“Carry on, Inspector!” Sir Clinton advised. “I leave the rest of the round-up to you. But keep exactly to what I told you.”
Armadale hurried off, and within a few seconds the chase had been set afoot.
“We must see if we can wipe your eye this time, Mr. Clifton,” the Chief Constable observed. “It’s a run over the old ground, you notice.”
Michael Clifton nodded in answer.
“If you’d let me run him down I’d be obliged to you,” he suggested. “You’ve given him a longish start, certainly; but I think I could pull him in.”
Sir Clinton made a gesture of dissent.
“Oh, no. We must give him a run for his money. Besides, it wouldn’t suit my book to have him run down too early in the game.”
The fugitive had reached the edge of the pine-wood as they were speaking, and now he disappeared from their sight among the arcades of the trees.
“The moon will be down in no time,” Cecil pointed out as they ran. “Aren’t you taking the risk of losing him up in the woods there? It’ll be pretty dark under the trees.”
He quickened his pace slightly in his eagerness; but the Chief Constable restrained him.