They did not leave the house by the same mysterious door by which Freddy had entered, but by one which brought them at once into a busy street. Vehicles were passing to and fro, and they had not gone many steps before the captain--to give him the title which he had not improbably himself affixed to his name--called a hansom. Bertie got in. The captain directed the driver where to drive in an undertone, seated himself beside his "nephew," and they were off.
During the drive not a word was spoken. Where they were going Bertie had not the faintest notion; he felt pretty certain that he was not really being taken home. His head was in a whirl; he was in such awe of his companion that he scarcely dared to move, far less to use his eyes in an endeavour to see where they were going. The cab almost immediately turned into a busy thoroughfare. The hubbub of the traffic and the confusion of the crowded streets completed the lad's bewilderment, making it seem to him as though they were journeying through pandemonium. The busy thoroughfare into which the cabman turned was, in fact, the Strand--the Strand at what is not the least busy hour of the day, when the people are crowding into the theatres. The cabman took another turn into comparative quiet, and in another minute they were whirling over Waterloo Bridge, along Waterloo Bridge Road, into the huge terminus of the South-Western Railway. A porter came forward to help them to alight, but the captain, dismissing him, took his bag with one hand, and taking Bertie's own hand in the other, stepped on to the platform of the station.
He had only taken a few steps when, pulling up, he spoke to Bailey in low, quick, significant tones.
"Look here, my lad; I don't want to haul you about as though I'd got you in custody, and I don't mean to let you get out of my sight. I'm going to loose your hand, and let you walk alone. Carry this bag, and stick as close to me as wax, or----"
A significant tap against the pocket which contained the revolver served to complete the sentence. Bertie needed no explanation in words; the action was as full of meaning as any eloquence of speech could possibly have been.
The hansom had put them down at the departure platform of the main-line trains. The captain looked at the station clock as they came in, and Bertie, following the direction of the other's eye, saw that it was a quarter-past nine. The station was full of people; porters and passengers were hurrying hither and thither, mountains of baggage were passing to and fro.
The captain turned into the booking-office, Bertie sticking close to his side. Some wild idea of making a dash for freedom did enter his mind, but to be dismissed as soon as it entered. What could he do? He was fully persuaded that if he were to make the slightest sign of attempting to escape, his companion would shoot him on the spot. But even if he did not proceed to quite such extreme lengths, what then? To have attempted to take to actual flight, and to have run for it, would have been absurd. He would have been caught in an instant. His only hope lay in an appeal to those around him. But what sort of appeal could he have made? If he had suddenly shouted, "This man has stolen the Countess of Ferndale's jewels, worth fifty thousand pounds!" no doubt he would have created a sensation. But the revolver! Bertie was quite persuaded that before he would have had time to have made his assertion good the captain would have put his threat into execution, and killed him like a cat, even though, to use that gentleman's own words, he had had to hang for it five minutes afterwards.
No; it seemed to him that the only course open to him was to obey the captain's instructions.
There was a crowd round the ticket-office, at sight of which the captain put the lad in front of him, and his hand upon his shoulder, holding him tight by means of the free use of an uncomfortable amount of pressure. Under these circumstances he could scarcely ask for tickets without the lad hearing what it was he asked for--as in fact he did.
"Two first for Jersey."