“I don’t know about that,” replied Mr Stubbs. “All I know is it’s very highly suspicious that that abigail ain’t here no more, and what I want to see, Mr Nye, is those cellars of yourn.”
“Well, I’ve got something better to do than to take you down to my cellars,” said Nye. “If you want to see ’em, you go and see ’em. I don’t mind.”
An hour later, when Sir Hugh came down to breakfast, a pleasing idea dawned in Nye’s brain, and as he set a dish of ham and eggs before his patron, he told him that the Runners were in the house again. Sir Hugh, more interested in his breakfast than in the processes of the Law, merely replied that as long as they kept from poking their noses into his room, he had no objection to their presence.
“Oh, they won’t do that, sir! “ said Nye, pouring him out a cup of coffee. “They’re down in the cellar.”
Sir Hugh was inspecting a red sirloin, and said in a preoccupied voice: “In the cellar, are they?” Suddenly he let his eyeglass fall, and swung round in his chair to look at the landlord. “What’s that you say? In the cellar?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve been there the best part of an hour now—off and on.”
Sir Hugh was a man not easily moved, but this piece of intelligence roused him most effectively from his habitual placidity. “Are you telling me you’ve let that red-nosed scoundrel loose in the cellars?” he demanded.
“Well, sir, seeing as he’s an officer of the Law, and with a warrant, I didn’t hardly like to gainsay him,” said Nye apologetically.
“Warrant be damned!” said Sir Hugh. “There’s a pipe of Chambertin down there which I bought from you! What the devil are you about, man?”
“I thought you wouldn’t be pleased, sir, but there! what can I do? They’ve got it into their heads there’s a secret cellar. They’re hunting for it. Clem tells me it’s something shocking the way they’re pulling the kegs about.”