"About the end of next week. Friday will be a full moon, I think, and I like a moon for the work. It gives light enough to see what you are doing, and not light enough for them to see much of you. So I suppose I may as well fix Friday. I will send up a message for Jack Mercer and Jerry Skinlow to be here on Thursday evening. I will be here that afternoon, and settle matters with them as to where they shall meet me, and what each man shall do. Then I will ride back to town, and come out again just as it gets dark, with Jack Ponsford."
"I suppose you will do it north of here?"
"No, I will do it a mile or two out of town. The road north of this is getting rather a bad reputation, and in going out of Barnet the guard now looks to his blunderbuss, and the passengers get their pistols ready. It isn't once in a hundred times they have pluck enough to use them, but they always think they will, until the time comes. Near town we shall take them by surprise, and stop them before they have time to think of getting out their arms.
"Confound that window. Shove something into the hole, Johnson. I can feel the cold right down my back."
A cloth was pushed into the broken pane, and Charlie could hear no more of what was said inside. He had heard, indeed, enough for his purpose, but he had hoped to gather the name of the place at which the man would put up in London. However, he was well satisfied with his success, and at once made his way back to the inn.
"Well, Charlie, how have you succeeded?" Harry asked, as he sat down at the table.
"Could not be better, Harry, though I did not find out where he puts up in London. However, that is of small consequence. In the first place, I found out that our suspicions were right, and that the fellow is a highwayman, and seems to be captain of a gang consisting anyhow of three, and perhaps of more, fellows like himself. In the second place, he intends, with his three comrades, to attack the coach on Friday week, two or three miles out of town. Nothing could better suit our purpose, even if we had planned the affair ourselves. Of course, we will be there. If we can capture him while engaged in that work, we can get anything out of him. He has either got to confess or be hanged."
"That is a stroke of good luck, indeed," Harry exclaimed. "It will be rather difficult to manage, though. The fellows will be sure to be masked; and, if we were to shoot him instead of one of the others, it would be fatal."
"Yes, that would be awkward. Besides," Charlie said, "even if we did recognize him and shot his horse, he might jump up behind one of the other men, or might make off across the country, and we might lose sight of him before we could get down from the top of the coach to pursue."
"It might be better if we were mounted, instead of being on the coach."