"Good morning, my lord. Is there anything I can do for your lordship? I fear the house is rather upset, but—a glass of beer, perhaps? I am thinking of going away for a few days, just packing up, as you see, my lord. But if there's anything I can do to make your lordship comfortable before I go—— It has always been my wish, my lord, to make any gentleman who employs me as comfortable as possible—or his friends, my lord."
The man, apparently, scarcely knew what he was saying. He was frightened out of his senses and was possessed by a desire to get away as quickly as possible.
"You're not arrested, are you, Hinton?"
"Me, my lord! Certainly not. I've always borne a most excellent character. No one has ever had occasion to say anything against me. I'm—I'm going away for a few days, my lord. A little holiday."
"There's a policeman at the mouth of the cave, Hinton, and there are two more outside your door at this moment. What are they doing?"
"I don't know, my lord. I prefer not to inquire; but——" Here Hinton's nerves failed him completely, and he broke down. Even his precise English failed him, and he forgot to say "my lord" at the end of every sentence. "Mr. Linker, he 'phoned through this morning," he whimpered. "He said as how that cave was to be guarded night and day so that nobody could go in or out nor nothing be taken in or out till to-morrow and then the blasted Customs officers is to come and see what's there. They can't arrest me till then. There isn't nothing for them to go on, till they can lay their hands on the goods. That's why I'm off. And Mr. Linker, he's off too. And if you take my advice you'll do a bolt before they nab you. France I'm going to, or maybe Spain. Linker, he's thinking of Russia; says as how the Russian Government won't give him up. But I don't know. I never did trust them Bolshies myself."
It was plain that there was neither counsel of a sensible kind nor any help to be got from James Hinton. The man was the victim of an ague of terror, and could not be trusted to do the simplest thing. Jimmy left the inn, speaking a word of cheerful greeting to the policemen as he passed.
An hour later James Hinton placed his suit-case in the Ford car which had once towed the Pallas Athene into Morriton St. James. He cranked up his engine and went clattering up the village street. The policemen watched him go. Then one of them took possession of the telephone in the inn and rang up the constabulary office in Morriton St. James. No one had authority or power to stop Hinton, but the police felt that it might be convenient to know where he went, in case they wanted to arrest him later on. The progress of the car was reported until it was placed in a garage in Southampton. Hinton's further movements and his embarking on board the steamer for St. Malo were also reported. After that, he was left to the French police to see where he went and what he did.
Mr. Linker, making a break for freedom in another direction, reached Amsterdam and was there marked down by the police. Whether he would ever have got to Russia, or what would have happened to him there if he had, we do not know. It turned out to be unnecessary for him to go beyond Amsterdam. Hinton got no further than an hotel in Paramé.
Jimmy went back to the vicarage. He found Beth and Mary anxious and troubled. Mrs. Eames had gone up to the church, where she expected to find her husband. She intended, so Beth said, to induce that unfortunate man to go down to the cave and drive away the policeman, by force if necessary.