‘It’s wonderful what eyes you’ve a-got, Miss,’ said William; ‘none of the rest of us didn’t spy it.’
Charlotte and Charles walked apart from Caroline in a marked manner.
There certainly was something white in the road—a piece of paper with a stone on it, and also, as the Police saw when he picked it up, writing, pencilled, with that kind of black blunt pencilledness which happens when you have a pencil whose point has seen better days, and you encourage its efforts with your tongue.
‘To any kind Bypasser,’ the Police read out, ‘please put the inside in the post for me.’
The paper on which this was written was a leaf torn from a note-book and folded across. Inside was another leaf with a stamp in the corner, as though it had been a post-card. On one side was an address, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Wix, The Nest, Simla, India,’ and on the other these lines which the Police read out:
Dear Parents—I am running away to sea through being so ill-treated by Macpherson. I will write from the first port. I shall get a ship at Hastings, I expect.—Your affecate son,
Rupert.
‘Well!’ said the Police; ‘if that don’t beat all! Lucky we saw this.’
‘Yes, ain’t it,’ said William, ‘and this the Hastings road and all. You ought to catch up easy if you start right away now.’