"At any rate, if we did come a cropper, you'd be no worse off."
"Ah!" cried the financier, stopping short. "Why shouldn't I wake Herr Schlugst, and get him to take me?"
"Because he won't," said Tinker quietly. "He told me that nothing would induce him to try a flight in the night. He's all right in the daytime, but the darkness funks him. Foreigners are like that; they'll go to a certain point all right, but there they stop. That's what I've noticed. I notice these things, you know." He spoke indulgently.
It never occurred to the financier to doubt him; he was already a little under the influence of the cooler head. He walked up and down a little longer; and Tinker said no more. He had been taught to leave people to themselves when he saw them beginning to come to his way of thinking.
At last, with a horrible grimace which showed the depth of his agony, the financier cried, "I'll come! I'll come! I'll trust my life—oh, my precious life—to you. After all, you rescued the Kernaby child; and you had to fight to do it! I'll risk it! Oh, my money! My money!"
"Very good," said Tinker. "I'll come for you at half-past twelve. Put on your warmest great-coat. It'll be cold." And he slipped gently out of the room.
Five minutes later the distracted financier rang his bell, and ordered a bottle of 1820 liqueur brandy. It was the best thing he could have done: a private detective, who was sitting on guard in a room lower down the corridor to see that he did not go downstairs again, believed him to have thrown up the sponge, and to be drowning his sorrow, and allowed himself to become immersed in the current number of the Family Herald.
As was his practice, Sir Tancred, on his way to bed, looked in on Tinker, and found him sleeping the profound sleep of youth and innocence. But no sooner did he hear his father in bed and still, than he rose from that profound sleep of youth and innocence, dressed, even to his great-coat. He took a letter from his pocket, and put it prominently on the dressing-table. It ran:
DEAR FATHER:
I have taken Bloomenroot to Parris in Herr Shlugst flyingmacheen. Bring him to meet me at the Ifell Tower.