We were undecided how to act. It was clear that this was the starting-point of our enemies. Beyond the house lay a small village surrounding a church, therefore it was agreed that while Reilly went into the place to make inquiry as to the occupants of the farm, I should conceal myself with the skipper somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
Therefore, one by one we slipped from beneath the barn, and crossed unnoticed to a small spinney in the rear. From a point of vantage we were afforded a good view of the farm premises, and while I waited with Seal, Reilly took a roundabout route to the village.
We lit our pipes, and, concealed amid the undergrowth, waited and watched. The house seemed a pleasant, old-fashioned one, but, with the exception of an aged labourer in a smock and the goose-girl, there seemed no sign of life. It was just after nine o’clock, a beautiful bright morning, and in the small garden there was a wealth of cottage flowers, the fresh scent of which reached us even in our hiding-place.
The barn beneath which the subterranean passage ended was very old, with patched roof and blackened gables, dating from the same period as the farmhouse, with its mullioned windows and small green diamond panes. Some of the windows had, however, been blocked up in order to avoid the window tax of long ago.
Nearly an hour had passed, and Seal had been yawning, as was his wont, when of a sudden a neat female figure in dark blue appeared in the garden, stooping to gather flowers. She wore a large straw hat which flopped over her face, but as I looked she raised her head in my direction, and I uttered a cry of surprise.
The figure was none other than that of Miss Bristowe.
“Look!” I cried, to Seal. “Look at that girl in the garden. That’s Miss Bristowe.”
The old skipper shaded his eyes with his hands, then ejaculated: —
“Je-hoshaphat! She’s a stunning fine woman, that she is! Then it’s her lover who’s missing?”
“Yes.”