“Mr. Bristow, not another word,” cried Sir Harry. “I regret exceedingly that you were ever called upon for any such explanation. Mr. Culpepper and I are going to have luncheon in five minutes. Will you do me the favour of joining us?”
“This will be something to tell Jane when I get home,” said the squire with a chuckle. “I believe you are a prime favourite with my Jenny,” he added, turning to Tom.
So Tom lunched at the White Bear with Sir Harry and the squire, and parted from them afterwards on the best of terms.
But Mr. Drayton, although staggered by Tom’s statement, was by no means convinced in his own mind of the latter’s innocence. “Artful—very,” was his muttered comment as he left the room. “But hang me if I don’t think he’s been bamboozling Sir Harry all the way through.”
And Mr. Drayton was not far wrong in his supposition.
Tom had put the clock at his lodgings half-an-hour back, and had purposely called his landlady’s particular attention to the time of his arrival at home, knowing well how such evidence would tell in his favour should worthy Mrs. Potts ever be called upon to give it.
As for the incident of the broken trace, Tom had obtained his knowledge of that quite by accident. As he was taking a country ramble the day after the escape, a sudden thunder-shower drove him for shelter into a little roadside public-house. He sat down and called for some refreshment. While waiting for the rain to abate, his attention was attracted by the conversation of two labouring men who were sitting on the opposite side of the partition against which he was seated. One of the two men was recounting some incident to his companion, with all that particularity as to time and place, and the actual words overheard, which, not unfrequently, makes the narrations of uneducated persons so thoroughly vivid and life-like. The man, it appeared, was on his way home, and had stopped to rest awhile in the dark part of the road, when Sir Harry’s dog-cart drove up. Then came the sudden halt and the after-incidents, exactly as told by Tom at second-hand from the man.
“I’d have gone and lent him a hand,” added the man, “if it had been anybody but Sir Harry Cripps. But he gave me three months once because a hare was found in my pocket, which had got there quite accidental, so that if he had broke his neck it wouldn’t have broke my heart.”
It was the story thus told which Tom had boldly seized upon and appropriated as an experience of his own when before Sir Harry; with what result has been already seen.
It had been a serious question with Tom whether, after the escape of Lionel, he should continue to call at Alder Cottage as he had been in the habit of doing previously, or whether he should absent himself entirely till the first ardour of the hue-and-cry was over, and his friend had been safely smuggled away to some more distant hiding-place. After mature consideration, Tom decided that it would be better in every way that he should keep up his visits as usual—as if, in fact, the escape of Lionel Dering were a matter of no moment either to the inmates of Alder Cottage or to himself. To break off his visits might merely serve to breed suspicion where none existed already; besides which it was absolutely necessary that he should see Lionel occasionally, in order that the means might be concocted and agreed upon for his further escape.