“How do you know this?” asked Mr. Elster.

“This way,” was the answer.  “I was hovering about outside that shed of mine, and I saw the encounter at the parson’s gate—­for that’s where it took place.  The first thing the fellow did when it was all over was to bolt across the road, and accuse me of purposely misleading him.  ’Not a bit of it,’ said I; ’if I did mislead you, it was unintentional, for I took the one who came over the bridge on Saturday to be Lord Hartledon, safe as eggs.  But they have been down here only a week,’ I went on, ’and I suppose I don’t know ’em apart yet.’  I can’t say whether he believed me; I think he did; he’s a soft sort of chap.  It was all right, he said:  the earl had passed his word to him that it should be made so without his arresting Mr. Elster, and he was off to London at once.”

“And he has gone?”

Mr. Pike nodded significantly.  “I watched him go; dodged him up to the station and saw him off.”

Then this one danger was over!  Val might breathe freely again.

“And I thought you would like to know the coast was clear; so I came up to tell you,” concluded Pike.

“Thank you for your trouble,” said Mr. Elster.  “I shall not forget it.”

“You’ll remember it, perhaps, if a question arises touching that shed,” spoke the man.  “I may need a word sometime with Lord Hartledon.”

“I’ll remember it, Pike.  Here, wait a moment.  Is Thomas Pike your real name?”

“Well, I conclude it is.  Pike was the name of my father and mother.  As to Thomas—­not knowing where I was christened, I can’t go and look at the register; but they never called me anything but Tom.  Did you wish to know particularly?”

There was a tone of mockery in the man’s answer, not altogether acceptable to his hearer; and he let him go without further hindrance.  But the man turned back in an instant of his own accord.

“I dare say you are wanting to know why I did you this little turn, Mr. Elster.  I have been caught in corners myself before now; and if I can help anybody to get out of them without trouble to myself, I’m willing to do it.  And to circumvent these law-sharks comes home to my spirit as wholesome refreshment.”

Mr. Pike finally departed.  He took the lonely way, and only struck into the high-road opposite his own domicile, the shed.  Passing round it, he hovered at its rude door—­the one he had himself made, along with the ruder window—­and then, treading softly, he stepped to the low stile in the hedge, which had for years made the boundary between the waste land on which the shed stood and Clerk Gum’s garden.  Here he halted a minute, looking all ways.  Then he stepped over the stile, crouched down amongst Mr. Gum’s cabbages, got under shelter of the hedge, and so stole onwards, until he came to an anchor at the kitchen-window, and laid his ear to the shutter, just as it had recently been laid against the glass in the dining-room of my Lord Hartledon.