The two looked at one another and the third, who made up the party, a burly man in a red waistcoat and a curly-brimmed Regency hat, surveyed them both. “Well, I’m hanged,” Arthur exclaimed, reverting sourly to his first surprise. “Is everybody mad? Must you all come to town? I should have thought that you’d have had enough to do at the bank without this! But as you must——” then to the officer, who was carrying a small leather valise, the duplicate of one which Arthur held in his hand—“wait a minute, will you? And keep an eye on us. We shall not be a minute. Now,” drawing Clement into a corner of the lodge, five or six paces away, where, though a stream of people continually brushed by them, they could talk with some degree of privacy. “What is it, man? What is it? What has bought you up? And how the deuce have you come to be here—by this time?”
“I posted.”
“Posted? From Aldersbury? In heaven’s name, why? Why, man?”
Clement pointed to the bag. “To take that over,” he said.
“This? Take this over?” Arthur turned a deep red. “What—what the devil do you mean, man?”
“You ought to know.”
“I?”
“Yes, you,” Clement retorted, his temper rising. “It’s stolen property, if you will have it.” And he braced himself for the fray.
“Stolen property?”
“Just that. And my father has commissioned me to take charge of it, and to restore it to its owner. Now you know.”