The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective | Page 8

to herself, and her absence from the
house won't be noticed, and when, without much difficulty, she can
catch a train leaving Huxwell for Wreford. Well, she'll get to Wreford
safe enough; but from Wreford she'll be followed every step of the way
she goes. Only yesterday I set a man on there--a keen fellow at this sort
of thing--and gave him full directions; and he'll hunt her down to her
hole properly. Taken nothing with her, do you say? What does that
matter? She thinks she'll find all she wants where she's going--'the
feathered nest' I spoke to you about this morning. Ha! ha! Well, instead
of stepping into it, as she fancies she will, she'll walk straight into a
detective's arms, and land her pal there into the bargain. There'll be two
of them netted before another forty-eight hours are over our heads, or
my name's not Jeremiah Bates."
"What are you going to do now?" asked Loveday, as the man finished
his long speech.
"Now! I'm back to the "King's Head" to wait for a telegram from my
colleague at Wreford. Once he's got her in front of him he'll give me
instructions at what point to meet him. You see, Huxwell being such an
out-of-the-way place, and only one train leaving between 7.30 and
10.15, makes us really positive that Wreford must be the girl's
destination and relieves my mind from all anxiety on the matter."
"Does it?" answered Loveday gravely. "I can see another possible
destination for the girl--the stream that runs through the wood we drove
past this morning. Good night, Mr. Bates, it's cold out here. Of course
so soon as you have any news you'll send it up to Sir George."
The household sat up late that night, but no news was received of
Stephanie from any quarter. Mr. Bates had impressed upon Sir George

the ill-advisability of setting up a hue and cry after the girl that might
possibly reach her ears and scare her from joining the person whom he
was pleased to designate as her "pal."
"We want to follow her silently, Sir George, silently as, the shadow
follows the man," he had said grandiloquently, "and then we shall come
upon the two, and I trust upon their booty also." Sir George in his turn
had impressed Mr. Bates's wishes upon his household, and if it had not
been for Loveday's message, dispatched early in the evening to young
Holt, not a soul outside the house would have known of Stephanie's
disappearance.
Loveday was stirring early the next morning, and the eight o'clock train
for Wreford numbered her among its passengers. Before starting, she
dispatched a telegram to her chief in Lynch Court. It read rather oddly,
as follows:--
"Cracker fired. Am just starting for Wreford. Will wire to you from
there. L. B."
Oddly though it might read, Mr. Dyer did not need to refer to his cipher
book to interpret it. "Cracker fired" was the easily remembered
equivalent for "clue found" in the detective phraseology of the office.
"Well, she has been quick enough about it this time!" he soliquised as
he speculated in his own mind over what the purport of the next
telegram might be.
Half an hour later there came to him a constable from Scotland Yard to
tell him of Stephanie's disappearance and the conjectures that were rife
on the matter, and he then, not unnaturally, read Loveday's telegram by
the light of this information, and concluded that the clue in her hands
related to the discovery of Stephanie's whereabouts as well as to that of
her guilt.
A telegram received a little later on, however, was to turn this theory
upside down. It was, like the former one, worded in the enigmatic
language current in the Lynch Court establishment, but as it was a

lengthier and more intricate message, it sent Mr. Dyer at once to his
cipher book.
"Wonderful! She has cut them all out this time!" was Mr. Dyer's
exclamation as he read and interpreted the final word.
In another ten minutes he had given over his office to the charge of his
head clerk for the day, and was rattling along the streets in a hansom in
the direction of Bishopsgate Station.
There he was lucky enough to catch a train just starting for Wreford.
"The event of the day," he muttered, as he settled himself comfortably
in a corner seat, "will be the return journey when she tells me, bit by bit,
how she has worked it all out."
It was not until close upon three o'clock in the afternoon that he arrived
at the old-fashioned market town of Wreford. It chanced to be
cattle-market day, and the station was crowded with drovers and
farmers. Outside the station Loveday was