It was only after many hours of thought that it had flashed upon me that the simplest and safest way of removing the Little Nugget was to induce him to remove himself. Once the idea had come, the rest was simple. The negotiations which had taken place that morning in the stable-yard had been brief. I suppose a boy in Ogden's position, with his record of narrow escapes from the kidnapper, comes to take things as a matter of course which would startle the ordinary boy. He assumed, I imagine, that I was the accredited agent of his mother, and that the money which I gave him for travelling expenses came from her. Perhaps he had been expecting something of the sort. At any rate, he grasped the essential points of the scheme with amazing promptitude. His little hand was extended to receive the cash almost before I had finished speaking.
The main outline of my plan was that he should slip away toLondon, during the afternoon, go to my rooms, where he would findSmith, and with Smith travel to his mother at Monaco. I hadwritten to Smith, bidding him be in readiness for the expedition.There was no flaw in the scheme as I had mapped it out, and thoughOgden had complicated it a little by gratuitously luring awayAugustus Beckford to bear him company, he had not endangered itssuccess.
But now an utterly unforeseen complication had arisen. My one desire now was to undo everything for which I had been plotting.
I stood there, looking at her dumbly, hating myself for being the cause of the anxiety in her eyes. If I had struck her, I could not have felt more despicable. In my misery I cursed Cynthia for leading me into this tangle.
I heard my name spoken, and turned to find White at my elbow.
'Mr Abney would like to see you, sir.'
I went upstairs, glad to escape. The tension of the situation had begun to tear at my nerves.
'Cub id, Bister Burds,' said my employer, swallowing a lozenge. His aspect was more dazed than ever. 'White has just bade an—ah—extraordinary cobbudicatiod to me. It seebs he is in reality a detective, an employee of Pidkertod's Agedcy, of which you have, of course—ah—heard.'
So White had revealed himself. On the whole, I was not surprised. Certainly his motive for concealment, the fear of making Mr Abney nervous, was removed. An inrush of Red Indians with tomahawks could hardly have added greatly to Mr Abney's nervousness at the present juncture.
'Sent here by Mr Ford, I suppose?' I said. I had to say something.
'Exactly. Ah—precisely.' He sneezed. 'Bister Ford, without codsulting me—I do not cobbedt on the good taste or wisdob of his actiod—dispatched White to apply for the post of butler at this—ah—house, his predecessor having left at a bobedt's dotice, bribed to do so, I strodgly suspect, by Bister Ford himself. I bay be wrodging Bister Ford, but do dot thig so.'
I thought the reasoning sound.
'All thad, however,' resumed Mr Abney, removing his face from a jug of menthol at which he had been sniffing with the tense concentration of a dog at a rabbit-hole, 'is beside the poidt. I berely bedtiod it to explaid why White will accompady you to London.'
'What!'
The exclamation was forced from me by my dismay. This was appalling. If this infernal detective was to accompany me, my chance of bringing Ogden back was gone. It had been my intention to go straight to my rooms, in the hope of finding him not yet departed. But how was I to explain his presence there to White?
'I don't think it's necessary, Mr Abney,' I protested. 'I am sureI can manage this affair by myself.'
'Two heads are better thad wud,' said the invalid sententiously, burying his features in the jug once more.
'Too many cooks spoil the broth,' I replied. If the conversation was to consist of copybook maxims, I could match him as long as he pleased.
He did not keep up the intellectual level of the discussion.
'Dodseds!' he snapped, with the irritation of a man whose proverb has been capped by another. I had seldom heard him speak so sharply. White's revelation had evidently impressed him. He had all the ordinary peaceful man's reverence for the professional detective.
'White will accompany you, Bister Burds,' he said doggedly.
'Very well,' I said.
After all, it might be that I should get an opportunity of giving him the slip. London is a large city.
A few minutes later the cab arrived, and White and I set forth on our mission.
We did not talk much in the cab. I was too busy with my thoughts to volunteer remarks, and White, apparently, had meditations of his own to occupy him.
It was when we had settled ourselves in an empty compartment and the train had started that he found speech. I had provided myself with a book as a barrier against conversation, and began at once to make a pretence of reading, but he broke through my defences.
'Interesting book, Mr Burns?'
'Very,' I said.
'Life's more interesting than books.'
I made no comment on this profound observation. He was not discouraged.
'Mr Burns,' he said, after the silence had lasted a few moments.
'Yes?'
'Let's talk for a spell. These train-journeys are pretty slow.'
Again I seemed to detect that curious undercurrent of meaning in his voice which I had noticed in the course of our brief exchange of remarks in the hall. I glanced up and met his eye. He was looking at me in a way that struck me as curious. There was something in those bright brown eyes of his which had the effect of making me vaguely uneasy. Something seemed to tell me that he had a definite motive in forcing his conversation on me.
