letter, but there was no time to write another, so she folded, and sealed it, wrote Sir Richard’s name on it and propped it up on the mantelpiece.
In the entrance-parlour she encountered the pessimistic waiter who had served them on the previous evening. His eyes seemed even duller than usual, and beyond staring in a ruminative fashion at her cloak-bag, he evinced no interest in Pen’s early rising.
She explained to him glibly that she was obliged to go into Bristol, and asked if the carrier would be passing the George. The waiter said that he would not be passing, because Friday was not his day. “If you had wanted him yesterday, it would have been different,” he added reproachfully.
She sighed. “Then I shall be obliged to walk.”
The waiter accepted this without interest, but just as she reached the door he bethought him of something, and said in a voice of unabated gloom: “The missus is going to Bristol in the trap.”
“Do you think she would take me with her?”
The waiter declined to offer an opinion, but he volunteered to go and ask the missus. However, Pen decided to go herself, and, penetrating to the yard at the back of the inn, found the landlord’s wife packing a basket into the trap, and preparing to mount into it herself.
She was surprised at Pen’s request, and eyed the cloak-bag with suspicion, but she was a stout, good- natured woman, and upon Pen’s assuring her mendaciously that Sir Richard was well-aware of her projected expedition, she allowed her to get into the trap, and to stow the cloak-bag under the seat. Her son, a phlegmatic young man, who chewed a straw throughout the journey, took the reins, and in a few minutes the whole party was proceeding up the village street at a sober but steady pace.
“Well, I only hopes, sir, as I’m not doing wrong,” said Mrs Hopkins, as soon as she had recovered from the exertion of hoisting her bulk into the trap. “I’m sure I was never one to pry into other folks’ business, but if you
“Oh no, indeed you won’t!” Pen assured her. “You see, we have not our own carriage with us, or—or I should not have been obliged to trouble you in this way.”
Mrs Hopkins said that she was not one to grudge trouble, and added that she was glad of company. When she discovered Pen had had no breakfast, she was very much shocked, and after much tugging and wheezing, pulled out the basket from under the seat, and produced out of it a large packet of sandwiches, a pie wrapped in a napkin, and a bottle of cold tea. Pen accepted a sandwich, but refused the pie, a circumstance which made Mrs Hopkins say that although the young gentleman would have been welcome to it, it was, in point of fact, a gift for her aunt, who lived in Bristol. She further disclosed that she was bound for the town to meet her sister’s second girl, who was coming down on the London stage to work as a chambermaid at the George. The ball of conversation having been set rolling in this easy fashion, the journey passed pleasantly enough, Mrs Hopkins furnishing Pen with so exhaustive an account of the various trials and vicissitudes which had befallen every member of her family, that by the time the trap drew up at an inn in the centre of Bristol, Pen felt that there could be little she did not know about the good lady’s relatives.
The stage was not due to arrive in Bristol until nine o’clock, at which hour the coach setting out for London would leave the inn. Mrs Hopkins set off to visit her aunt, and Pen, having booked a seat on the stage, and deposited the cloak-bag at the inn, sallied forth to lay out her last remaining coins on provisions to sustain her during the journey.
The streets were rather empty at such an early hour, and some of the shops had not yet taken down their shutters, but after walking for a few minutes and observing with interest the changes which, in five years, had taken place in the town, Pen found a cook-shop that was open. The smell of freshly baked pies made her feel hungry, and she went into the shop, and made a careful selection of the viands offered for sale.
When she came out of the shop, there was still half-an-hour to while away before the coach was due to start, and she wandered into the market-place. Here there were quite a number of people already busy about the day’s business. Pen caught sight of Mrs Hopkins bargaining with a salesman over the price of a length of calico, but since she did not feel that she wanted to learn any more details about the Hopkins family, she avoided her, and pretended to be interested in a clockmaker’s shop. So intent was she on avoiding Mrs Hopkins’s motherly eye, that she was blissfully unaware that she herself was being closely scrutinized by a thickset man in a duffle coat, and a wide- brimmed hat, who, after gazing fixedly at her for some moments, stepped up to her, and, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder, said deeply: “Got you!”
