Being already in his shirt, short drawers, and stockings, it did not take quite a minute to don trousers, vest and coat. Another minute sufficed for the drawing on of boots, fastening a necktie, running a broken comb through his front locks, and throwing on a glazed hat. Two minutes all told! Men whose lives often depend on speed acquire a wonderful power of calmly-rapid action.
“What d’ee say to it, Sam?” asked Tommy as they hurried along the streets.
“Hold on! avast! belay! I’m thinkin’!” said Sam. The boy accordingly held on, avasted, and belayed until his companion had thought it out.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the sailor at last. “I’ll go an’ see Colonel—Colonel—what’s ’is name? old Liz’s friend—Burntwood, is it, or—”
“Brentwood,” said Tommy.
“That’s it—Brentwood. You don’t know his address, do you? No? Never mind; we’ll go to Cherub Court an’ get it, and then make sail for the Colonel’s. I’ve no more notion which way to steer, lad, than the man in the moon; but the Colonel will be sure to know how to lay our course, an’ he’ll be willin’, I’ve no doubt first for his own sake, seein’ that this Lockhart is his own lawyer; second, for old Liz’s sake, seein’ that her affairs are involved in it; and third, for the sake of his country, if he’s a good and true man.”
The sailor was not disappointed. Colonel Brentwood did not indeed himself know exactly how to act but he knew that the best thing to do in the circumstances was to seek aid from those who did know. He therefore went straight to Scotland Yard—that celebrated centre of the London Police Force—and put the matter before the authorities there. A detective, named Dean, was appointed to take the job in hand.
“John,” observed Mrs Brentwood to her husband, prophetically, after an interview with the detective at their own house, “you may depend upon it that Mr Dean will discover that more things are amiss than this affair of the Scotsman and dear old nurse.”
“Possibly—indeed probably,” returned the Colonel; “but what makes you think so?”
“The fact that no thorough scoundrel ever yet confined himself to one or two pieces of villainy.”