"He's an old rascal," said Lady Elspeth softly. "I doubt very much if you'll get anything out of him."
"Can you suggest any better way of dealing with the matter?"
"I don't know that I can at the moment, but I doubt if you'll get any satisfaction out of him. He'll stick to all he can, and his promise of restitution is all bunkum, I should fear."
"And would you help him to get away in any case?"
"Personally, I think a course of penal servitude would be of the greatest service to him. But, for Charles's sake and his mother's, the sooner the whole matter is buried the better, and so I should be sorry to hear of him being taken. It would only revive the scandal."
"That's just what we all feel;" and he saw that the problem of Jeremiah Pixley was too much even for Lady Elspeth.
And so the party of four on the Courier lacked vivacity, and found no enjoyment in the lonely austerity of the Casquets or Ortach; and the frowning southern cliffs of Alderney itself, as the steamer raced up the Swinge to Braye Harbour, seemed to them but a poor copy of their own little isle of Sark, lacking its gem-like qualities. But then their minds were intent upon the business ahead and their outlook was darkened.
X
"Would you like me to come up with you, Charles?" Graeme asked, as the steamer rounded the breakwater.
"Yes, I'd like it," said Charles gloomily. "But I think I'd better go alone. I don't believe anything's going to come of it."