He took her by the shoulders and, pushing her feet from her ungently, sat her in a corner.
“I’ll come back and deal with you, my lady,” he growled.
Outside in the hall Masters was waiting for him, and the big, uncouth man was evidently troubled.
“Where have you put him?”
“In the east wing, in the old butler’s rooms,” he said, ill at ease. “Mr. Groat, isn’t this a bad business?”
“What do you mean, bad business?” snarled Digby.
“I’ve never been mixed up in this kind of thing before,” said Masters. “Isn’t there a chance that they will have the law on us?”
“Don’t you worry, you’ll be well paid,” snapped his employer, and was going away when the man detained him.
“Being well paid won’t keep me out of prison, if this is a prison job,” he said. “I come of respectable people, and I’ve never been in trouble all my life. I’m well-known in the country, and although I’m not very popular in the village, yet nobody can point to me and say that I’ve done a prison job.”
“You’re a fool,” said Digby, glad to have someone to vent his rage upon. “Haven’t I told you that this man has been trying to run off with my wife?”
“You didn’t say anything about her being your wife,” said Masters, shaking his head and looking suspiciously at the other, “and, besides, she’s got no wedding-ring. That’s the first thing I noticed. And that foreign man hadn’t any right to strike with his cane—it might have killed him.”
“Now look here, Masters,” said Digby, controlling himself, for it was necessary that the man should be humoured, “don’t trouble your head about affairs that you can’t understand. I tell you this man Steele is a scoundrel who has run away with my wife and has stolen a lot of money. My wife is not quite normal, and I am taking her away for a voyage …” He checked himself. “Anyway, Steele is a scoundrel,” he said.
“Then why not hand him over to the police,” said the uneasy Masters, “and bring him before the justices? That seems to me the best thing to do, Mr. Groat. You’re going to get a bad name if it comes out that you treated this gentleman as roughly as you did.”
“I didn’t treat him roughly,” said Digby coolly, “and it was you who slipped the rope round his neck.”
“I tried to get it over his shoulders,” explained Masters hastily; “besides, you told me to do it.”
“You’d have to prove that,” said Digby, knowing that he was on the right track. “Now listen to me, Masters. The only person who has committed any crime so far has been you!”
“Me?” gasped the man. “I only carried out your orders.”
“You’d have to prove that before your precious justices,” said Digby, with a laugh, and dropped his hand on the man’s shoulder, a piece of familiarity which came strangely to Masters, who had never known his employer in such an amiable mood. “Go along and get some food ready for the young lady,” he said, “and if there is any trouble, I’ll see that you get clear of it. And here.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out a wad of notes, picked two of them out and pressed them into the man’s hand. “They are twenty-pound banknotes, my boy, and don’t forget it and try to change them as fivers. Now hurry along and get your wife to find some refreshment for the young lady.”
“I don’t know what my wife’s going to say about it,” grumbled the man, “when I tell her—”
“Tell her nothing,” said Digby sharply. “Damn you, don’t you understand plain English?”
At three o’clock that afternoon a hired car brought two passengers before the ornamental gate of Kennett Hall, and the occupants, failing to secure admission, climbed the high wall and came trudging up towards the house.
Digby saw them from a distance and went down to meet the bedraggled Bronson and the dark-skinned Spaniard who was his companion. They met at the end of the drive, and Bronson and his master, speaking together, made the same inquiry in identical terms:
“Where is Villa?”
XLII
The room into which Jim was thrust differed little from those chambers he had already seen, save that it was smaller. The floorboards were broken, and there were holes in the wainscot which he understood long before he heard the scamper of the rats’ feet.
He was trussed like a fowl, his hands were so tightly corded together that he could not move them, and his ankles roped so that it was next to impossible to lever himself to his feet.
“What a life!” said Jim philosophically, and prepared himself for a long, long wait.
He did not doubt that Digby would leave immediately, and Jim faced the prospect of being left alone in the house, to make his escape or die. He was fully determined not to die, and already his busy mind had evolved a plan which he would put into execution as soon as he knew he was not under observation.
But Digby remained in the house, as he was to learn.
An hour passed, and then the door was snapped open and Digby came in, followed by a man at the sight of whom Jim grinned. It was Bronson, looking ludicrous in Jim’s clothes, which were two sizes too large for him.
“They discovered you, did they, Bronson!” he chuckled. “Well, here am I as you were, and presently somebody will discover me, and then I shall be calling on you in Dartmoor, some time this year, to see how you are going along. Nice place Dartmoor, and the best part of the prison is Block ‘B’—central heating, gas, hot water laid on, and every modern convenience except tennis—”
“Where is Villa?” asked Digby.
“I don’t know for a fact,” said Jim pleasantly, “but I can guess.”
“Where is he?” roared Bronson, his face purple with
