"Well, it's a good one, you may be sure of that," he answered. "There you were hob-nobbing together as thick as thieves. 'Ptarmigan's the horse,' says he. 'I'm not so sure,' say you. 'I'll back him against your choice for a fiver,' says he. But you weren't on. And all the time you never suspected for an instant that he was neither more nor less than the very man you were inquiring about this afternoon, the chap who escaped from the Monarch of Macedonia a few weeks back."
"What?" I cried, scarcely able to believe that I heard aright. "Do you mean to tell me that that seedy old beggar who talked so much about horse-racing and walked with me to the harbour side was the Reverend Colway-Brown, the man I asked you about?"
"The very man," he answered, and as he did so he brought his hand down with a smack upon my shoulder. "I can tell you, Dick, I nearly burst my sides with laughing when I saw you two jabbering away together."
Seeing how I had been taken in, the crowd in the bar thought fit to laugh. But when I ran my eye over them they changed their minds and looked another way. I was so angry, I could have thrashed Donovan for the trick he had played me. It didn't take him long, however, to see I was annoyed.
"Come, come, Dick, old man," he said, "you mustn't be angry with me. I couldn't do anything else. He spent a week in my house here, you see, and was uncommon free with his money. What's more, when he came to me, he told me he didn't want it to be known that he was the man who escaped, as everybody stared at him so. For this reason he changed his name, and I promised I'd not give him away to anybody, so I couldn't, even to you."
"It's plain I've been had, and badly too," I said angrily. "You've spoiled a rare good bit of business for me, and I don't take it kindly of you, Jim. Where is the fellow now?"
"Aboard the schooner Friendship," he answered, "lying alongside your own boat. He's left my house now, so I don't mind telling you that. But you will have to look sharp if you want to catch him; he sails to-night."
Without another word I left the place and ran down the street as hard as I could go. I remembered having seen the schooner alongside us when I had left the mail-boat, but when I got there now she was gone. "Where's the schooner that was lying here?" I inquired of some loafers I discovered hanging about the wharf.
"The Friendship, do you mean?" asked one of the men. "Why, there she is, out yonder!"
He pointed to a white sail that was just disappearing round the opposite headland. On seeing that, I clenched my fist with rage, and bestowed the reverse of a blessing upon Jim Donovan. But for his putting me off the scent I might by this time have brought the chase to a successful issue. However, the man was safely out of my clutches now, and no amount of wishing would bring him back again. I dreaded, however, the task of telling old Leversidge how easily I had been taken in.