ce their arrival pressed nearer to listen.
'Where from, sir, if I may make so bold?'

'From the Castle at Marlborough.'

Dear me, dear me, there is audaciousness, if you like! And you ha'
followed them so far, sir?'

Sir George nodded and turned to the crowd. 'A guinea for news!' he
cried. 'Who saw them go through Chippenham!'

He had not long to wait for the answer. 'They never went through
Chipnam!' a thick voice hiccoughed from the rear of the press.

'They came this way out of Calne,' Sir George retorted, singling the
speaker out, and signing to the people to make way that he might get
at him.

'Ay, but they never--came to Chipnam,' the fellow answered, leering at
him with drunken wisdom. 'D'you see that, master?'

'Which way, then?' Soane cried impatiently. 'Which way did they go?'

But the man only lurched a step nearer. 'That's telling!' he said with a
beery smile. 'You want to be--as wise as I be!'

Jeremy, the guard, seized him by the collar and shook him. 'You drunken
fool!' he said. 'D'ye know that this is Sir George Soane of Estcombe?
Answer him, you swine, or you'll be in the cage in a one, two!'

'You let me be,' the man whined, straggling to release himself. 'It's no
business of yours,' Let me be, master!'

Sir George raised his whip in his wrath, but lowered it again with a
groan. 'Can no one make him speak?' he said, looking round. The man was
staggering and lurching in the guard's grasp.

'His wife, but she is to Marshfield, nursing her sister,' answered one.
'But give him his guinea, Sir George. 'Twill save time maybe.'

Soane flung it to him. 'There!' he said. 'Now speak!'

'That'sh better,' the man muttered. 'That's talking! Now I'll tell you.
You go back to Devizes Corner--corner of the road to De-vizes--you
understand? There was a car--car--carriage there without lights an hour
back. It was waiting under the hedge. I saw it, and I--I know
what's what!'

Sir George flung a guinea to the guard, and wheeled his horse about. In
the act of turning his eye fell on the lawyer's steed, which, chosen for
sobriety rather than staying powers, was on the point of foundering.
'Get another,' he cried, 'and follow!'

Mr. Fishwick uttered a wail of despair. To be left to follow--to follow
alone, in the dark, through unknown roads, with scarce a clue and on a
strange horse--the prospect might have appalled a hardier soul. He was
saved from it by Sir George's servant, a stolid silent man, who mig