"Between seven and eight o'clock last night."
"Bound for where!"
The fellow favoured Burgo with a cunning grin. "It's none o' my business to answer that question, sir. Maybe I know, and maybe I don't, but if you ask no questions, you'll be told no lies."
Burgo smothered the execration that rose to his lips. To have vented his temper on such a fellow would have been absurd. Besides, he had not done with him.
"And who may you be, my friend, if the question is not an impertinent one?" he asked.
"I'm the caretaker appointed by her leddyship. Me and my old woman have got to look after the house while the family's out of town."
"What has poor Benny Hines done to be turned adrift?" queried Burgo to himself. Then aloud he said: "And so you were told by her ladyship to come and let me out when I rang, were you?"
Again the man grinned. "What I was told was, that there was a young gentleman upstairs what had taken more to drink than was good for him, and that he was sleeping it off, and that when he rang I was to go upstairs and unlock the door."
Mr. Brabazon laughed aloud; but it was not a pleasant laugh to hear. "Oh, ma chère tante, que je vous aime beaucoup!" he exclaimed. The man was to come when I rang the bell, but care had been taken by robbing him of his matchbox and cutting the bell rope to delay the summons as long as possible.
For a few moments he stood considering, then drawing half a sovereign from his pocket and balancing it on the end of his forefinger, he said with a meaning look at the man: "Come now, I have no doubt that if you chose you could tell me where the luggage which the family took with them was addressed to."