On receiving this first letter, Trevelyan was in an agony of doubt, as well as misery. What should he do? Should he go to Lady Milborough, or to Stanbury; or should he at once follow Colonel Osborne and Mr. Bozzle to Lessboro’? It ended in his resolving at last to wait for the letter which was to be addressed to Z. A. But he spent an interval of horrible suspense, and of insane rage. Let the laws say what they might, he would have the man’s blood, if he found that the man had even attempted to wrong him. Then, at last, the second letter reached him. Colonel Osborne and Mr. Bozzle had each of them spent the day in the neighbourhood of Lessboro’, not exactly in each other’s company, but very near to each other. “The Colonel” had ordered a gig, on the day after his arrival at Lessboro’, for the village of Cockchaffington; and, for all Mr. Bozzle knew, the Colonel had gone to Cockchaffington. Mr. Bozzle was ultimately inclined to think that the Colonel had really spent his day in going to Cockchaffington. Mr. Bozzle himself, knowing the wiles of such men as Colonel Osborne, and thinking at first that that journey to Cockchaffington might only be a deep ruse, had walked over to Nuncombe Putney. There he had had a pint of beer and some bread and cheese at Mrs. Crocket’s house, and had asked various questions, to which he did not receive very satisfactory answers. But he inspected the Clock House very minutely, and came to a decided opinion as to the point at which it would be attacked, if burglary were the object of the assailants. And he observed the iron gates, and the steps, and the shape of the trees, and the old pigeon-house-looking fabric in which the clock used to be placed. There was no knowing when information might be wanted, or what information might not be of use. But he made himself tolerably sure that Colonel Osborne did not visit Nuncombe Putney on that day; and then he walked back to Lessboro’. Having done this, he applied himself to the little memorandum book in which he kept the records of these interesting duties, and entered a claim against his employer for a conveyance to Nuncombe Putney and back, including driver and ostler; and then he wrote his letter. After that he had a hot supper, with three glasses of brandy and water, and went to bed with a thorough conviction that he had earned his bread on that day.
The letter to Z. A. did not give all these particulars, but it did explain that Colonel Osborne had gone off, apparently, to Cockchaffington, and that he—Bozzle—had himself visited Nuncombe Putney. “The hawk hasn’t been nigh the dovecot as yet,” said Mr. Bozzle in his letter, meaning to be both mysterious and facetious.
It would be difficult to say whether the wit or the mystery disgusted Trevelyan the most. He had felt that he was defiling himself with dirt when he first went to Mr. Bozzle. He knew that he was having recourse to means that were base and low—which could not be other than base or low, let the circumstances be what they might. But Mr. Bozzle’s conversation had not been quite so bad as Mr. Bozzle’s letters; as it may have been that Mr. Bozzle’s successful activity was more insupportable than his futile attempts. But, nevertheless, something must be done. It could not be that Colonel Osborne should have gone down to the close neighbourhood of Nuncombe Putney without the intention of seeing the lady whom his obtrusive pertinacity had driven to that seclusion. It was terrible to Trevelyan that Colonel Osborne should be there, and not the less terrible because such a one as Mr. Bozzle was watching the Colonel on his behalf. Should he go to Nuncombe Putney himself? And if so, when he got to Nuncombe Putney what should he do there? At last, in his suspense and his grief, he resolved that he would tell the whole to Hugh Stanbury.
“Do you mean,” said Hugh, “that you have put a policeman on his track?”
“The man was a policeman once.”
“What we call a private detective. I can’t say I think you were right.”
“But you see that it was necessary,” said Trevelyan.
“I can’t say that it was necessary. To speak out, I can’t understand that a wife should be worth watching who requires watching.”
“Is a man to do nothing then? And even now it is not my wife whom I doubt.”
“As for Colonel Osborne, if he chooses to go to Lessboro’, why shouldn’t he? Nothing that you can do, or that Bozzle can do, can prevent him. He has a perfect right to go to Lessboro’.”
“But he has not a right to go to my wife.”
“And if your wife refuses to see him; or having seen him—for a man may force his way in anywhere with a little trouble—if she sends him away with a flea in his ear, as I believe she would—”
“She is so frightfully indiscreet.”
“I don’t see what Bozzle can do.”
“He has found out at any rate that Osborne is there,” said Trevelyan. “I am not more fond of dealing with such fellows than you are yourself. But I
