“That settles it!” cried Atkins. “It is Miss Wynde!”
“Ryan,” exclaimed Lord Towyn, “you must go now and discover to what church Rufus Black is going. We will wait here for you to guide us.”
Ryan bowed and departed.
He was gone until nearly ten o’clock, and the time dragged heavily to Neva’s friends, who remained in their closed sitting-room, exchanging surmises and doubts, and preparing themselves for an encounter with Craven Black and Octavia.
Sir Harold put on his greatcoat and turned up his collar, and wound a gray woolen muffler about the lower part of his face. He was standing thus disguised, hat in hand, when Ryan came back and quietly slipped into the room.
“The cab is waiting,” announced the detective. “I have been at Rufus Black’s heels ever since I left you. When I got back to the Caledonian, he was just going out in his cab. I rode on top as a friend of the driver, who was won over to make a friend of me by a gift of a crown. We drove to the minister’s, and to the sexton’s, and finally to a jeweller’s, where Black bought a ring. We then went back to the hotel. And a few minutes ago young Black entered his cab again, and gave the order ‘to the church.’ I know the church, and we must get on our way to reach it, if we expect to get there in time to stop the ceremony.”
Sir Harold and Lord Towyn hurried impetuously out of the room and down the stairs, and were seated in the cab when Atkins and the detective reached the street. These two also entered the vehicle, which rolled swiftly down the street.
A few minutes’ drive brought them to the plain, substantial kirk which had been chosen by Rufus Black as the scene of his second marriage to Lally.
The four pursuers leaped from the cab, and hastily entered the edifice by its half-opened door.
Passing through the dim and chilly vestibule, they pushed open one of the baize-covered inner doors, which swung noiselessly upon its well-oiled hinges, and stood within the kirk.