"I don't think you'll have any occasion to repent your confidence," said Mr. Larkspur. "And now, if I may make so bold as to mention it, I should be glad to get a morsel of dinner, and a glass of brandy-and-water, cold without; after which I'll take a turn in the village and look about me. There may be something to be picked up in that direction by a man who keeps his eyes and ears open."
Mr. Larkspur was consigned to the care of the butler, who conducted him at once to the housekeeper's room, where that very important person, Mrs. Smithson, received him with almost regal condescension.
Mrs. Smithson and the butler both would have been very glad to converse with Mr. Larkspur, and to find out from that gentleman's conversation who he was, and all about him; but Mr. Larkspur himself had no inclination to be communicative. He responded courteously, but briefly, to all Mrs. Smithson's civilities; and after eating the best part of a cold roast chicken, and a pound or so of ham, and drinking about half a pint of cognac, he left the housekeeper's room, and retired to an apartment to which the butler ushered him—a very comfortable little sitting-room, leading into a small bedchamber, which two rooms were to be occupied by Mr. Larkspur during his residence at the castle.
Here he employed himself until dark in writing short notes to the chief police-officers of all the principal towns in England, ordering the printing and posting of the handbills of which he had spoken to Lady Eversleigh and the captain. When this was done he put on his hat, and went out at the great arched gateway of the castle, whence he made his way to the village street. Here he spent the rest of the evening, and he made very excellent use of his time, though he passed the greater part of it in the parlour of the "Hen and Chickens," drinking very weak brandy-and-water, and listening to the conversation of the gentry who patronized that house of entertainment.
Among those gentry was the good-tempered, but somewhat weak-minded,
Matthew Brook, the coachman.
"I'll tell you what it is, Mat Brook," said a stout, red-faced individual, who was butler at one of the mansions in the neighbourhood of Raynham, "you've not been yourself for the last week; not since little Missy was stolen from the castle yonder. You must have been uncommonly fond of that child."
"I was fond of her, bless her dear little heart," replied Matthew.
But though this assertion, so far as it went, was perfectly true, there was some slight hesitation in the coachman's manner of uttering it—a hesitation which Andrew Larkspur was not slow to perceive.
"And you've lost your new friend down at the 'Cat and Fiddle,' where you was beginning to spend more of your evenings than you spent here. What's become of that man Maunders—eh, Brook?" asked the butler. "That was a rather queer thing—his leaving Raynham so suddenly, leaving his house to take care of itself, or to be taken care of by a stupid country wench, who doesn't know her business any more than a cow. Do you know why he went, or where he's gone, Mat?"
"Not I," Mr. Brook answered, rather nervously, and reddening as he spoke.