“If it was Brook and no stranger that St. George met at Worcester Station, the only possible theory I can form on that point is this, Johnny: that St. George then proposed to drive him home. He may have said to him, ‘You walk on, and I will get my gig and overtake you directly:’ it is a lame theory, you may say, lad, but it is the only one I can discern, and I have thought of the matter more than you suppose. St. George started for home earlier than he had meant to start, and this may have been the reason: though he says it was because he saw it was going to be so wild a night. Why they should not have gone in company to the Hare-and-Hounds, and started thence, in the gig together, is another question.”
“Unless Brook, being done up, wished not to show himself at Worcester that day—to get on at once to Timberdale.”
Darbyshire nodded: the thought, I am sure, was not strange to him. “The most weighty question of all remains yet, lad: If St. George took up Brook in his gig, what did he do with him? He would not want to be put down in Dip Lane to walk to Evesham.”
He caught up his churchwarden pipe, relighted it at the fire, and puffed away in silence. Presently I spoke again.
“Mr. Darbyshire, I do not like St. George. I never did. You may not believe me, perhaps, but the first time I ever saw his face—I was a little fellow—I drew back startled. There was something in its expression which frightened me.”
“One of your unreasonable dislikes, Johnny?”
“Are they unreasonable? But I have not taken many such dislikes in my life as that one was. Perhaps I might say any such.”
“St. George was liked by most people.”
“I know he was. Any way, my dislike remained with me. I never spoke of it; no, not even to Tod.”
“Liking him or disliking him has nothing to do with the main question—what became of Brook. There were the letters too, sent by the traveller in answer to St. George’s advertisements.”