"
The old gentleman waited with his hand to his ear for some few seconds
after she had finished speaking, and then resumed in his whispering voice:
"I'm afraid I'm very deaf this morning." He fumbled in his pocket and
produced a note-book and pencil. "May I trouble you to write it down? I'm
so very deaf at times that I--Thank you."
The girl wrote the direction, and the old gentleman bade her good-morning
and left. All down the lane he walked slowly with his stick. At the
cross-roads he turned, put the stick under his arm, thrust his spectacles
into his pocket, and strode away in the ordinary guise of Martin Hewitt.
He pulled out his note-book, examined Miss Webb's direction very
carefully, and then went off another way altogether, toward the Hare and
Hounds.
Kentish lounged moodily in his bar. "Well, my boy," said Hewitt, "has
Steggles wiped out the tracks?"
"Not yet; I haven't told him. But he's somewhere about; I'll tell him
now."
"No, don't. I don't think we'll have that done, after all. I expect he'll
want to go out soon--at any rate, some time during the day.
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