Hugh glanced at the tall, well-dressed man of whom his father had thought so highly. Charles Benton, in spite of his hair tuning grey, was a handsome man, and moved in a very good circle of society. Nobody knew his source of income, and nobody cared. In these days clothes make the gentleman, and a knighthood a lady.
Like many others, old Mr. Henfrey had been sadly deceived by Charles Benton, and had taken him into his family as a friend. Other men had done the same. His geniality, his handsome, open face, and his plausible manner, proved the open sesame to many doors of the wealthy, and the latter were robbed in various ways, yet never dreaming that Benton was the instigator of it all. He never committed a theft himself. He gave the information--and others did the dirty work.
"You recollect Mrs. Bond," said Benton. "But I believe Maxwell, her first husband, was alive then, wasn't he?"
"I have a faint recollection of meeting a Mrs. Maxwell in Paris--at lunch at the Pre Catalan--was it not?"
"Yes, of course. About six years ago. That's quite right!" laughed Benton. "Well, Maxwell died and she married again--a Colonel Bond. He was killed in Mesopotamia, and now she's living up on the Hog's Back, beyond Guildford, on the road to Farnham."
Hugh again reflected. He had come to Abingdon Road at the suggestion of the mysterious White Cavalier. Ought he to leave the place without first consulting him? Yet he had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the man of mystery whom he firmly believed was none other than the elusive Sparrow. Besides, was not Benton, his father's closest friend, warning him of his peril?
The latter thought decided him.
"I'm sure it's awfully good of Mrs. Bond whom I know so slightly to invite me to stay with her."
"Nothing, my dear boy. She's a very old friend of mine. I once did her a rather good turn when Maxwell was alive, and she's never forgotten it. She's one of the best women in the world, I assure you," Benton declared. "I'll run along to a garage I know in Knightsbridge and get a car to take us down to Shapley. It's right out in the country, and as long as you keep clear of the town of Guildford--where the police are unusually wary under one of the shrewdest chief constables in England--then you needn't have much fear. Pack up your traps, Hugh, and I'll call for you at the end of the road in half an hour."
"Yes. But I'll want a dress suit and lots of other things if I'm going to stay at a country house," the young man demurred.