"Mrs. Drayton," he said, "didn't you say you had something urgent for Mercy to do? Let her set about it at once. Now, driver, lend a hand—upstairs; it's only a step."
They lifted Paul Ritson between them, and were carrying him out of the bar.
"Where's the boy?" asked Hugh. "Don't let him get in the way. Boys are more hindrance than help," he added, in an explanatory tone.
They had reached the foot of the stair. "Now, my man, easy—heavy, eh? rather."
They went up. Mercy stood in the middle of the floor with a tearless and whitening face.
Half a minute later Hugh Ritson and the flyman had returned to the bar. The phantom of a smile lurked about the flyman's mouth. Hugh Ritson's face was ashen, and his lips quivered.
The boxes and portmanteaus which Paul and Greta had left in the bar three nights ago still lay in one corner. Hugh pointed them out to the driver. "Put them on top of the cab," he said. The flyman proceeded to do so.
When the man was outside the door, Hugh Ritson turned to Mrs. Drayton. The landlady was fussing about, twitching her apron between nervous fingers. "Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "you will go in this fly to the Convent of St. Margaret, Westminster. There you will ask for Mrs. Ritson, the lady who was here on Friday night. You will tell her that you have her luggage with you, and that she is to go with you to St. Pancras Station to meet her husband, and return to Cumberland by the midnight train. You understand?"
"I can't say as I do, sir, asking pardon, sir. If so be as the lady axes why her husband didn't come for her hisself—what then?"
"Then say what is true—nothing more, Mrs. Drayton."