"Coward and liar!" he muttered, as he thought of the man he was about to punish. "He shall pay for his dastardly falsehood—by Jove he shall! It'll be a precious long time before he shows himself in society any more!"
Then he addressed Lorimer. "You may depend upon it he'll shout 'police! police!' and make for the door," he observed. "You keep your back against it, Lorimer! I don't care how many fines I've got to pay as long as I can thrash him soundly!"
"All right!" Lorimer answered, and they quickened their pace. As they neared the chambers which Sir Francis Lennox rented over a fashionable jeweller's shop, they became aware of a small procession coming straight towards them from the opposite direction. Something was being carried between four men who appeared to move with extreme care and gentleness,—this something was surrounded by a crowd of boys and men whose faces were full of morbid and frightened interest—the whole cortége was headed by a couple of solemn policemen. "You spoke of a walking funeral just now," said Lorimer suddenly. "This looks uncommonly like one."
Errington made no reply—he had only one idea in his mind,—the determination to chastise and thoroughly disgrace Sir Francis. "I'll hound him out of the clubs!" he thought indignantly. "His own set shall know what a liar he is—and if I can help it he shall never hold up his head again!"
Entirely occupied as he was with these reflections, he paid no heed to anything that was going on in the street, and he scarcely heard Lorimer's last observation. So that he was utterly surprised and taken aback, when he, with Lorimer, was compelled to come to a halt before the very door of the jeweller, Lennox's landlord, while the two policemen cleared a passage through the crowd, saying in low tones, "Stand aside, gentlemen, please!—stand aside," thus making gradual way for four bearers, who, as was now plainly to be seen, carried a common wooden stretcher covered with a cloth, under which lay what seemed, from its outline, to be a human figure.
"What's the matter here?" asked Lorimer, with a curious cold thrill running through him as he put the simple question.
One of the policemen answered readily enough.
"An accident, sir. Gentleman badly hurt. Down at Charing Cross Station—tried to jump into a train when it had started,—foot caught,—was thrown under the wheels and dragged along some distance—doctor says he can't live, sir."
"Who is he,—what's his name?"
"Lennox, sir—leastways, that's the name on his card—and this is the address. Sir Francis Lennox, I believe it is."