CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH BEN KNUTTON GROWS CONFIDENTIAL
Reilly returned shortly afterwards with a budget of information. When we had traversed the little wood and were out on the highway he told us certain facts that were interesting.
The village was called Bringhurst, distant a mile and a quarter from Caldecott. The place where we had emerged was called the Glebe Farm, and was occupied by an old man called Page, who had as lodgers a gentleman named Purvis and his niece. They often had visitors, two gentlemen who came over from Kettering, and from their description one was Bennett. Purvis had lived there on and off for three weeks, but the young lady had only recently come.
Reilly had learned all this at the little beerhouse at Bringhurst. And he had learned something more, namely, that there was some village gossip regarding the young lady.
“Gossip!” I demanded. “What is it?”
“Well,” answered Reilly, “the old innkeeper says that she’s been seen out walking late at night with that drunken scamp who sold Purvis the parchment.”
“What!” I cried. “With old Ben Knutton, of Rockingham?”
“That’s so.”
“Then he knows her,” I exclaimed, quickly. “He’ll be able to tell me something. I must see him to-day. A pot or two of beer will make him talk.”
According to Reilly the villagers of Bringhurst had no suspicion of the reason Purvis lived at the Glebe Farm, nor were they aware of the existence of the secret communication between the two villages. It was certain, however, that Purvis and Bennett knew of it, and for that reason the former had taken up his quarters there. The man Page was probably unaware of the tunnel, for it led from beneath his barn with the entry well concealed. One fact, however, I had not overlooked. At the bottom of the steps which led up to the surface a wall had been recently broken down, showing that the tunnel had been closed up for years and had only recently been opened.