“Indeed, miss?” said the Exciseman. “Then it queers me how there come to be only the tracks of one horse down the road!”
“The other horse bolted, of course,” said Eustacie. “It went back to its stable.”
“Maddened by fright,” murmured Miss Thane, and encountered a glance from Shield which spoke volumes.
“And may I inquire, miss, how you come to know that the horse went back to its stable?”
Miss Thane held Sir Tristram’s eyes with her own. “Why, Sir Tristram here has just been telling us!” she said with calm audacity. “When the riderless horse arrived at the Court he at once feared some mishap had overtaken his cousin, and set out to ride— ventre a terre —to the rescue. Is that not so, dear sir?”
Aware of one compelling pair of humorous grey eyes upon him, and one imploring pair of black ones, Sir Tristram said: “Just so, ma’am.”
The look he received from his cousin should have rewarded him. Eustacie said: “And then I must tell you that I took my poor groom up behind me on my own horse, but I did not know the way very well, and he was too faint to direct me, and so I was lost a long time in the Forest.”
The Exciseman scratched his chin. “I’ll take a look at this groom of yours, miss, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not saying I don’t believe your story, but what I do say is that ladies take queer notions into their heads when it comes to wounded men, and the late lord—begging your pardon, sir, and miss—was never one to help us officers against them pesky smugglers, any more than what most of the gentry hereabouts are!”
“Help a smuggler?” said Miss Thane in shocked accents “My good man, do you know that you are addressing the sister of a Justice of the Peace? Let me tell you that my brother, who is in the house at this moment, holds the strongest views on smugglers and smuggled goods!” This, after all, she reflected, was quite true, and ought to impress the Exciseman—provided, of course, that Sir Hugh did not take it into his head to appear suddenly and explain the nature of his views.
The Exciseman certainly seemed rather shaken. He looked uncertainly from Miss Thane to Eustacie, and said in a sulky voice that his orders were to search the house.