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Page 87
Esther Mawson had anticipated Pratt's desires in the way of refreshment,
and she now went to a cupboard and took from it a plate of sandwiches,
carefully swathed in a napkin. Carrying these in one hand, and the
bottle of sherry and a glass in the other, she stole quietly back to the
disused part of the house, and set her provender before its expectant
consumer. Pratt poured out a glassful of the sherry, and drank it
eagerly.
"Good stuff that!" he remarked, smacking his lips. "Some of old John
Mallathorpe's--no doubt."
"It was here when we came, anyhow," replied Esther. "Well--I shall have
to go. You'll be all right until I come back."
"What time do you think it'll be?" asked Pratt. "Make it as soon as the
coast's clear--I want to be off."
"As soon as ever she's gone," agreed Esther. "I heard her order the
carriage for half-past two."
"And no fear of anybody else being about?" asked Pratt. "That butler
man, for instance? Or servants?"
"I'll see to it," replied Esther reassuringly. "I'll lock this door and
take the key until I come back--make yourself comfortable."
She locked Pratt in the old room and went off, and the willing prisoner
ate his sandwiches and drank his sherry, and looked out of a mullioned
window on the wide stretches of park and coppice and the breezy
moorlands beyond. He indulged in some reflections--not wholly devoid of
sentiment. He had cherished dreams of becoming the virtual owner of
Normandale. Always confident in his own powers, he had believed that
with time and patience he could have persuaded Nesta Mallathorpe to
marry him--why not? Now--all owing to that cursed and unfortunate
contretemps with Parrawhite, that seemed utterly impossible--all he
could do now was to save himself--and to take as much as he could get.
More than once that morning, as he made his way across country, he had
remembered Parrawhite's advice to take cash and be done with
it--perhaps, he reflected, it might have been better. Still--when he
presently began his final retreat, he would carry away with him a lot of
the Mallathorpe money.
But before long Pratt indulged in no more reflections--sentiment or
practical. He had eaten all his sandwiches; he had drunk three-quarters
of the bottle of sherry. And suddenly he felt unusually drowsy, and he
laid his head back in his big chair, and fell soundly asleep.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE TELEPHONE MESSAGE
If Pratt had only known what was going on in the old quarries at
Whitcliffe, about the very time that he was riding slowly out to Barford
on his bicycle, he would not only have accelerated his pace, but would
have taken good care to have chosen another route: he would also have
made haste to exchange bicycle for railway train as quickly as possible,
and to have got himself far away before anybody could begin looking for
him in his usual haunts, or at places wherein there was a possibility of
his being found. But Pratt knew nothing of what Byner had done. He was
conscious of Byner's visit to the _Green Man_. He did not know what
Pickard had been told by Bill Thomson. He was unaware of anything which
Pickard had told to Byner. If he had known that Byner, guided by
Pickard, had been to the old quarries, had fixed his inquiring eye on
the shaft which was filled to its brim with water, and had got certain
ideas from the mere sight of it, Pratt would have hastened to put
hundreds of miles between himself and Barford as quickly as possible.
But all that Pratt knew was that there was a possibility of
suspicion--which might materialize eventually, but not immediately.
On the previous evening, Pratt--had he but known it--made a great
mistake. Instead of going into Murgatroyd's shop after he had watched
Byner and Prydale away from it--he should have followed those two astute
and crafty persons, and have ascertained something of their movements.
Had he done so, he would certainly not have troubled to return to Peel
Row, nor to remain in Barford an hour longer than was absolutely
necessary. For Pratt was sharp-witted enough when it came to a question
of putting one and two together, and if he had tracked Prydale and the
unknown man who was with him to a certain house whereto they repaired as
soon as they quitted Murgatroyd's shop, he would have drawn an inference
from the mere fact of their visit which would have thrown him into a
cold sweat of fear. But Pratt, after all, was only one man, one brain,
one body, and could not be in two places, nor go in two ways, at the
same time. He took his own way--ignorant of his destruction.
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