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He perceived that they were still in time; but he judged from the alacrity of the old man that the hour of action must be near at hand; and the circumstances of this adventure were so obscure and menacing, the place seemed so well chosen for the darkest acts, that an older man than Brackenbury might have been pardoned a measure of emotion as he closed the procession up the winding stair.
Pete Warboys has been for long enough mixed up with the Sanding gang, and was out with them last night over at Brackenbury Park, when the keepers come upon them, and there was a fight. One of the keepers was shot in the legs, and two of the poachers was a good deal knocked about. They were mastered, and four of 'em are in the lock-up." "But you said Pete was taken."
Brackenbury shouted after the man, who paid no heed, and continued to drive away; but the sound of his voice was overheard in the house, the door was again thrown open, emitting a flood of light upon the garden, and a servant ran down to meet him holding an umbrella.
There was something so striking in this man's attitude at a moment of deadly peril that Brackenbury was overcome with respectful admiration; nor was he less sensible to the charm of his conversation or the surprising amenity of his address.
It was only at a prodigious cost that the imposture could have been carried out upon so great a scale. Who, then, was Mr. Morris? What was his intention in thus playing the householder for a single night in the remote west of London? And why did he collect his visitors at hazard from the streets? Brackenbury remembered that he had already delayed too long, and hastened to join the company.
A horseman stood at the gate of the Tower of London, and demanded entrance in the name of the king, Richard Iii. On hearing the summons, and the authority claimed by the stranger, the governor, Sir Thomas Brackenbury, directed that he should be admitted, and deliver his message. "Read this," said the man, handing a missive sealed with the royal seal.
The company was perhaps sixteen in number, all men, few beyond the prime of life, and, with hardly an exception, of a dashing and capable exterior. They were divided into two groups, one about a roulette-board, and the other surrounding a table at which one of their number held a bank of baccarat. "I see," thought Brackenbury, "I am in a private gambling saloon, and the cabman was a tout."
Morris escorting a fat and ruddy personage, with somewhat the look of a commercial traveller, whom Brackenbury had already remarked for his coarse laugh and under-bred behaviour at the table. The pair halted immediately before the window, so that Brackenbury lost not a word of the following discourse: "I beg you a thousand pardons!" began Mr.
Brackenbury began to wonder if this were indeed a gambling-hell: it had so much the air of a private inquisition. He followed Mr. Morris in all his movements; and although the man had a ready smile, he seemed to perceive, as it were under a mask, a haggard, careworn, and preoccupied spirit. The fellows around him laughed and made their game; but Brackenbury had lost interest in the guests.
And immediately, at a pace of surprising swiftness, the hansom drove off through the rain into a maze of villas. One villa was so like another, each with its front garden, and there was so little to distinguish the deserted lamp-lit streets and crescents through which the flying hansom took its way, that Brackenbury soon lost all idea of direction.
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