"Yes, sir."
What I felt, amply justified the lawyer in having exacted a promise from me to keep carefully out of the Cur's presence. "You might knock him on the head again, Mr. Roylake, and might hit a little too hard next time."
But I had an idea of my own. I said, as if speaking to myself: "I would give a five pound note to know what is going on upstairs."
"I shall be glad to earn it, sir," the fellow said. "If I make a clean breast of what I know already, and if I tell you to-morrow what I can find out—will it be worth the money?"
I began to feel degraded in my own estimation. But I nodded to him, for all that.
"I am the innocent cause, sir, of what happened last night," he coolly resumed. "We kept a look-out on the road and saw you, though you didn't see us. But my master never suspected you (for reasons which he kept to himself) of making use of the boat. I reminded him that one of us had better have an eye on the slip of pathway, between the cottage and the river. This led to his sending me to the boathouse—and you know what happened afterwards. My master, as I suppose, is pumping Mr. Toller. That's all, sir, for to-night. When may I have the honor of expecting you to-morrow morning?"
I appointed an hour, and left the place.
As I entered the wood again, I found a man on the watch. He touched his hat, and said: "I'm the clerk, sir. Your gamekeeper is wanted for his own duties to-night; he will relieve me in the morning."
I went home with my mind in a ferment of doubt. If I could believe the servant, the Cur was as innocent of the abduction of Cristel as I was. But could I trust the servant?
The events of the next morning altered the whole complexion of affairs fatally for the worse.