"What of it? Man alive, with a chap like that Nippers, how long do you suppose it will remain a secret that Cleek is in Yorkshire? In the West Riding of it? In this particular locality? Travelling about with Mr. Maverick Narkom in a caravan--a _caravan_ that can't cover five miles of country in the time a train or a motor car is able to get over fifty!"
"Good lud! I never thought of that. But wait a bit. There's a way to overcome that difficulty, of course. Stop here a minute or two and I'll run back and pledge that Nippers fool to keep his mouth shut about it. He'll give me his promise, _I_ know."
"To be sure he will. But how long do you suppose he will keep it? How long do you suppose that an empty-headed, gabbling old fool like that fellow will refrain from increasing his own importance in the neighbourhood by swaggering about and boasting of his intimacy with the powers at Scotland Yard and--the rest of it? And even if he shouldn't, what about the others? The gathering of rustics that heard what he heard? The gamekeepers from the Droger estate? The Nosworths, as well as they? Can their mouths, too, be shut? They will not love me for this night's business, be sure. Then, too, they have lived in Paris. The woman is French by birth. Of Montmartre--of the Apache class, the Apache kind--and she will know of the 'Cracksman,' be assured. So will her husband. And they won't take their medicine lying down, believe me. An accused man has the right to communicate with counsel, remember; and a wire up to London will cost less than a shilling. So, as between Margot's crew and our friend Count Waldemar--_la, la!_ There you are."
Mr. Narkom screwed up his face and said something under his breath. He could not but follow this line of reasoning when the thing was put before him so plainly.
"And we had been so free from all worry over the beggars up to this!" he said, savagely. "But to get a hint--to pick up the scent--out here--in a wild bit of country like this! Cinnamon, it makes me sweat! What do you propose to do?"
"The only thing that's left us to do," gave back Cleek. "Get out of it as quickly as possible and draw a red herring over the scent. In other words, put back to Dollops, abandon the caravan, make our way to some place where it is possible to telephone for the chap we hired it from to send out and get it; then, to make tracks for home."