It is, by-the-bye, to-morrow, papa tells me, that Dick is coming.
XIX
CONTERMINOUS COURSES
Between five and six o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, August 16th, when the last train but one steamed into the small station at Inglesby, six miles from Gateby, one passenger left it. He was a tall man in a light tweed suit. His luggage consisted of a portmanteau and a gun-case. After looking in vain for a conveyance outside the station, he found the station-master and asked where he could get one to take him to Gateby; the station-master directed him to the inn.
Between six and seven, but rather more than an hour later, the last train of the day came in. It also deposited a single passenger—another sportsman, for he too carried a gun-case; moreover, he went through the same performance as the last arrival: looked first for a conveyance and then for the station-master, to whom he put the same question about a trap and Gateby, and from whom he received the same direction. But the official was struck with the coincidence, and dropped a word or two about 'the other gentleman;' at which this one, whose name was Edmonstone, started, though he walked off to the inn, a porter following with his baggage, without putting further questions.
The inn had a great square parlour, scrupulously clean and flagged with red tiles, where Dick entered, and clattered on the well-scoured table. The person of the landlady, who presently appeared, was in the nicest harmony with floor and furniture, so neat and spotless, and in hand and face so very red. Her speech, however, as she asked what was wanted, was by way of being rough.
'In the first place,' said Edmonstone, 'two glasses of beer'; and presently handed one to the porter, who tendered his respects, received sixpence, repeated his respects with emphasis, and withdrew. 'In the next place a horse and trap.'
'We've no hosses an' traps here, yooung man.'
'Come now!' said Dick. 'They told me at the station this was just the place where there was one.'
'Mebbe it is, but it's out now. Where is't ye want to be?'
'Gateby.'
'Gaatby! Why, that's where it's gone with t'other gentleman!'
'Indeed? To Colonel Bristo's, do you know?'
'That was it.'
'It's a pity I didn't come by the other train!' His tone puzzled the woman. 'We might have travelled together, by Jove! What was the gentleman like?'
'Very tall.'
'Taller than I am, I suppose?'
'Yes—easy.'
'A fair beard?'
'To be sure. You know him, then?'
'Very well indeed. We ought to have travelled together. Has the trap that took him come back yet?'
'Not it. It hasn't had time.'
'It must go back with me when it does. Don't look like that, woman; here's a sovereign for the job!'
He flung the coin on the table. The woman stared at him and at it, seemed doubtful whether to take or leave the sovereign, but eventually overcame her scruples, honestly determining to throw in a good square meal for the money.
'The trap won't be back yet a bit, sir. You'll be wanting——'
'Nothing, except to be left alone,' broke in the strange guest. 'That's all the trouble I shall put you to—that, and to tell me when the trap's ready.'
There was no use in saying more to the gentleman. He might not be quite right—he might fly at a body. The good woman left him gazing abstractedly out of the window; yet she had scarcely closed the door when she heard him clattering to and fro over the tiled floor like a caged beast.
His thoughts were in a tumult. He calmed them by a strenuous effort. He strove to look the matter in the face. What was the matter?
Ned Ryan, the Australian outlaw, who had been screened on condition that he came near the Bristos no more, had broken that condition; had somehow heard that Edmonstone was not to be one of the shooting-party in Yorkshire, and was even now the Colonel's newly-arrived guest.
After all, perhaps this was no more than Dick had been prepared for, since his journey from Teddington to Waterloo in the same compartment with Jem Pound and Elizabeth Ryan; he had listened to a villain's suspicions of a brother villain; from that moment he had shared those suspicions. Dick realised then, and only then, that while he was not near the Bristos they were not safe from the advances of 'Mr. Miles,' if he was bold enough to make them. But the sudden realisation of his fears took Dick's breath away; he had not bargained to find Miles already at Gateby—he had no definite plan for the defeat of Miles, and he was certain that the man described to him by the mistress of the inn was Miles—as certain as if he had seen him himself.
Then how was he to act? Was he to show no quarter, since this villain had played false? That course presented difficulties—dangers as well; and at the least it involved a violent scene under Colonel Bristo's roof. Must he, then, parley a second time with the villain—let him off again, trust him again, go on shielding a known desperado? No. Ned Ryan could be trusted no further, shielded no more. There were more things than one to be considered—more people than one. The man must receive his deserts.
And to accomplish this—to deliver to justice a criminal of the first water—this young Edmonstone went blindly forward, with thoughts of doing it without fuss and all but single-handed.
There was little daylight left when Dick was driven out of Inglesby; night fell long before he saw the lights of Gateby; it was fully nine when they reached the little square stone house behind the hedge. The dogs in the kennel
