“What do you think of that, Kit? Pretty solid, don’t you think? What a bushel of lies we have had from that old Emmy! ‘Jemmy’ she was called, till she turned out a girl, and then they took the J off. Such things don’t happen in these schooling days; and much good they have done with them! That thief of a Moggs has cut away, you see, through what he heard last night in Sunbury. They’d lynch him there, if they knew he had a fist in it. Now one thing is quite clear to me. Your dear Kitty was taken in a boat, to Shepperton, or somewhere up the river; and Moggs was paid well for doing it, and to hold his tongue about it afterwards. Most likely he did not bring the _Duchess_, but a lighter and swifter boat, perhaps the one we met. It is useless to ask any of his fellows; you may be sure he never let them know of it. And it would have been dark by the time he took her. He spoke of an old man, you told me, when he let out what has put us up to this. Could that Downy have made himself into an old man?” “He could make himself into almost anything; but never so completely as to cheat my Kitty. It must have been some one he sent, and not himself. She would never have gone with the scoundrel himself.” “No, she was much too sharp for that. What lies can they have told, to make her cry so? It is the d——dest plot I ever heard, or read of. And not a word from her, all this time! if she had been alive, she would have found a way to write. Whatever she might believe you had done, she never would have been so cold-blooded to her Kit. That is the darkest point of all. I know what women are. Even her step-mother would scarcely have been so relentless. And Kitty was the softest of the soft to any one she cared for. I fear that you must make up your mind to the worst that can have happened, my dear boy.” “I will do nothing of the sort,” I answered, although I had often tried to do it; “and just when we have hit upon a fresh track, uncle! _Nip_ is in the stable. Can I have him? I shall start for Woking Road, this very afternoon. It can do no harm, if it does no good. And I never could sit still, and let it stop just as it is.” “Very well; and I will telegraph for Tony Tonks to come down by the time that you return. We are bound to let him know of this last turn of the mystery.” To this I agreed; and as soon as we got back, I saddled the young horse _Nip_, and rode by way of Walton Bridge to Woking, feeling as I went that I would almost rather know the worst, than live on in this horrible suspense.