Part 8 (2/2)
”Hist!” said the Honourable John Ruffin, laying a finger on his lips, frowning portentously, and rolling his eyes. Then he added in blank verse, as being appropriate to the conspiratorial att.i.tude: ”I thought I heard a footstep on the stairs.”
They both listened intently--at least Eglantine did; she hardly breathed in her intentness. Then he said in a declamatory fas.h.i.+on:
”I was mistaken; we are saved again.”
He loosed her arm. She breathed more easily, tapped the kit-bag, and said:
”I 'av brought ze Lady Marion's clo'es.”
”Good,” said the Honourable John Ruffin. ”Sit down.”
She sat down, breathing quickly, gazing earnestly at the Honourable John Ruffin, who folded his arms and wore his best darkling air.
Presently Pollyooly's key grated in the lock.
”Hist! She comes!” said the Honourable John Ruffin.
Eglantine rose, quivering.
Pollyooly came in, shut the door sharply behind her, and came briskly down the pa.s.sage into the sitting-room.
At the sight of her Eglantine forgot the whispering caution of the conspirator; she cried loudly:
”But ze likeness! Eet ees marvellous! Incredible! Eet ees 'er leetle ladys.h.i.+p exact!”
”Yes. And she'll be more like her than ever in her clothes. Hurry up and get her into them,” said the Honourable John Ruffin briskly.
He bustled them up the stairs to Pollyooly's attic; and as Eglantine helped her into Lady Marion Ricksborough's clothes, she continued to express her lively wonder at the likeness. She was not long making the change, and they came quickly downstairs. But the Honourable John Ruffin would not let them start at once.
”It's no use your getting there too early and hanging about the station,” he said firmly. ”That's when you'd get spotted. You want to get there just about three minutes before the train starts. You've no luggage to bother you.”
He made both of them eat some cake, and gave Eglantine a gla.s.s of wine with it, for he thought that she needed something to steady her excited nerves. Then he told her that the d.u.c.h.ess was to pay Pollyooly a fee of five pounds, and bade Pollyooly be sure to wire to him the time of the train by which she was returning to London.
Then he decided that it was time for them to start, and wished them good luck. He did not go with them, for he did not wish to be seen by any one taking an active part in the affairs of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Osterley.
In the taxicab Eglantine was eloquent on the matter of the charm and distinction of the Honourable John Ruffin: plainly he had made a deep impression on her. But when they reached the station she resumed the striking manners of a conspirator so admirably that in the three minutes she spent paying the taxi-driver and buying tickets she attracted the keen attention of two of the detectives of the railway.
They followed her, as she tiptoed about with hunched shoulders, and watched her with the eyes of lynxes; but she puzzled them. They a.s.sured one another that she had some game on (their knowledge of fallen human nature was too exact for them to miss that fact) but for the life of them they could not discover, or guess, what it was.
[Ill.u.s.tration: She tiptoed about with hunched shoulders]
On the platform she chose an empty compartment and stood before the door of it for a good half-minute, looking up and down the train with eyes even more lynxlike than those of the detectives. Then she almost flung Pollyooly into the carriage, hustled her into the farthest corner, and fairly sat on her in her effort to screen her from the eyes of the crowd.
”Do not stir!” she hissed. ”Ze train veel soon start! Zen we are saved!”
Pollyooly could not have stirred, had she wished, so firmly did Eglantine crush her into the corner. One of the detectives came to the window and stared into the carriage gloomily. Eglantine met his gaze with steady eyes. The guard whistled and waved his flag; the detective fell back. He said to his colleague that it was a rum go. The train started.
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