"Hodgson has a little job on hand. It will certainly occupy him all night, but I am afraid you cannot help him. Now don't stay asking questions, my man, but be off to bed. I'll send word if I want you."
Jim grumbled and withdrew. "Best to get him out of the way," Mr. Rogers explained to the Rector. "You and I can take this fellow back to Plymouth at daybreak." He listened for a moment and announced, "He's gone. Keep an eye on our friend, please, while I prepare Isabel for it. My word!"—and he heaved a prodigious sigh— "I'd give something to be through with the next ten minutes!"
He opened the door and, passing through, closed it as quickly behind him. He was absent for half an hour perhaps. We could hear the mutter of his voice in the next room and now and again another masculine voice interrupting—never Isabel's. The Rector had found a seat for Miss Belcher beside the bureau. He himself took his stand beside the chimney and fingered a volume of the registers, making pretence to read but keeping his eye alert for any movement of Leicester. No one spoke; until the prisoner, intercepting a glance from Miss Belcher, broke into a sudden brutal laugh.
"Poor old lady!" he jeered, and his eyes travelled wickedly across the disordered floor. "Whitmore left a lot behind him, eh?"
She rose and turning her back on him, walked to the window. There she leaned out, seeming to study the night: but I saw that her shoulders heaved.
The Rector looked across with a puzzled frown. Leicester laughed again: and with that, Miss Belcher came back to him, slipped out the riding-crop which trussed him, and held it under his nose. Her face was white, but calm. She lifted the stick slowly to bring it across his face, paused, and flung it on the floor.
"You tempt me to be as dirty as yourself," she said. "But one woman has shown you mercy to-night, despising you. Think of that, George Leicester."
The door opened again and Mr. Rogers nodded to us.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed, perceiving the riding-crop on the floor.
"He can't run," said Miss Belcher nonchalantly. "But he can stand now, I fancy—and walk, if you loosen his legs a bit. He'll be wanted for a witness, won't he?"