CHAPTER XLV.

Disguised as before, Seager went to Westminster next day, to hear the conclusion of the trial. The court was, as on the previous day, crowded to excess, and Seager recognised a great number of his and Bagot’s acquaintances among the spectators.

The counsel for the defendants made an able address to the jury. The prosecutor, he said, had tried to win Seager’s money, as Seager had tried to win his; and, nettled at finding he had made a rash bet, he now brought the action. The defendants were men of reputation, who had been engaged in many betting transactions before, and always without blemish or suspicion. There was no proof that the mare was unfit for the feat she had been backed to perform; and, if she had attempted it, she could have done it with ease.

After calling several witnesses to speak to minor points, the other veterinary surgeon who had attended the mare was put in the box. He swore the mare’s lameness was trifling and temporary; that he had seen her trot, and believed her certain to win such a match as the one in question; and that he had not detected in her any trace of navicular disease.

This witness having sustained a severe cross-examination unshaken, Mr Seager began to breathe more freely. The last witness was Jim the groom. Jim, though very compliant in respect of any evidence he might be required to give, had obstinately insisted on payment beforehand. It was to no purpose Seager had promised him the money the instant he should come out of court; the cautious Jim was inflexible till the stipulated sum was put in his hands.

Seager watched him as he was being sworn with the greatest attention; but Jim’s was not an expressive countenance, and nothing was to be read there. But Mr Seager detected treachery in his manner the moment the examination began. Without attempting to repeat the lesson he had been taught, he prevaricated so much that the counsel for the defendants, finding he was more likely to damage than to assist his clients, abruptly sat down. In the cross-examination he suffered (though with some appearance of unwillingness) the whole truth to be elicited; admitted the mare’s lameness—remembered the Colonel and his master trying her, and finding her lame—(an incident he had been especially desired to erase from his memory)—and also remembered to have heard them talk about “navicular.” He also recollected that Seager cautioned him to keep the circumstance very quiet.

Seager sat grinding his teeth with rage. He had forgotten the incident of the horse-whipping which he had administered to Jim, though the latter had not, and was therefore at a loss to account for his treachery. Jim’s revenge happening to coincide with his duty, he had no sooner pocketed the reward for his intended perjury, than he resolved to pursue the paths of rectitude, and to speak the truth.

Just at this time Seager caught sight of one he knew standing very near him, and listening as eagerly as himself. This was Harry Noble, who had been there also on the previous day, and who, firmly convinced that his master was wrongfully accused, had heard the evidence of the groom Jim with high indignation, and was now burning to defy that perjured slanderer to abide the ordeal of single combat. Seager, writing a few words on a slip of paper, made his way up to Harry, and pulled his sleeve. Noble turned round and stared at him, without any sign of recognition.

“Look another way,” said Seager, “and listen. ’Tis me—and I want you to run with this note to the Colonel.”

“What! are you Mr Sea——?” began Harry; but Seager squeezed his arm.

“Hush!” he said. “I don’t want to be known; and don’t mention to anybody but the Colonel that you’ve seen me. Take this note to him; he’ll start for France as soon as he gets it, and you must get him away with all the speed you can. Don’t delay a minute.”

Noble nodded and quitted the court. He got a cab, and went with all speed to Bagot’s lodgings, and, telling the cabman to wait, immediately ran up-stairs with the note. The Colonel, who was pacing the room, snatched it eagerly, read it, and let it fall, sinking back into a chair quite collapsed. “It’s all over,” he muttered.

Noble stood near, looking at him in respectful silence for a minute or two. At length he ventured to say, “Shall I begin to pack up, sir? Mr Seager said we must be quick.”

“Don’t name him!” thundered Bagot, starting from his chair. “Curse him! I could tear him!”

“I’ll never believe ’twas you as did the trick, sir,” said Noble. “No more won’t anybody else; though, as for Mr Seager, I couldn’t say. Shall I begin to pack up, sir?” he repeated.

“Do what you please,” returned his master in fierce abstraction.

Noble, thus empowered, entered the bedroom, and began to stow Bagot’s clothes away in his portmanteau. Presently he came to the door of the apartment, where the Colonel had again sunk down in his chair. Bagot was now face to face with the event he had so dreaded; no subterfuge could keep it off any longer—no side look rid him of its presence. He would, in a few hours, be a convicted, as he was already a disgraced, man. The averted looks—the whispers—the cold stares of former friends, that had lately driven him almost mad, were now to be his for life. Life! would he bear it? It had no further hope, promise, or charm for him, and he was resolved to be rid of it and dishonour together.

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Noble at length, seeing that Bagot took no notice of him. “Perhaps you’d wish to let my lady know where we’re gone, sir?”

Bagot started, and seemed to think for a minute. As soon as Noble, after delivering his suggestion, had vanished, the Colonel drew his chair to the table, and began to write, while Harry, in the next room, went on with the packing.

