"There's one thing to console you," she answered smartly and (in the light of later knowledge I am bound to add) wittily; "you aren't drawing a blank." And with this shaft she left me.
Now the girl's talk was nothing short of heathen Greek to me, as doubtless it is to the reader, and I sat for ten minutes at least digesting it with the aid of my grog. Here was Leggat, my quarry, identified with a Mr. Addison, incumbent or curate of a country parish within riding distance of Tregarrick. He was here to attend an auction. My thoughts flew to the bill I had been pretending to study half-an-hour before; but unfortunately I had given it no particular attention, and could only remember now that it advertised an estate of good acreage. The name "Welland," indeed, struck me as familiar, but I could not refer it to the bill, and must pull up for the moment and try a cast upon a fresh scent—Susie Martin. Mr. Addison, alias Leggat, is not likely to forbid her banns, whoever she may be; in other words, won't be sorry to see her married. And Susie is a servant—of a mistress who will probably be attending this auction—to look after a drunken husband, who presumably, therefore, is also concerned in the auction. I recalled the two faces at the upper window, the one tipsy and the other sad, and felt pretty sure of having fixed Susie's employers. I recalled the lady's start of terror as she had caught sight of the bald-headed man below, and that I had first seen the bald head behind the window out of which Leggat had looked a minute later. If the bald-headed man had been talking with Leggat, this might connect her terror with Leggat. And both she and Leggat were to attend the auction. But what was this auction? And who the dickens was the bald-headed man?
The tangle—as the reader will admit—was a complicated one. But so far fortune had served me fairly; and considering the adventure as a game, in my knowledge of Leggat and his ignorance of my being anywhere in the neighborhood, I still held the two best trumps. In speculating on the possible strength of these two cards a new opening occurred to me. I had come with the purpose of forcing Leggat to buy me off or admit me into his game. But might there not be more profit, as there would certainly be less risk, in taking a hand against him? I had no fancy for him as a partner. I knew him for an unhealthy villain, with an instinct for preying on the weak, a born enemy of widows and orphans. If only I could discover what the stakes were, and what cards the other side held! Well, but I could have a try for this, even. I could, for instance, apply to the squire for a job, and this might throw me in the way of Susie Martin.
I stepped to the baize door, and passed out upon the archway. Six yards to the right, the Boots, with his back to me, was fixing a ladder to climb it and light the great lantern over the entrance. To my left a broad staircase ran up into the darkness. I tip-toed towards it, gained the stairs, and mounted them swiftly, but without noise, guiding myself by the handrail.
The stairs ran up to the first floor in two flights, with a bend about half-way. At the top of the second flight I found myself facing a pitch-dark corridor. The rooms facing the street must (I knew) be on my right; but as I groped along, my palm found the recess of a doorway on my left, and pressed open the door which stood just ajar. I drew back and listened: then, hearing no sound, poked my head cautiously within.
The room was dark, but the glow of a dying fire at the farther end gave me some idea of its dimensions. A faint reflection of this glow fell upon the polished surface of something which I guessed to be a mahogany table-leg, and, after a second or two, I perceived, or thought I perceived, two heavily-curtained windows, reaching almost to the top of the wall opposite.
I was reconnoitring so, in the recess of the doorway, when I heard a low tapping far up the corridor, and withdrew my head in time to see a door open and the faint ray of a candle fall upon a figure standing there, about twenty yards from my hiding-place; the black-coated figure of Mark Leggat.
"Hullo!" I said to myself. "Now for Susie!"
It was not Susie, however, who stepped out and, closing the door behind her, confronted Leggat, candle in hand. It was the pale lady I had seen at the window.