‘Well, sir,’ exclaimed old Hobb, when the narrative had arrived at this stage, ‘you don’t suppose that the gentleman brought all that lump of money here?’
‘Not the money exactly,’ answered Reginald, smiling. ‘I don’t credit my plotting relative with being such a fool as to carry that about with him.’
‘The soldiers found but little in them saddle-bags, an’ he brought nought else with him; I can swear to that,’ said Dipping obstinately.
‘My good man,’ returned Ainslie, ‘the documents I refer to might have been carried about his person.’
‘Nothin’ was found on the body when it was searched, before being buried; I remember that right enough, sir,’ persisted old Hobb.
‘That is the very point I wished to come to,’ said the lieutenant triumphantly. ‘You are sure that no papers of any kind were discovered on his person?’
‘Quite sure, sir,’ replied Dipping emphatically.
‘Then just listen to what I have to say,’ continued Reginald, speaking in an impressive voice and fixing his eyes upon the landlord’s countenance. ‘The man-servant who accompanied Sir Carnaby to this place swears that his master corresponded with no single person during his flight; moreover, that he handled the saddle-bags you have just now been speaking of, several times, and remembers to have noticed that one of them contained a small black box.’
The wondering expression on old Hobb’s face had considerably increased by this time.
‘We have now got to a critical point in my story,’ continued the lieutenant. ‘Derrick—the man who accompanied Sir Carnaby hither—told me he was the first to hear the sound of the approaching military, and that, being apprehensive of danger, he stole along the gallery with the intention of waking his master. When Sir Carnaby opened the door of his room, the man was surprised to find him fully dressed. Hurried as their conference must have been, Derrick was sharp enough to notice that his master had been using some sort of a knife, and that the black box which he had before seen that night on the table, had now disappeared, and that the saddle-bags were empty. However, all persuasion could not induce my unfortunate relative to flee, which in itself appears to be very strange. He told his attendant that he would follow him if he would take the horses to the place agreed upon—that more lives than his own depended upon his not leaving the place at once, and several other things equally incomprehensible. Derrick at last unwillingly consented to obey his instructions, and left the house, wondering much at his master’s conduct. The two, as you know, never met again.—This man,’ resumed Ainslie, after a pause—‘this man, Derrick, always expressed a belief—a strange one, truly—that Sir Carnaby was so anxious for the safety of the contents of that precious saddle-bag, that he would not retire to rest until he had placed it in a secure hiding-place. He might possibly have just been concluding his task as the attendant arrived at his door with the alarming news; at any rate, it seems not at all unlikely that his object in sending the man to a rendezvous was in order to gain time, while he made a desperate attempt to unearth again this mysterious box prior to escaping from the inn with it. Or, it is quite possible that my uncle, being startled by the report of firearms, resolved to let this precious property, which would implicate so many persons, remain in its place of concealment, trusting, in the event of his escape, to return and secure it once more.’