“As you didn’t,” added Mr. Upton, in a still aggrieved voice, “I’ve been trying again and again to ring you up instead; but of course you were never there, nor your man Mullins either. I was coming back by the last train, however, and should have been with you late to-night.”
“Did you leave the motor behind?”
“Yes; it’ll be there to meet me at St. Pancras.”
“It may have to do more than that,” said Thrush, spreading his full breadth on the pitch-pine seat. “I’ve found out something; how much or how little it’s too soon to tell; but I wasn’t going to discuss it through a dozen country exchanges as long as you wanted the thing a dead secret, Mr. Upton, and that’s why I didn’t ring you up. As for your last train, I’d have waited to meet it in town, only that wouldn’t have given me time to say what I’ve got to say before one or other of us may have to rush off somewhere else by another last train.”
“Do for God’s sake say what you’ve got to say!” cried Mr. Upton.
“Well, I’ve seen a man who thinks he may have seen the boy!”
“Alive?”
“And perfectly well—but for his asthma—on Thursday.”
The ironmaster thanked God in a dreadful voice; it was Lettice who calmed him, not he her. Her eyes only shone a little, but his were blinded by the first ray of light.
“Where was it?” he asked, when he could ask anything.