He finished his letter, directed and sealed it, and laid it down, muttering, “Thank God there’s one act of justice done.” Then he went to a cupboard in the apartment, filled a large glass of brandy, and drank it off. “Now,” he muttered, “one moment’s firmness! no delay! Leave that room,” he called out to Noble, as he went towards the bedroom—“there’s something I wish to pack up myself.”

Noble accordingly came out. As he passed the Colonel, he noticed a wildness in his expression. Before entering the bedroom the Colonel turned and said, “Let that letter be sent to-day,” pointing to the one he had just written, “and you can go down stairs for the present,” he added.

Noble’s suspicions were aroused. Having got as far as the door, he pretended to shut himself out, and came softly back. Listening for a moment, he heard Bagot open some sort of case that creaked. Presently he peeped in—Bagot was in the very act of fumbling, with trembling hands, at the lock of a pistol. He was just raising it towards his head when Noble, with a shout, rushed in and caught his arm.

“Don’t ye, sir, don’t ye, for God’s sake!” he said, as Bagot turned his face with a bewildered stare towards him. “Give it to me, sir.”

“Leave me, sir,” said Bagot, still looking wildly at him—“leave me to wipe out my dishonour.” He struggled for a moment to retain the pistol, but Noble wrested it from him, took off the cap, and returned it to its case. The Colonel sunk down moaning on the bed, and covered his face with his hands.

Noble hastily fastened the portmanteau and carpet-bag, and called to Wilson to help to take them down to the cab in which he had come, and which waited at the door.

“Now, sir,” he whispered to Bagot, “don’t take on so—we shall be safe to-night. You won’t think of doing yourself a mischief, sir, will you? don’t ye, sir!”

He took him gently by the arm. The poor Colonel, with his nerves all unstrung, rose mechanically, and stood like a child while Noble put on his hat and wiped his face, which was moist with sweat and tears; then he followed him down stairs unresistingly. Noble whispered to Wilson at the door, that he and the Colonel were going away for a time, and that there was a letter on the table to be sent that night to the post. Then he put the Colonel and the luggage into the cab, mounted himself to the box, and they drove off, Harry frequently turning to look at his master through the front glass.

Meantime Seager sat hearing the close of the defence. The judge summed up, leaving it to the jury to say whether the defendants knew of the mare’s unfitness to perform her engagement at the time they persuaded the plaintiff to pay a sum in compromise. The jury, after a short deliberation, found them both guilty of fraud and conspiracy.

There was some technical objection put in by the defendants’ counsel; but this being overruled, the judge proceeded to pass sentence. He was grieved to find men of the defendants’ position in society in such a discreditable situation. No one who had heard the evidence could doubt they had conspired to defraud the prosecutor of his money. He did not know whether he was justified in refraining from inflicting the highest punishment allotted to their offence, but, perhaps, the ends of justice might be answered by the lesser penalty. The sentence was, that the defendants should be imprisoned for two years.

Seager, seeing how the case was latterly going, was quite prepared for this. Just waiting to hear the close of the judge’s address, he got out of court with all possible speed.

He went to his lodgings, changed his dress, and hurried to Bagot’s. There he met Wilson with a letter in his hand which he was about to take to the post. Seager glanced at the direction, and then averting his eye, “That’s for Lady Lee,” he said—“from the Colonel, is it not?” Wilson said it was.

“Ah,” said Seager, “I just met him, and he asked me to call for it—he wants to add something he forgot, before ’tis posted. Give it me.”

Wilson, supposing it was all right, gave it to him. Mr Seager, chuckling over the dexterity with which he had obtained the letter, and thus more than accomplished the design of his visit to Bagot’s lodgings, which was to get Lady Lee’s address, drove off to his own lodgings, reassumed his disguise, and went straight to the station.

Entering the railway office, he shrunk aside into a corner till the train should be ready to start—he wished to leave as few traces as possible behind him. He was quite unencumbered with baggage, having taken the precaution to send that on to Dover to await him there under a feigned name. As he stood aside in the shade a man passed and looked narrowly at him. Seager thought he recognised his face: again he passed, and Seager this time knew him for a police sergeant in plain clothes. He was rather alarmed, yet he was a little reassured by considering that his disguise was a safe one. But he reflected that it might have caused him to be taken for some other culprit, and it would be as awkward to be arrested as the wrong man, as in his own character.

The last moment before the starting of the train was at hand, and Seager, as the police sergeant turned upon his walk, darted stealthily to the check-taker’s box and demanded a ticket, not for Frewenham, but for the station beyond it—for his habitual craft did not fail him. Having secured it, he hastened on to the platform and took his place.

At the moment he took his ticket, the sergeant, missing him, turned and saw him. Instantly he went to the box and asked where that last gentleman took his ticket for, and, on being told, took one for the same place. The bell had rung, and he hastened out, but he was too late. The train was already in motion; the last object he caught sight of was Seager’s head thrust out of one of the carriages; and the baffled policeman turned back to wait for the next train.