“This scoundrel Falcon owes my wife for his lodgings,” remarked Gray, as the three walked towards the stables.
“And me,” cried Trimmons, “for a lot of journeys to and from Seaford, which he has not paid yet. I thought he was a millionaire, and had lost his sight by pulling in so much cash.”
“By golly,” said Blucher Gray, “it looks as if he could see far enough. It’s us who were blind. I was never taken in so in all my life. Hullo! here comes Mr Strive, who, like us, saw the balloonists off from Bishopstone. How are you, Mr Strive? There’s bad news stirring, I regret to say, but we will tell you about it at the hotel.”
“Nothing happened to the aeronauts, I hope?” asked the ex-chief officer.
“No, they’re all right, but Squire Dove’s daughter and her companion are carried off by that swindler Falcon, in the Panther steam yacht, as we believe, and the wretch has made off owing money right and left, too.”
“You don’t say so?” cried Mr Strive.
“What has happened?” asked the squire, as the carriage entered Wedwell Park, for the grave faces of the coachman and of the harbour-master’s clerk, at once suggested some mishap, while the absence of the ladies added to his anxiety.
“Let me introduce myself,” replied the occupant of the carriage. “I am the harbour-master’s representative, and wish to state that a steam yacht went out unexpectedly at high water, and we fear that Miss Dove and her companion must have been, by some strange mistake, on board her at the time. We have sent out a tug, and wired to the French coast, as the Panther people with your ladies, squire, may have gone out to meet the Dieppe passenger boat.”
“What in the name of fortune,” cried the squire, “had my daughter to do with a steam yacht? And do have the goodness to tell me whether your people invited the ladies over to Newhaven Bridge at twelve o’clock?”
“Yes, these,” remarked Doctor Peters, who had joined the squire, “are most important questions.”