He observed that the loitering men had drawn together, and numbered about half-a-score, armed with stout bludgeons and still more deadly weapons. Near them, under the trees, a ragged urchin walked Lord Beachcombe's horse slowly up and down, hopeful of a bounteous douceur from the noble patron who had kept him so long waiting.
"Now, Captain," said Mr. Double, "I am at your service."
Robin walked to the door, and removing his beaver, swept so low a bow, that he dropped it on the floor.
"Farewell, Mr. Perry,—you will hear from me—from foreign parts. My Lord Beachcombe—adieu."
The lawyer, who had already assumed an air of preoccupation with other matters, returned the bow with ceremonious frostiness. Lord Beachcombe did not even turn his head. Consequently, neither of them saw Robin kick his own hat out of the way and help himself to one that lay on a chair near the door.
"Give me five minutes start," he whispered to Double, as he quickly disengaged himself from the green cloak and threw it into a dark corner of the stairway. When he emerged from the front door, a dignified gentleman in a plum-colored riding-coat and black velvet cavalier hat with a long, drooping ostrich feather, he looked as little as possible like the roystering blade who had been seen a few minutes before at the upper window. He signed to the boy with the horse, and mounting without haste, threw him a shilling and beckoned to the chief of the posse of constables.
"You had better bring your men on this side of the street," he said imperiously; "don't give the fellow time to get away or you will never catch him again. And, mind—dead or alive!"
The man knuckled his hat obsequiously. "Yes, m' Lud," he said, with something the air of one bulldog being egged on to attack another. "Them's my orders."
Robin gave him a curt word, and rode out through the gateway leading into Chancery Lane. When he was out of sight, he gave rein to his horse, and taking to the network of narrow lanes that lay between the Strand and the river, made off with the utmost speed toward Westminster.
CHAPTER XIII