Ludovic declined this handsome offer without the least hesitation. “I don’t like the smell of the scent,” he said frankly.
Miss Thane, overcome by her emotions, tottered to a chair and covered her eyes with her hand. In a voice of considerable feeling she gave Ludovic to understand that since he had saturated the carpet in her room with scent, he and not she should sleep in that exotic atmosphere.
The rest of the day was enlivened by alarms and discursions. The Runners had, as Nye suspected, withdrawn merely to the alehouse a mile down the road, and both of them revisited the Red Lion at separate times, entering it in the most unobtrusive, not to say stealthy, manner possible, and explaining their presence in unexpected corners of the house by saying that they were looking for the landlord. The excuses they put forward for these visits, though not convincing, were accepted by Nye with obliging complaisance. Secure in the knowledge that Ludovic was hidden in his secret cellar, he gave the Runners all the facilities they could desire to prowl unaccompanied about the house. The only person to be dissatisfied with this arrangement was the quarry himself who, in spite of the amenities afforded by a brazier and a couple of candles, complained that the cellar was cold, dark, and devilish uncomfortable. His plan of remaining above-stairs in readiness to retreat to the cellar upon the arrival of a Runner was frustrated by the tiresome conduct of these gentlemen, who seemed to spend the entire afternoon prowling around the house. Twice Eustacie was startled by an inquiring face at the parlour window, and three times did Clem report that one of the officers was round the back of the house by the stables, hobnobbing with the ostler and the postboys. Even Sir Hugh became aware of an alien presence in the inn, and complained when he came down to dinner that a strange fellow had poked his head into his bedchamber while he was pulling off his boots.
“A demmed, rascally-looking fellow with a red nose,” he said. “Nye ought to be more careful whom he lets into the place. Came creeping up the passage and peered into my room without so much as a ‘by your leave’.”
“Did he say anything to you?” asked Miss Thane anxiously.
“No,” replied Sir Hugh. He added fair-mindedly: “I don’t say he wouldn’t have, but I threw a boot at him.”
“Threw a boot at him?” cried Eustacie, her eyes sparkling.
“Yes, why not? I don’t like people prowling about, and I won’t have them poking their red noses into my room,” said Sir Hugh.
“Hugh, you will have to know, so that you may be on your guard,” said Miss Thane. “That was a Bow Street Runner.”
“Well, he’s got no right to come prying into my room,” replied Sir Hugh, helping himself from a dish of beans. “Where’s young Lavenham?”