"She's in that other room," cried Bullcott, truly. "She ain't in her own chamber, and she is with you. I paid a chambermaid a guinea to tell me so, and what you pay a guinea for can't be false. Look ye, Curry!" The Squire whispered a few words to one of his followers, and that one at once left the room. "Now, Pike, go ahead and knock that rascal down, and then I'll go in and catch her. I'll show—zounds and blood! Sir Hilary Englefield!"
It was indeed the voice of the fox-hunting baronet, and as it approached the parlor door, making a great hullabaloo, it seemed to throw the formidable Bullcott into a panic.
"Did the knaves that bungled last night's business sell me out to him, I wonder?" queried Squire Bullcott of his remaining adherent. Dick had a sudden illumination. 'Twas Squire Bullcott that had persecuted Miss Englefield at Bath, planned her abduction while his own wife was availing herself of his absence to run away from him, and nearly succeeded in kidnapping his own wife by mistake! His present terror of Sir Hilary, then, arose from the possibility that Sir Hilary had learned of the Squire's design against that baronet's sister.
But that terror proved ill-grounded. When Sir Hilary bounced into the parlor, he greeted the now quaking Bullcott with a single friendly word and bow, showing he knew not yet who had instigated the kidnapping; and then turned his wrath on Wetheral. The landlord, who had tried to prevent his entrance, had followed him in, and now made futile efforts to avoid a scandalous scene.
"What the devil do you mean," cried Sir Hilary to Dick, "by sending me off on a wild goose chase after my sister, when you have her in that room? Don't deny it, you scoundrel! Put down that sword, I say! What, you'd try to run me through, would you? You'd save my sister from being carried off by some damned hound" (Squire Bullcott, now utterly astounded, winced at this) "and then reward yourself by trying to ruin the girl yourself?"
"So it is your sister in that room?" said Dick, standing with his back to the bedchamber door, and holding his sword in a way that accounted for the wordy hesitation of his would-be assailants. "The Squire insists it is his wife. Sure, it can't be both!"
"Damn the Squire!" cried Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. She's nowhere else, and I paid a chambermaid half a guinea, who told me she was here!"
"Don't be so fast about damning the Squire!" put in that worthy, taking heart and bristling up. "I paid a whole guinea to find out my wife was there. So it must be she! Besides, didn't the coachman that drove her send word back to me, from this inn, that she was running away? Didn't the messenger meet me at Hungerford, where I was—ah—on business? I tell you what, Sir Hilary, you and my man take that fellow's sword away, and I'll go in and see my wife!"
"Devil take your wife!" said Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. I see her gown at this moment through the door-crack. I know that gown. There,—she's moved backed out of sight. Sis, come out!"
"'Pon my word, gentlemen," said Dick, pretending to make light of the accusations of both, "'tis a very curious honor you are contesting for! And one of you sees a lady's gown where none exists! I don't know what to make of you!"