During a tense ten seconds he listened, Jack scarcely taking breath, and then the detective nodded as one who had satisfied himself.
"Get down," he whispered; "somebody coming."
Sure enough, almost at once came the sound of footsteps; and Jack, peering through the interstices of a wall of greenery, could barely restrain a gasp as he saw a tall, pasty-faced, weedy youth strolling negligently along the faint path that Billy Faraday had followed, and, although he wore the college cap of blue and gold, he was smoking an expensive brand of cigarette.
In dead silence the two watched him pass their field of vision, and then he, too, was swallowed up in the bush.
Jack turned to Patch with a criss-cross mark of puzzlement creasing his eyebrows. "Now, what do you make of that?" he asked softly. "That's Redisham, and the dirty slacker's smoking at that. But is he following Billy or not?"
"Or is it only coincidence that he comes from Victoria?" asked Septimus in the same discreet voice. "Very funny, isn't it?"
"Now, you know what sort of a fellow Redisham is," went on Jack. "He's just the sort that'd have gambling debts, and all that, although his father's got piles of cash, they say. Question is, is he clever enough to be used as a tool?"
"Comrade, I don't know," admitted Septimus, slowly shaking his head. "It's often these foolish-looking fellows that turn out pretty cunning in the long run. All the same, Redisham—the man's an ass, a weak-minded ass with an eye for 'loud' dress, and—"
"—and no eye for catching a cricket ball, or any sort of sport, except betting—if you can call that sport," Jack snorted. "Little Montague Redisham isn't the sneak in this case, I fancy."
"Well, then, what's he doing?" countered the amateur detective, with index finger marking his point. "It looks jolly fishy, doesn't it?"