Here was a bit of luck indeed. The cunning Stelfox had found his way to the very person who could give him all the information he wanted, and was now doubtless in the act of extracting it from his talkative companion. And when he unlocked the door of Marrable’s room, and went in, he had left the key outside.
Mr. Bradfield softly turned the key in the lock. Then, going quickly to his workshop, which was only a few yards away, he returned with a pair of nippers, and mounting on a chair, he neatly snipped the bell-wire in two.
“Now,” said he to himself, “when they find they’re locked in, they will ring the bell, and nobody will come. And that door will stand a good many kicks.”
He looked at his watch as he ran quickly downstairs, and slipped out of the house without meeting anybody.
“I can get a cab at the stand,” thought he. “I shall just have time to catch the train. I shall book to London, but I shall get out at Ashford, and go to Queensboro’, and on to Flushing. That’s just the last thing I should be expected to do. So that if Stelfox has been fool enough to chum up with the police on his lunatic’s behalf, I can give them leg-bail easily.”
CHAPTER XXXV. STELFOX IS RETICENT NO LONGER.
Mr. Bradfield awoke, on the morning after his abrupt departure from Wyngham, with a start of surprise at finding himself in a strange place.
He had been troubled by no pangs of a guilty conscience, not even by fears of an imaginary pursuer. Accusations might be made against him certainly, some of which could be supported by evidence which might weigh heavily with a judge and jury. But the real foundation of his misdeeds was one so astounding, requiring so much digging and delving before a good case could be made out, that he might have remained securely at Wyngham for months to come, might almost indeed have defied Dick and the law to do their worst, if it had not been for Stelfox.