“And how am I to take him?”
“Not by daylight. Bless you, if you went into that field they’d never let you out alive. Why, no bobby durst go there, nor yet a dozen together.”
“Is Punch Howard in the field with them?”
“There; look yonder. D’ye see that lad in the striped shirt and blue belcher tie, blue and big white spots? Can’t you tell him a mile off?”
Sure enough it was Punch Howard, standing by a brick “table,” at which a number of others were at work, smoothing and finishing the bricks, or coming and going with the bearing-off barrows.
“Come to-night, master. They sleep mostly out there, on top of the brick stacks—and heavy sleep, for the beer in this house isn’t water. Come with a bobby or two, and look them all over. Punch’ll be among them, and you’ll be able to steal him away before the rest awake.”
So Power went back to the village, interviewed the superintendent of police, kept quiet during the rest of the day, and that night came in force to draw his covert. Stealthily they searched it from end to end. Among all the villainous faces into which they peered there was not one that bore the least resemblance to Punch Howard. Had the woman played him false? Power could hardly make up his mind to distrust her, so earnest and embittered had been her language against Dan Cockett. No doubt another night he would have more success. Meanwhile time pressed, and he resolved to try a plan of his own.
“Have you a good horse and four-wheeled shay?” he asked of his landlord next morning.
“The best in all England.”