The Countess did not stir. Ralph noticed that her face, haggard with fear and anxiety, had perceptibly aged.
“Quick!” he said sharply. “You must change that frock. Put on another … a black one for choice.”
He returned to the window; and while she changed watched the detectives and the policemen talking in the garden and tried to catch what they were saying. When she had changed, and she was quick about it, he caught up the grey frock she had just taken off and slipped into it. For all his strength, he was uncommonly slender, with a lissom figure. The frock fitted him to perfection; the long skirt of the period, when he had pulled it down hard, hid his feet passably; and he appeared to be so delighted with this disguise and so easy in his mind that the young woman began to recover her confidence.
The voices of the police in the garden rose higher, and they could hear what they were saying.
“Listen,” he said.
The four men were standing at the garden gate. One of the policemen said in the rough drawling voice of the countrymen:
“Are you quite sure that she stayed here occasionally?”
“Quite sure. And the proof of it is that there are two trunks of hers which she has left in storage here. One of them has her name painted on it—Madam Pellegrini. Besides, Mother Vasseur is a respectable woman, isn’t she?” said one of the detectives.
“There isn’t a more respectable woman than Mother Vasseur in this part of the country,” said the policeman.
“Well, Mother Vasseur declares that this Madam Pellegrini has been in the habit of coming from time to time to stay with her for a day or two.”
“Between two burglaries, you bet!”
“Exactly.”
“Then it would be a feather in our caps to capture this Madam Pellegrini?”
“It would indeed—larceny—swindling—receiving stolen goods—the whole bag of tricks in fact—and a swarm of confederates,” said one of the detectives.
“Have they got a description of her?” asked the policeman.
“Yes and no,” replied the detective.
“Yes and no?”
“They have two portraits of her which are entirely different. One is the portrait of a young woman, the other of an old one. As to her age, it is set as between thirty and sixty.”
They laughed; then the rough voice of the country policeman went on: “But you’re on her track?”
“Again yes and no. A fortnight ago she was working at Rouen and Dieppe. There we lost track of her. We found it again on the main line and lost it again. Did she go straight on to le Havre or turn off towards Fécamp? It is impossible to say. She has completely disappeared and left us floundering,” said the detective.
“And what made you come here?”
“Just a chance. A railway porter who brought trunks here on a truck remembered that the name of Pellegrini was painted on one of them, and that it had been hidden under a label which came unstuck.”
“Have you questioned any other travelers who stay at the inn?” asked the country policeman.
“Oh, precious few people stay here.”
“What about the lady we caught sight of just now as we rode up to the inn?”
“A lady?”
“Yes, a lady. She just came out of this door and went straight in again. It rather looked as if she wanted to avoid us.”
“A lady? In this inn? It isn’t possible!”
“A lady in gray. She was too far off for us to be able to recognize her face again. But we saw her gray dress; and she is wearing a hat with flowers in it.”
“The devil she is!” cried the detective. “We must look into this!”
They said no more, but there came the ominous clumping of large police boots along the flagged path of the garden.
During this conversation Ralph and the young woman had listened without uttering a word, staring at one another. As these new facts came to his ears, Ralph’s face had grown darker and darker. She made no attempt to rebut them.
“They’re coming. … They’re coming,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Yes. They’re coming; and we must be doing, or else they’ll come upstairs and find you here,” he said calmly.
As he spoke he snatched up her hat from the toilet table, put it on his head, pulled down the brim a little and tied the strings under his chin to hide yet more of his face. Then he gave her his final instructions.
“I’m going to clear the way for you,” he said. “As soon as it is clear, you will walk quietly along the road to the farmyard where your carriage is waiting. Get into it, and see that Leonard has the reins in his hands.”
“But what about you?” she said.
“I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”
“But suppose they arrest you?”
“They won’t arrest me, or you either,” he said confidently. “But no hurry, mind you. Don’t run down the road. Keep cool.”
He stepped to the window and leaned out of it. The four men were on the point of entering the house. He slipped over the sill and dropped into the garden, uttered a cry as if he had just caught sight of them, and dashed off at full speed.
They yelled with one voice.
“Hi! The woman in gray! … It’s her! … Halt! Or I’ll fire!”
He crossed the road in one stride, jumped into the ploughed field on the other side of it, raced across it, and sideways up
