Be that as it might, the man would climb out of the
window soon; and he would fail to find his sack.
What would he do then? He would signal or call to the Sergeant; or, if
they had a preconcerted rendezvous, he would betake himself there,
expecting to find his accomplice. He would neither get an answer from him
nor find him, of course. Equally, of course, he would look for him. But
the last place where he would expect to find him--the last place he would
search--would be where the Sergeant in fact was, the house itself. If, in
his search for Hooper, he found Beaumaroy, it would be man to man, and,
now again, Beaumaroy had no objection.
But, in fact, there were two men in the Tower--one of them big Neddy; and
the function, which Beaumaroy supposed to have been intrusted to the
Sergeant, had never been assigned to him at all; to guard the door and
the road had been his only tasks. When they found the bag gone, and the
Sergeant too, they might well think that the Sergeant had betrayed them;
that he had gone off on his own account, or that he had, at the last
moment, under an impulse of fear or a calculation of interest, changed
sides and joined the garrison in the house.
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