The adventure of the governess on the preceding night had greatly tickled his fancy. The idea of a sedate, elderly lady assisting, even unwillingly, in the marooning of the bailiff, had amused him, but that was nothing to the fact that Moriarty had used her for bait.
This morning, however, the amusement had worn off, and he was reckoning uncomfortably on an interview with an outraged elderly female, who would possibly carry her resentment to the point of renouncing her situation and returning home.
He looked at his watch. It pointed to half-past ten. He looked at the road winding away, a white streak utterly destitute of life or sign of Moriarty, the car, or the dreaded governess. The fine weather still held, and the distant hills stood out grand in the brave morning light.
The gossoon sent by Moriarty the previous day had announced that Moriarty was going to drive the bailiff to the "ould castle" and drop him there, at the same time giving full details of the plan. The arrival of the outraged bailiff had to be counted on later in the day, and would, no doubt, form a counterpart to the arrival of the outraged governess.
To a man of French's philosophical nature, however, these things were, to quote Sophocles, "in the future," non-existent at present and not worth bothering about till they materialised themselves.
As he stood, casting a leisurely glance over the great sweep of country that lay before him, a black, moving speck far away on the road caught his eye. He watched it as it drew nearer and developed. It was the car. He shaded his eyes as it approached. Three people were on it—Moriarty and two others, a woman and a man.
The idea that the bailiff and the governess were arriving together, allied forces prepared to attack him, crossed his brain for one wild instant. Then he dismissed it. Moriarty was much too clever a diplomat to allow such a thing as that.
Then as the car came up the drive he saw that the woman was a young and pretty girl, and the man youthful and well dressed, and, concluding that the governess had vanished into thin air, and that these were visitors of some sort, he hurried back to the house and shouted for Norah, the parlour-maid.
"Open the drawing-room and pull up the blinds," cried Mr. French. "There's visitors coming. Let them in, and tell them I'll be down in a minute."
He ran upstairs to make himself tidy, being at the moment attired in a shocking old shooting-coat gone at the elbows, and as to his feet, in a pair of carpet slippers.