I took the shilling, Bob winking triumphantly at me, as if to say it was as good as done, and I left the yard.
I was amused at having the commission, for I wondered what Mr Byrle would say when he saw me, and whether my disguise was so complete that he would not recognise me at all. That would be something like a triumph, and I almost made up my mind that it would be so. Had Mr Forey seen me hurrying to the station, he might again have said that there did not seem much the matter with me; but I walked slowly enough through the street in which the Yarmouth Smack was situated, and had a pretty good trial of my disguise and my nerves as I passed it. Peter Tilley, dressed in a blue slop and cord trousers, so as to look like a dock labourer or something of that kind, was leaning against the door-post, lazily watching the passers-by. I made up my mind to try him; so stopping at a lamp-post just opposite to him, I took out my pipe, struck a match on the iron, coolly lit the tobacco, and after one or two puffs, threw the match into the road and walked on. He never knew me. It was all right.
The drizzling rain came down again as I got out at T——; but luckily Mr Byrle's house was not more than a quarter of a mile from the station; and so resuming my limp, I got there without delay. The man-servant who answered the door took my letter, but told me that the old gentleman was not at home; then on finding Miss Doyle was to open the letter and send an answer, told me to wait in a little room which looked as if it was used as an office, having floor-cloth instead of carpet, wooden chairs, and so forth. He was a careful servant, and would not ask a stranger to wait in the hall, where coats and umbrellas might be had by a sharp party.
I had not waited long, when the door opened, and a young lady, whom I of course judged to be Miss Doyle, came into the room. She was a dark, keen-looking young party, and spoke rather sharply. 'You are to take an answer back, I believe?' she said.
'Yes, miss,' I answered, touching my forehead, for as you may suppose, I held my cap in my hand.
'Mr Forey only wishes me to send word; I am not to write,' she went on; 'he wants to know if Mr Byrle will be at the works to-morrow. He will not. Tell Mr Forey he will leave town to-night, and not return until the day after to-morrow. You understand?' She spoke very sharply; so I said: 'Yes, miss,' sharply too, and touched my forehead again.
'You need not wait,' she said; and opening the door, I saw the servant waiting to let me out. I knuckled my forehead again, and putting on rather a clumsier limp than before, got out of the house into the rain and mud. Rain and mud! What did I care for rain and mud now?
'Sergeant Nickham,' says I, when I got fairly out of range of her windows, for I wouldn't trust her with so much as a wink of mine—'Sergeant Nickham,' I said, 'you are the boy! If you can't command your face, there isn't a man in the force as can. If you haven't got a memory for faces, find me the man who has, that's all about it!'
Why, of all the extraordinary capers that I ever tumbled to in my life, I never came near such a caper as this. Miss Doyle! That was Miss Doyle, was it? Right enough, no doubt; but if she wasn't also the sham clerk who came and found that I was put on the watch by Mr Byrle, I didn't know a horse from a hedgehog—that's all. The quick look of her eye, her sharp quick voice, the shape of her face, the very way she stood—lor! it was all as clear as daylight. But then I thought, and I kept on thinking till I had got back to the works, what could she have to do with stealing engine-fittings? 'Twasn't likely as she had anything to do with that. It was past all question in my mind as to her being the same party. I knew it for certain; and then came the point—What did she dress herself up for and come a-spying on me and her uncle?—for she was Mr Byrle's niece.
I hadn't got to the bottom of this by any means, by the time I got back to the works; however, I gave my message very respectfully to Mr Forey; and offered Bob the gatekeeper his sixpence back, with many thanks.