Accordingly, we set off upon this amateur detective expedition that very day; and on the following evening returned to Harley Street, having possessed ourselves of this important information: That benevolence is sometimes assumed for the base purpose of making a few shillings, and that advertisements are occasionally taken advantage of to the confusion of those who insert them. There was really a village called Nutgall; that was the one fact that the respectable person in half-mourning had brought along with his black leather bag and silk umbrella. There was not a public-house in the place where Sir Massingberd could have procured that bottle and a half of French brandy, had he been ever so disposed to dissipation, or even where we ourselves could get bread and cheese.
I verily believe, at the time of his disenchantment, my revered tutor would rather that the baronet had been really at Nutgall, and in the humour and condition to wage implacable war against poor Marmaduke, than have given such an opportunity of triumph to the man of Bow Street.
CHAPTER XIII.
BETTER THAN A BLUNDERBUSS.
It was the Runner's custom to call at Mr. Gerard's every evening, no matter how often he might have been there during the day, in order to report progress, or that there was none; and when his knock at the front-door was heard, I perceived the rector wince upon his chair, like one who has been roasted a little already, and expects to be before the fire again immediately. Mr. Townshend, however, did not even so much as allude to our Will-o'-the-Wisp pursuit, cautioned, perhaps, not to do so by our host, or besought by his daughter, as I fancy. I do not think that the gravity of the intelligence he brought with him would, of itself, have blunted Mr. Townshend's appetite for acrimonious jesting, which was insatiable; and, indeed, the issues of Death or Life, and of Lost or Found, formed so much the ordinary business of his life, that any discovery, no matter of what nature, disturbed him as little as finding a gentleman with his head off disturbs the King of Dahomey.
"Well, Mr. Long, I am glad to see you back again," said he; "you are the very man I want. Does a farmer of the name of Arabel happen to reside in or near your parish?"
"He lives at Fairburn, within a stone's throw——"
"You will never make a Bow Street runner," interrupted Mr. Townshend, shaking his head.
"Well, then," continued my tutor good-humouredly, "if accuracy is so essential, I will say within half a mile and a few yards of my own Rectory."