"Say nothing, Mr. Gaskell," he whispered. "I'll give it you back before we start. Here's the driver with your cup of tea. Don't drink it, d'you hear? It's liable to be drugged."
Alf Bulger climbed up by the wheel and handed Mr. Gaskell the steaming cup of tea. Gaskell paid him for it, thanked him, and raised the cup to his lips, alternately blowing into it and smelling at it, but not drinking.
"I believe you're right, sir," he said in an undertone when the driver had gone away, "but it beats me to know how you guessed it would be drugged. Do you mind emptying it over the far side?"
"Shove it under the seat to cool," Lucy suggested. "Dad's sure to throw it on somebody's head if he empties it. He's some absent-minded, see?"
During the further time of waiting, Gaskell was occupied in closely watching his two travelling companions. He had already decided that there was something very queer about them, and he was more than a little suspicious.
The girl's voice, for one thing, had made him suspicious. It was more like the voice of a boy than of a girl, and her back hair, although hidden by the thick folds of her veil, seemed to be extraordinarily short. As for the man beside her, whom she called her "dad," it was difficult to make him out in any way, or to be sure of him.
In spite of his clerical attire, his long, grey beard, and his general appearance of a respectable clergyman, it was yet possible to believe that he was an impostor—a wolf in sheep's clothing, a disguised bandit, who had boarded this coach with the secret purpose of taking forcible possession of the treasure chest.
Looking at him very attentively, Gaskell became aware that the man's eyes behind their blue spectacles were extraordinarily alert, that his face was much younger than he had at first thought, and that his grey beard contrasted rather strangely with the darkness of his hair. Unquestionably he was disguised.
Gaskell became more and more nervous and desperately anxious for the safety of the treasure that he was guarding.
What if this strong-handed stranger and his girl companion should turn upon him and upon the driver in some lonely part of the trail, and, overpowering them both, make off with the strong box?