said. “Nye ought to be more careful whom he lets into the place. Came creeping up the passage and peered into my room without so much as a ‘by your leave’.”
“Did he say anything to you?” asked Miss Thane anxiously.
“No,” replied Sir Hugh. He added fair-mindedly: “I don’t say he wouldn’t have, but I threw a boot at him.”
“Threw a boot at him?” cried Eustacie, her eyes sparkling.
“Yes, why not? I don’t like people prowling about, and I won’t have them poking their red noses into my room,” said Sir Hugh.
“Hugh, you will have to know, so that you may be on your guard,” said Miss Thane. “That was a Bow Street Runner.”
“Well, he’s got no right to come prying into my room,” replied Sir Hugh, helping himself from a dish of beans. “Where’s young Lavenham?”
“In the cellar. He—”
Sir Hugh laid down his knife and fork. “What’s he found there? Is he bringing it up?”
“No. He is in the cellar because the Runners are looking for him.”
Sir Hugh frowned. “It seems to me,” he remarked somewhat austerely, “that there’s something queer going on in this place. I won’t have anything to do with it.”
“Very proper, my dear,” approved his sister. “But do contrive to remember that you know nothing of Ludovic Lavenham! I fear that these Runners may try to get information from you.”
“Oh, they may, may they?” said Sir Hugh, his eye kindling a little. “Well, if that red-nosed fellow is a Runner, which I doubt, I’ll have some information to give him on the extent of his duty. They’re getting mighty out of hand, those Runners. I shall speak to old Sampson Wright about ’em.”
“Certainly, Hugh; I hope you will, but do, pray, promise me that you won’t divulge Ludovic’s presence here to them!”
“I’m a Justice of the Peace,” said Sir Hugh, “and I won’t have any hand in cheating the Law. If they were to ask me I should tell them the truth.”
Eustacie, pale with alarm, gripped the edge of the table, and said: “But you must not! you shall not!”
Sir Hugh cast an indulgent glance towards her. “They won’t ask me,” he said simply.
It seemed improbable that the Runners’ zeal would lead them to haunt the vicinity of the Red Lion after dark, so as soon as the windows were bolted and the blinds drawn, Ludovic emerged from his underground retreat and joined the rest of the party in the parlour. Some expectation was felt of receiving a visit from Sir Tristram, and at a little after eight o’clock he walked into the inn, having taken advantage of the moonlight to drive over from the Court.
He was met by demands to know whether he had met any men lurking outside the house. He had not, but the anxious question at once aroused his suspicions, and he asked what had been going forward during his absence. When he heard that information had been laid against Ludovic in Bow Street, he did not say anything at all for some moments, thus disappointing Eustacie, who had hoped to startle him into an expression at least of surprise. When he did speak, it was not in admiration of the stratagem which had hoodwinked the Runners, but in a serious voice, and with his eyes on his cousin. “If you won’t go to Holland, will you at least leave Sussex, Ludovic?”
“Devil a bit! There’s no danger. The Runners think they’re on a wild-goose chase.” He observed a tightening of Shield’s lips, a certain considering look in the eyes which rested on himself, and sat up with a jerk. “Tristram, if you try to kidnap me, I swear I’ll shoot you!”
Sir Tristram laughed at that, but shook his head. “I won’t promise not to kidnap you, but I will promise to get your gun first.”
“It never leaves me,” grinned Ludovic.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” retorted Shield. “If there’s an attempt made on you, you’ll shoot, and there’ll be a charge of real murder to fight.”
Eustacie said sharply: “An attempt on him? Do you mean on his life?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Shield. “We may not be certain that the Beau killed Plunkett, but we can have no doubt that it is he who has brought the Runners down on Ludovic now. He would like the Law to remove Ludovic from his path, but if the Runners fail, I think he may make the attempt himself. Have you ever considered how easy of access this place is?”
Eustacie cast an involuntary glance over her shoulder. “N-no,” she faltered. “Is—is it easy? Perhaps you had better go after all, Ludovic. I do not want you to be killed!”
“Ah, fiddlesticks,” Ludovic said impatiently. “The Beau don’t even know I’m here. He may suspect it, but there’s not a soul has seen me outside ourselves, and Nye, and Clem.”
“You are forgetting the Excise officer,” interpolated his cousin.
“What odds? I’ll admit it was he who put the notion into Basil’s head, but it’s no more than a notion, and when Basil hears the Runners found no trace of me, he’ll think himself mistaken, after all. Nye’s of the opinion they don’t set much store by the information laid.”
“It’s plain they set very little store by it, since they didn’t send their best men down to investigate it, but they are likely to take a more serious view of the matter when they discover that Eustacie has no abigail with her.”
“Ludovic,” said Miss Thane in a meditative voice, “thinks it would be a good thing to capture the Runners and bestow them in the cellar.”
“A famous plan!” said Sir Tristram sardonically.
“Yes, but me, I do not agree,” said Eustacie, frowning.
“You surprise me.”
“Just a moment! “ interposed Thane, who all this time had been sitting at a small table by the fire, easting his dice, right hand against left. “You can’t imprison law officers in the cellar. For one thing, it’s a criminal offence, and for another there’s a deal of precious liquor in the cellar. I don’t like that red-nosed fellow; I think he ought to be got rid of. What’s more, I’ve had a score against Sampson Wright for a long time, and I don’t mind putting a spoke in his wheel. But I won’t have his Runners kidnapped.”
“Well!” said his sister. “I think you are most unreasonable, Hugh, I must say. After all, it was you who threw a boot at the Runner.”
“That’s a very different thing,” replied Thane. “There’s nothing to be said against throwing a boot at a fellow who comes nosing into one’s room. But kidnapping’s another matter.”
“Oh well!” said Ludovic airily. “Ten to one we shan’t see any more of them. I dare say they will go back to London on tomorrow’s coach.”
Had Mr Stubbs followed his own inclination, he would not have waited for the morrow’s coach but would have boarded the night mail, deeming a night on the road preferable to one spent at the alehouse. But his companion, a grave person with a painstaking sense of duty and an earnest desire to prove himself worthy of his office, held to the opinion that their search had not been sufficiently thorough.
“What we’ve done is, we’ve Lulled them,” he said, slowly nodding his head. “Properly Lulled them, that’s what we’ve done. We didn’t find no trace of any desperate criminal, and they know we didn’t find no trace. So what happens?”
“Well, what does happen?” said Mr Stubbs, lowering his tankard.
“They’re Lulled, that’s what happens.”
“You said that before,” remarked Mr Stubbs, with slight asperity.
“Ah, but what do we do now we’ve got them Lulled?” demanded his companion. “We makes a Pounce, and takes this Ludovic Lavenham unawares.”
Mr Stubbs turned it over in his mind. “I won’t say you’re wrong, William,” he pronounced cautiously. “Nor I’ve no objection, provided we
