Mr. Strange did not offer to attend her home, but suffered her to depart alone.
Miss Jemima, who was rather fond of a little general flirtation, though she did perhaps favour one swain above all others, resented the slight in her heart. She consoled herself after the manner of the fox when he could not reach the grapes.
"He's nothing but a bear," said she, tossing her little vain head as she tripped away in the deepening gloom of the evening. "It is all for the best. We might have chanced to meet Mr. Cattacomb, and then he would have looked daggers at me. Or--my goodness me!--perhaps Aunt Diana."
Mr. Strange strolled on, revolving the aspect of affairs in his official mind. His next object must be to get to speak to Dr. Cavendish and learn who it really was that he had been to see. Of course it was not absolutely beyond the cards of possibility that the sick man was Hopley. It was not impossible that Mrs. Grey might have some private and personal objection to the calling in again of Mr. Moore; or that the old man had been seized with some illness so alarming as to necessitate the services of a clever physician in preference to those of a general practitioner. He did not think any of this likely, but it might be; and only Dr. Cavendish could set it at rest.
Perhaps some slight hope animated him that he might obtain an immediate interview with Dr. Cavendish on the spot, as he returned from Mrs. Whittle's cottage. If so, he found it defeated. The gig came back with the two gentlemen in it, and it drove off direct to the village, not passing Foxwood Court at all, or the detective; but the latter was near enough to see it travel along. Mr. Moore was dropped at his own house, and the groom--who had been sent on there--taken up; and then the gig went on to Basham.
"I must see him somehow," decided the detective--"and the less time lost over it, the better. Of course a man in the dangerously sick state this one is represented to be, cannot make himself scarce as quickly as one in health could; but Salter has not played at hide-and-seek so long to expose himself unnecessarily. He would make superhuman efforts to elude us, and rather get away dying than wait to be taken. Better strike while the iron is hot. I must see the doctor to-night."
He turned back to the station; and was just in time to watch the train for Basham go puffing out.
"That train has gone on before its time!" he cried in anger.
After reference to clocks and watches, it was found that it had gone on before its time by more than a minute. The station-master apologised: said the train was up three or four minutes too early; and, as no passengers were waiting to go on by it, he had given the signal to start rather too soon. Mr. Strange gave the master in return a bit of his mind; but he could not recall the train, and had to wait for the next.
The consequence of this was, that he did not reach Basham until past nine o'clock. Enquiring for the residence of Dr. Cavendish, he was directed to a substantial-looking house near the market-place. A boy in buttons, who came to the door, said the Doctor was not at home.