"I should be surprised if you did. I asked you to meet me here so that I could make you understand. The man who poses as a Pinkerton"s detective, and is staying in the house to help you take care of Ogden Ford, is Smooth Sam Fisher, a professional kidnapper."
"But--but--"
"But what proof have I? Was that what you were going to say? None.
But I had the information from the man himself. He told me in the train that night going to London."
She spoke quickly. I knew from her tone that she thought she had detected a flaw in my story.
"Why did he tell you?"
"Because he needed me as an accomplice. He wanted my help. It was I who got Ogden away that day. Sam overheard me giving money and directions to him, telling him how to get away from the school and where to go, and he gathered--correctly--that I was in the same line of business as himself. He suggested a partnership which I was unable to accept."
"Why?"
"Our objects were different. My motive in kidnapping Ogden was not to extract a ransom."
She blazed out at me in an absolutely unexpected manner. Till now she had listened so calmly and asked her questions with such a notable absence of emotion that the outburst overwhelmed me.
"Oh, I know what your motive was. There is no need to explain that. Isn"t there any depth to which a man who thinks himself in love won"t stoop? I suppose you told yourself you were doing something n.o.ble and chivalrous? A woman of her sort can trick a man into whatever meanness she pleases, and, just because she asks him, he thinks himself a kind of knight-errant. I suppose she told you that he had ill-treated her and didn"t appreciate her higher self, and all that sort of thing? She looked at you with those big brown eyes of hers--I can see her--and drooped, and cried, till you were ready to do anything she asked you."
"Whom do you mean?"
"Mrs Ford, of course. The woman who sent you here to steal Ogden.
The woman who wrote you that letter."
"She did not write that letter. But never mind that. The reason why I wanted you to come here was to warn you against Sam Fisher.
That was all. If there is any way in which I can help you, send for me. If you like, I will come and stay at the house till Mr Abney returns."
Before the words were out of my mouth, I saw that I had made a mistake. The balance of her mind was poised between suspicion and belief, and my offer turned the scale.
"No, thank you," she said curtly.
"You don"t trust me?"
"Why should I? White may or may not be Sam Fisher. I shall be on my guard, and I thank you for telling me. But why should I trust you? It all hangs together. You told me you were engaged to be married. You come here on an errand which no man would undertake except for a woman, and a woman with whom he was very much in love. There is that letter, imploring you to steal the boy. I know what a man will do for a woman he is fond of. Why should I trust you?"
"There is this. You forget that I had the opportunity to steal Ogden if I had wanted to. I had got him away to London. But I brought him back. I did it because you had told me what it meant to you."
She hesitated, but only for an instant. Suspicion was too strong for her.
"I don"t believe you. You brought him back because this man whom you call Fisher got to know of your plans. Why should you have done it because of me? Why should you have put my interests before Mrs Ford"s? I am nothing to you."
For a moment a mad impulse seized me to cast away all restraint, to pour out the unspoken words that danced like imps in my brain, to make her understand, whatever the cost, my feelings towards her. But the thought of my letter to Cynthia checked me. That letter had been the irrevocable step. If I was to preserve a shred of self-respect I must be silent.
"Very well," I said, "good night." And I turned to go.
"Peter!"
There was something in her voice which whirled me round, thrilling, despite my resolution.
"Are you going?"
Weakness would now be my undoing. I steadied myself and answered abruptly.
"I have said all I came to say. Good night."
I turned once more and walked quickly off towards the village. I came near to running. I was in the mood when flight alone can save a man. She did not speak again, and soon I was out of danger, hurrying on through the friendly darkness, beyond the reach of her voice.
The bright light from the doorway of the "Feathers", was the only illumination that relieved the blackness of the Market Square. As I approached, a man came out and stopped in the entrance to light a cigar. His back was turned towards me as he crouched to protect the match from the breeze, but something in his appearance seemed familiar.
I had only a glimpse of him as he straightened himself and walked out of the pool of light into the Square, but it was enough.
It was my much-enduring acquaintance, Mr Buck MacGinnis.
Chapter 14
I
At the receipt of custom behind the bar sat Miss Benjafield, stately as ever, relaxing her ma.s.sive mind over a penny novelette.
"Who was the man who just left, Miss Benjafield?" I asked.
She marked the place with a shapely thumb and looked up.
"The man? Oh, _him_! He"s--why, weren"t you in here, Mr Burns, one evening in January when--"
"That American?"
"That"s him. What he"s doing here I don"t know. He disappeared quite a while back, and I haven"t seen him since. _Nor_ want.
Tonight up he turns again like a bad ha"penny. I"d like to know what he"s after. No good, if you ask _me_."
Miss Benjafield"s prejudices did not easily dissolve. She prided herself, as she frequently observed, on knowing her own mind.
"Is he staying here?"
"Not at the "Feathers". We"re particular who we have here."
I thanked her for the implied compliment, ordered beer for the good of the house, and, lighting a pipe, sat down to meditate on this new development.
The vultures were gathered together with a vengeance. Sam within, Buck without, it was quite like old times, with the difference that now, I, too, was on the wrong side of the school door.
It was not hard to account for Buck"s reappearance. He would, of course, have made it his business to get early information of Mr Ford"s movements. It would be easy for him to discover that the millionaire had been called away to the north and that the Nugget was still an inmate of Sanstead House. And here he was preparing for the grand attack.
I had been premature in removing Buck"s name from the list of active combatants. Broken legs mend. I ought to have remembered that.