I followed my father’s advice, and said nothing during breakfast. As soon as it was over I set out. Aunt Deb saw me, and shouted out, asking me where I was going; but pretending not to hear her, I ran on. I suspect I made her very irate. I noted the people I met on my way, and among others I encountered Ned Burden. He looked hard at me, but said nothing beyond returning my “Good morning, Mr Burden,” with “Good morning, Master Dick,” and I passed on. I looked back shortly afterwards for a moment, and saw that he had stopped, and was apparently watching me. As soon as I reached the Hall I gave my father’s note to a servant, saying that I was waiting to see Sir Reginald. In a short time the man came back and asked me to follow him into the study.
“Well, Master Richard Cheveley,” remarked the baronet, without inviting me to sit down, “I wonder you have the face to show yourself here after what has occurred.”
“What have I done, sir?” I asked with astonishment.
“Connived or assisted at the escape of the poachers I had shut up in my strong room yesterday evening, waiting the arrival of the constables to convey them to prison.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Reginald. You must be under a mistake,” I exclaimed. “I have in no way assisted any poachers to escape. I merely yesterday, with your permission, visited the boy Mark Riddle. He had been captured with two persons much older than himself, and he was, I believe, led astray by them.”
“You, or somebody else, left them some tools—a file and a small saw—with which they managed to cut away a bar in the strong room and effect their escape. Here are the instruments, which they must have dropped as they were getting off. Do you recognise them?”
As Sir Reginald was speaking I recollected giving the knife and file and saw to Mark, that he might amuse himself by cutting out some blocks. When I saw them I at once acknowledged them as mine, telling the baronet my object in giving them to Mark.
“It was thoughtless, to say the least of it, and a very suspicious circumstance, young gentleman,” remarked Sir Reginald.
“Have they not been retaken?” I inquired, anxious to know what had become of my friend Mark.
“No, there is but little chance of that,” he answered, in a tone of vexation. “Now, let me know what you have come about. Your father gives no reason for your visit.”