Pen jumped guiltily, and looked round in sudden alarm. The voice sounded familiar; to her dismay she found herself staring up into the face of the Bow Street Runner who had overtaken Jimmy Yarde at the inn near Wroxhall.
“Oh!” she said faintly. “Oh! Are you not the—the man I met—the other day? Good—good-morning! A fine day, isn’t—isn’t it?”
“That’s so, young sir,” said the Runner, in a grim tone. “And a werry complete hand you be, and no mistake! I’ve been wanting another touch at you. Ah, and when Nat Gudgeon wants a touch at a cove, he gets it, and no mistake about that neither! You come along with me!”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong! Indeed I haven’t!” said Pen.
“If you haven’t, then there’s no call for you to be scared of me,” said Mr Gudgeon, with what seemed to her a fiendish leer. “But what I been thinking, young sir, is, that you and that fine gentleman what was with you loped off mighty quick from that there inn. Why, anyone might have thought, so they might, as how you had took an unaccountable dislike to me!”
“No, no, we didn’t! But there was nothing to stay for, and we were already much delayed.”
“Well,” said Mr Gudgeon, shifting his grip to her arm, and grasping this firmly above the elbow, “I’ve got a fancy to question you more particular, young sir. Now, don’t you make the werry great mistake of trying to struggle with me, because it won’t do you no good. Maybe you ain’t never heard tell on a cove by the name o’ Yarde: likewise you wouldn’t reckernize a set o’ sparklers if you was to see one. Lor’! If I had a brace of meggs for every green-looking young chub like you which I’ve took up—ah, and shut up in the Whit just as snug as you please!—I’d be a werry rich man, so I would. You come along of me, and stop trying to gammon me, because I’ve got a werry strong notion you know a deal more about a certain set o’ sparklers nor what you’re wishful I should get wind of.”
By this time, the attention of several persons had been attracted, and a small crowd was beginning to gather. Pen cast a hunted look around. She saw the aghast face of Mrs Hopkins, but no means of escape, and gave herself up for lost. Mr Gudgeon evidently meant to march her off to the gaol, or at any rate to some place of safe-keeping, where her sex, she suspected, would soon be discovered. Meanwhile, the crowd was swelling, several members of it loudly demanding to know what the young gentleman had done, and one knowledgeable individual explaining to his neighbours that that was one of the Bow Street Runners from London, that was. Nothing would serve her, Pen decided, but a certain measure of frankness. Accordingly, she made no attempt to break away from the Runner’s hold, but said in as calm a tone as she was able to assume: “Indeed, I do not mind going with you at all. In fact, I know just what you want, and I dare say I can furnish you with some very valuable information.”
Mr Gudgeon, who was not accustomed to be met with any appearance of sang-froid, was not in the least softened by this speech. He said in a shocked voice: “There’s a sauce! Ay, you’re a rare gager, young as you be! Why, you young varmint, and you with your mother’s milk not dry on your lips! You come along, and no bamming, now!”
A section of the crowd showed a disposition to accompany them, but Mr Gudgeon addressed these gentry in such fierce accents that they dispersed in a hurry, and left him to escort his captive out of the market-place in lonely state.
“You are making a great mistake,” Pen told the Runner. “You are searching for the Brandon diamonds, are you not? Well, I know all about them, and, as a matter of fact, Mr Brandon wishes you to stop searching for them.”
“Ho!” said Mr Gudgeon, with deep meaning. “He does, does he? Dang me, if ever I see the equal of you for sauce!”
“I wish you will listen to me! I know who has the diamonds, and, what is more, he murdered the other Mr Brandon to get them!”
Mr Gudgeon shook his head in speechless wonder.
