The man in possession, standing now in the road under the moonlight, examined the car and the horse that had brought him.
"The horse and car are Mr. French's?" he asked.
"Well, when you've put 'em in the stables," said he, "mind and don't you move 'em out again. All the movables and live stock are to be left in statu quo till my business is settled."
"Right y' are, sorr," replied Moriarty cheerfully, and the man in the tall hat strode away through the gate and vanished in the direction of the back premises.
Miss Grimshaw felt rather disgusted at this spiritless fiasco. She was quite without knowledge, however, of Moriarty's thorough methods and far-reaching ways.
"I thought you were going to play him a trick," said she.
Moriarty, who had got down for a moment to look at the mare's off-fore shoe, sprang on to the car again, turned the car, touched the mare with the whip, and turned to the astonished Miss Grimshaw.
"This isn't Mr. Frinch's house at all, miss."
"It's his house, right enough," said Moriarty, "but it hasn't been lived in for a hundred and tin years; it's got nuthin' inside it but thistles and bats. He axed me for Mr. Frinch's house; well, I've driv him to Mr. Frinch's house, him and his ow-de-cologne bottle, but Mr. Frinch doesn't live here; he lives at Drumgool."
"It's fifteen miles from here to Cloyne, miss, and fifteen from Cloyne to Drumgool."
"Oh, good heavens!" said Miss Grimshaw, "thirty miles from here?"
"There or thereabouts, miss; we'll have to get a new horse at Cloyne; the ould mare is nearly done, and she'd be finished entirely, only I gave her a two hours' rest before I take you up at the station."
Far away behind them on the moonlit road a figure had appeared; it was running and shouting and waving its arms.
"That's him," said Moriarty. "Faith, he looks as if he had seen the Banshee! Look, miss, there's his hat tumbled off."
Running was evidently not the bailiff's forte, but he continued the exercise manfully for a quarter of a mile or so, hat in hand, before giving up. When he disappeared from view Miss Grimshaw felt what we may suppose the more tender-hearted of Alexander Selkirk's marooners felt when Tristan d'Acunha sank from sight beyond the horizon.