“Do you mean Mamzelle’s Lucy?” said Nye.
“Ah, that’s the one I mean,” nodded Mr Stubbs.
“Well, if you want a word with her, you’d best get on the Brighton stage. She ain’t here any longer.”
Mr Stubbs gave him a very penetrating look, and said deeply: “You’re quite sure of that, are you, Mr Nye?”
“Of course I’m sure! I told you yesterday how it would be. Miss turned her off. What do you want with her? She was a rare silly wench, and not so well-favoured neither.”
“You know what I want with her,” said Mr Stubbs. “You’re harbouring a dangerous criminal, Mr Nye, and that wench was him!”
This pronouncement, so far from striking terror into the landlord, seemed to afford him the maximum amount of amusement. After staring at the Runners in a bemused way for several minutes, he allowed a smile to spread slowly over his face. The smile led to a chuckle, the chuckle to a veritable paroxysm of laughter. The landlord, wiping his eyes with the corner of his apron, bade Clem share the joke, and as soon as it had been explained to him, Clem did share it. In fact, he continued to snigger behind his hand for much longer than the Runners thought necessary.
When Nye was able to stop laughing he begged Mr Stubbs to tell him what had put such a notion into his head, and when Mr Stubbs, hoping that this card at least might prove to be a trump, said that he had received information, he at first looked at him very hard, and then said: “Information, eh? Then I’ll be bound I know who gave you that same information ! It was a scrawny fellow with a white face and the nastiest pair of daylights you ever saw! A fellow of the name of Gregg: that’s who it was!”
Mr Stubbs was a trifle disconcerted, and said guardedly: “I don’t say it was, and I don’t say it wasn’t.”
“Lord love you, you needn’t tell me!” said Nye, satisfied that his shot had gone home. “He’s had a spite against me since I don’t know when, while as for his master, if a stranger was to stop for half a day in this place, he’d go mad thinking it was Mr Ludovic come home to stop him taking what don’t belong to him. You’ve been properly roasted, that’s what you’ve been.”