On receiving this first letter, Trevelyan was in an agony of doubt, as well as misery.  What should he do?  Should he go to Lady Milborough, or to Stanbury; or should he at once follow Colonel Osborne and Mr Bozzle to Lessboro’.  It ended in his resolving at last to wait for the letter which was to be addressed to Z. A. But he spent an interval of horrible suspense, and of insane rage.  Let the laws say what they might, he would have the man’s blood, if he found that the man had even attempted to wrong him.  Then, at last, the second letter reached him.  Colonel Osborne and Mr Bozzle had each of them spent the day in the neighbourhood of Lessboro’, not exactly in each other’s company, but very near to each other.  ‘The Colonel’ had ordered a gig, on the day after his arrival at Lessboro’, for the village of Cockchaffington; and, for all Mr Bozzle knew, the Colonel had gone to Cockchaffington.  Mr Bozzle was ultimately inclined to think that the Colonel had really spent his day in going to Cockchaffington.  Mr Bozzle himself, knowing the wiles of such men as Colonel Osborne, and thinking at first that that journey to Cockchaffington might only be a deep ruse, had walked over to Nuncombe Putney.  There he had had a pint of beer and some bread and cheese at Mrs Crocket’s house, and had asked various questions, to which he did not receive very satisfactory answers.  But he inspected the Clock House very minutely, and came to a decided opinion as to the point at which it would be attacked, if burglary were the object of the assailants.  And he observed the iron gates, and the steps, and the shape of the trees, and the old pigeon-house-looking fabric in which the clock used to be placed.  There was no knowing when information might be wanted, or what information might not be of use.  But he made himself tolerably sure that Colonel Osborne did not visit Nuncombe Putney on that day; and then he walked back to Lessboro’.  Having done this, he applied himself to the little memorandum book in which he kept the records of these interesting duties, and entered a claim against his employer for a conveyance to Nuncombe Putney and back, including driver and ostler; and then he wrote his letter.  After that he had a hot supper, with three glasses of brandy and water, and went to bed with a thorough conviction that he had earned his bread on that day.

The letter to Z. A. did not give all these particulars, but it did explain that Colonel Osborne had gone off apparently, to Cockchaffington, and that he Bozzle had himself visited Nuncombe Putney.  ‘The hawk hasn’t been nigh the dovecot as yet,’ said Mr Bozzle in his letter, meaning to be both mysterious and facetious.