"Beale," I said, "what do you mean? Where have they gone?"
"Don't know, sir. London, I expect."
"When did they go? Oh, you told me that. Didn't they say why they were
going?"
"No, sir."
"Didn't you ask? When you saw them packing up and going to the
station, didn't you do anything?"
"No, sir."
"Why on earth not?"
"I didn't see them, sir. I only found out as they'd gone after they'd
been and went, sir. Walking down by the 'Net and Mackerel,' met one
of them coastguards. 'Oh,' says he, 'so you're moving?' 'Who's
a-moving?' I says to him. 'Well,' he says to me, 'I seen your Mr.
Ukridge and his missus get into the three o'clock train for Axminster.
I thought as you was all a-moving.' 'Ho!' I says, 'Ho!' wondering, and
I goes on. When I gets back, I asks the missus did she see them
packing their boxes, and she says, 'No,' she says, they didn't pack no
boxes as she knowed of. And blowed if they had, Mr. Garnet, sir."
"What, they didn't pack!"
"No, sir."
We looked at one another.
"Beale," I said.
"Sir?"
"Do you know what I think?"
"Yes, sir."
"They've bolted."
"So I says to the missus, sir. It struck me right off, in a manner of
speaking."
"This is awful," I said.
"Yes, sir."
His face betrayed no emotion, but he was one of those men whose
expression never varies. It's a way they have in the army.
"This wants thinking out, Beale," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"You'd better ask Mrs. Beale to give me some dinner, and then I'll
think it out."
"Yes, sir."
I was in an unpleasant position. Ukridge, by his defection, had left
me in charge of the farm. I could dissolve the concern, I supposed, if
I wished, and return to London; but I particularly desired to remain
in Lyme Regis. To complete the victory I had won on the links, it was
necessary for me to continue as I had begun. I was in the position of
a general who has conquered a hostile country, and is obliged to
soothe the feelings of the conquered people before his labors can be
considered at an end. I had rushed the professor. It must now be my
aim to keep him from regretting that he had been rushed. I must,
therefore, stick to my post with the tenacity of a boy on a burning
deck. There would be trouble. Of that I was certain. As soon as the
news got about that Ukridge had gone, the deluge would begin. His
creditors would abandon their passive tactics and take active steps.
The siege of Port Arthur would be nothing to it. There was a chance
that aggressive measures would be confined to the enemy at our gates,
the tradesmen of Lyme Regis. But the probability was that the news
would spread and the injured merchants of Dorchester and Axminster
rush to the scene of hostilities. I foresaw unpleasantness.
I summoned Beale after dinner and held a council of war. It was no
time for airy persiflage.