Mr. Bristow was a friend of the prisoner, and had visited him almost daily in gaol. He was well acquainted both with Mr. Hoskyns and Jabez Creede; and, taking the difference of age into account, he was not unlike the old lawyer in personal appearance.
“I think I’ve nailed you, my fine fellow!” said Mr. Drayton triumphantly to himself one evening, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe and brought his cogitations to an end for the time being.
But it is one thing to suspect a man, and another to have sufficient evidence against him to warrant his arrest. The evidence against Mr. Bristow, such as it was, was entirely presumptive, and even Sir Harry Cripps, the senior magistrate, anxious as he was that the culprit should be brought to light, had yet some doubts as to the advisability of issuing a warrant for the arrest of Tom. Now, as it happened, Sir Harry and Mr. Culpepper were old and intimate friends, and when, in the course of conversation, Mr. Drayton chanced to mention that Mr. Bristow had more than once been up to Pincote to dinner, Sir Harry caught at the idea, and decided to take no further steps in the matter till after he had consulted with his old friend. So he at once dropped the squire a note, in which he asked him to look in at the Town Hall on a matter of private business when next in Duxley.
Next morning brought the Squire, and the case was at once laid before him. He laughed loud and long at the idea of “young Bristow,” whom he knew so well, having had anything to do with so nefarious a transaction. He did not scruple to express in voluble terms his gratification at poor Dering’s escape—thereby shocking Sir Harry’s susceptibilities as a magistrate not a little—but that Bristow was the disguised conspirator who had assisted him to escape was a thought which found no resting-place in the squire’s mind. “He’s too simple—too straightforward ever to think of such a thing—letting alone the carrying of it out,” said Mr. Culpepper. “You don’t know Bristow as well as I do, or you would never connect such an idea with his name.”
“Suppose we send for him,” said Sir Harry, “and put a few questions to him quietly in this room?”
“With all my heart,” said the squire; “and have your pains for your reward.”
So a messenger was sent round to Tom’s lodgings with Mr. Culpepper’s compliments, and would Mr. Bristow be good enough to step up to the magistrate’s private room at the Town Hall for a few minutes?
Tom, who happened to be at home, went back with the messenger without a moment’s hesitation; but it would, perhaps, be too much to say that his heart did not misgive him a little as he walked smilingly into the lion’s den. Mr. Culpepper shook hands with him, and pointed to a chair next his own. Sir Harry nodded and said, “How do you do, Mr. Bristow?” but looked anxious and flurried. Drayton coughed behind his hand, and quietly changed his position so as to get between Tom and the door. “There’s no knowing what may happen,” said the superintendent to himself. “He may grow desperate as soon as he finds it’s all up with him.”
“We have sent for you, Bristow,” said the squire, “that we may have a little talk with you about Mr. Dering’s extraordinary escape.”
“It was indeed an extraordinary escape, sir,” said Tom; “but I am not aware that I am in a position to furnish you with any special information respecting it. The ‘Duxley Gazette’ seems to me——”