"Business," he said, when he had satisfied himself that we were alone, "and in two words. In the first place I have wired to your friend, Mr. Roderick Stewart, and I expect him from Portsmouth in a couple of hours; in the second, your other friend, the doctor, is under lock and key, on the trifling charge of murder in the Midlands, to begin with. When we have Captain Black, the little party will be complete."
I looked at him, voiceless from the surprise of it. The magical neck was absorbed in the chest again, and he went on—
"I needn't tell you who I am; but there's my card. We have six men in the street outside, and another half dozen watching the leads here. You will be sensible enough to follow my instructions absolutely. Black, we know, leaves the country to-night in his steamer—yesterday at Ramsgate; to-day we do not know where. The probability is that he will come to fetch you at seven o'clock—I have frightened it all out of the people down-stairs—if he does, you will go with him. Otherwise, he's pretty sure to send someone for you, and, as you at the moment are our sole link between that unmitigated scoundrel and his arrest, I ask you to risk one step more, and return at any rate as far as the coast, that we may follow him for the last time. You'll do that for us?"
I looked at his card, whereon was the inscription, "Detective-Inspector King, Scotland Yard"; and I said at once—
"I shall not only go to the coast, but to his tender, for I've given my word. What you may do in the meantime is not my affair; but——"
"Yes," he said eagerly, craning his neck again, "'for God's sake keep your eye on me,' that's what you were going to say. Well, we shall do it. We owe it to you that we've got any clue to the man, and you're not likely to lose anything from the Government by what you've done."
"I suppose he's made a sensation?" I asked, in simplicity, and he looked as a man who has yesterday's news.
"Sensation! There's been no such stir since the French war. There isn't another subject talked of in any house in Europe—but, read that; and whatever you do, don't make a sign until we give you the cue. It's not safe for me to stay here; he may return any minute. I wish you luck of it; and it's ten thousand in my pocket, any way!"
Detective-Inspector King went as he had come, craning his neck and passing noiselessly over the leads; but he left me a newspaper, wherein there was column after column concerning the robbery of the Bellonic, and a dish worthy of all journalistic sensation-mongering. I read this with avidity; with sharp appetite for the extraordinary hope which had come so curiously into my life. At last, the police were on the trail of Captain Black; yet I saw at once that, lacking my help, he would elude them. It was strange that, after all, I, who had seemed to fail so hopelessly in my enterprise, should at last bring this giant in crime to justice. For, if he had not burdened himself with me, he would then have left in the tender, and, once on the nameless ship, would have defied the world. But now they watched him; and from the solitude of my imprisonment I seemed to be lifted in a moment to a joyous state of expectation and excitement.
It was then about three o'clock in the afternoon. I heard the hour from a neighbouring church; and I recalled the detective's words, "I have telegraphed for your friend, Roderick." If his anticipations were correct, I should see the one man I had the greatest love for within an hour. Yet, on recollection, I would have had it otherwise. If once I looked on Mary's face again, I knew that the task would be almost beyond my strength; and as it happened, it was well I had not this burden to bear in the last hours of the great struggle. For four o'clock struck, and five, and no one came; and it was half-past six when at last a man unlocked the door of my room and entered. He was one of Black's negroes.