Three forty-five arrived at last, and Guy set off, all trembling,
on his fatal quest. As he sped along, indignant at heart with
Nevitt's black treachery, on the line to Plymouth, he had plenty
of time to revolve these things abundantly in his own soul. And
when, after a long and dusty drive, he reached Plymouth, late at
night, he could learn nothing for the moment about Montague Nevitt's
movements. So he was forced to go quietly for the evening to the
Duke of Devonshire Hotel, and there wait as best he might to see
how events would next develop themselves.
A day passed away--two days--but nothing turned up. Guy wasted much
time in Plymouth making various inquiries before he learnt at last
that a man with a queer look about the eyes, and a moustache with
waxed ends, had gone down a night or so earlier by the other line
to a station at the foot of Dartmoor, by the name of Mambury.
No sooner, however, had he learnt this promising news, than he
set off at once, hot at heart as ever, to pursue the robber. That
wretch shouldn't get away scot free with his booty; Guy would
follow him and denounce him to the other end of the universe! When
he reached Mambury, he went direct to the village inn and asked,
with trembling lips, if Mr. Montague Nevitt was at present staying
there. The landlord shook his head with a stubborn, rustic negative.
"No, we arn't a-got no gentleman o' thik there name in the house,"
he said; "fact is, zur, to tell 'ee the truth, we arn't a-had nobody
stoppin' in the Arms at all lately, 'cep' it might be a gentleman
come down from London, an' it was day afore yesterday as he did
come, an' he do call 'unself McGregor."
Quick as lightning, Guy suspected Nevitt might be passing under a
false name. What more likely, indeed, seeing he had made off with
Guy's three thousand pounds?
"And what sort of a man is this McGregor?" he asked hastily, putting
his suspicion into shape. "What age? What height? What kind of a
person to look at?"
"Wull, he's a vine upstandin' zart of a gentleman," the landlord
answered glibly in his own dialect; "as proper a gentleman as you'd
wish to zee in a day's march; med be about your height, zur, or a
trifle more, has his moustaches curled round zame as if it med be
a bellick's harns; an' a strange zart o' a look about his eyes,
too, as if ur could zee right drew an' drew 'ee."
"That's him!" Guy exclaimed, with a start, in profound excitement.
"That's the fellow, sure enough. I know him. I know him. And where
is he now, landlord? Is he in the house? Can I see him?"
"Well, no, 'ee can't zee him, zur," the landlord answered, eyeing
the stranger askance; "he be out, jest at present. He do go vur a
walk, mostly, down yonner in the bottom alongside the brook. Mebbe
if you was to vollow by river-bank you med come up wi' him by-an'-by
... and mebbe, agin, you medn't."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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