'I guess I can interest you a heap more than that book, even if it's the darndest best seller that was ever hatched.'
'Oh!'
He lit a cigarette.
'You didn't want me around on this trip, did you?'
'It seemed rather unnecessary for both of us to go,' I saidindifferently. 'Still, perhaps two heads are better than one, asMr Abney remarked. What do you propose to do when you get toLondon?'
He bent forward and tapped me on the knee.
'I propose to stick to you like a label on a bottle, sonny,' he said. 'That's what I propose to do.'
'What do you mean?'
I was finding it difficult, such is the effect of a guilty conscience, to meet his eye, and the fact irritated me.
'I want to find out that address you gave the Ford kid this morning out in the stable-yard.'
It is strange how really literal figurative expressions are. I had read stories in which some astonished character's heart leaped into his mouth. For an instant I could have supposed that mine had actually done so. The illusion of some solid object blocking up my throat was extraordinarily vivid, and there certainly seemed to be a vacuum in the spot where my heart should have been. Not for a substantial reward could I have uttered a word at that moment. I could not even breathe. The horrible unexpectedness of the blow had paralysed me.
White, however, was apparently prepared to continue the chat without my assistance.
'I guess you didn't know I was around, or you wouldn't have talked that way. Well, I was, and I heard every word you said. Here was the money, you said, and he was to take it and break for London, and go to the address on this card, and your pal Smith would look after him. I guess there had been some talk before that, but I didn't arrive in time to hear it. But I heard all I wanted, except that address. And that's what I'm going to find out when we get to London.'
He gave out this appalling information in a rich and soothing voice, as if it were some ordinary commonplace. To me it seemed to end everything. I imagined I was already as good as under arrest. What a fool I had been to discuss such a matter in a place like a stable yard, however apparently empty. I might have known that at a school there are no empty places.
'I must say it jarred me when I heard you pulling that stuff,' continued White. 'I haven't what you might call a childlike faith in my fellow-man as a rule, but it had never occurred to me for a moment that you could be playing that game. It only shows,' he added philosophically, 'that you've got to suspect everybody when it comes to a gilt-edged proposition like the Little Nugget.'
The train rattled on. I tried to reduce my mind to working order, to formulate some plan, but could not.
Beyond the realization that I was in the tightest corner of my life, I seemed to have lost the power of thought.
White resumed his monologue.
'You had me guessing,' he admitted. 'I couldn't figure you out. First thing, of course, I thought you must be working in with Buck MacGinnis and his crowd. Then all that happened tonight, and I saw that, whoever you might be working in with, it wasn't Buck. And now I've placed you. You're not in with any one. You're just playing it by yourself. I shouldn't mind betting this was your first job, and that you saw your chance of making a pile by holding up old man Ford, and thought it was better than schoolmastering, and grabbed it.'
He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee again. There was something indescribably irritating in the action. As one who has had experience, I can state that, while to be arrested at all is bad, to be arrested by a detective with a fatherly manner is maddening.
'See here,' he said, 'we must get together over this business.'
I suppose it was the recollection of the same words in the mouth of Buck MacGinnis that made me sit up with a jerk and stare at him.
'We'll make a great team,' he said, still in that same cosy voice. 'If ever there was a case of fifty-fifty, this is it. You've got the kid, and I've got you. I can't get away with him without your help, and you can't get away with him unless you square me. It's a stand-off. The only thing is to sit in at the game together and share out. Does it go?'
He beamed kindly on my bewilderment during the space of time it takes to select a cigarette and light a match. Then, blowing a contented puff of smoke, he crossed his legs and leaned back.
'When I told you I was a Pinkerton's man, sonny,' he said, 'I missed the cold truth by about a mile. But you caught me shooting off guns in the grounds, and it was up to me to say something.'
He blew a smoke-ring and watched it dreamily till it melted in the draught from the ventilator.
'I'm Smooth Sam Fisher,' he said.
When two emotions clash, the weaker goes to the wall. Any surprise I might have felt was swallowed up in my relief. If I had been at liberty to be astonished, my companion's information would no doubt have astonished me. But I was not. I was so relieved that he was not a Pinkerton's man that I did not really care what else he might be.
'It's always been a habit of mine, in these little matters,' he went on, 'to let other folks do the rough work, and chip in myself when they've cleared the way. It saves trouble and expense. I don't travel with a gang, like that bone-headed Buck. What's the use of a gang? They only get tumbling over each other and spoiling everything. Look at Buck! Where is he? Down and out. While I—'
He smiled complacently. His manner annoyed me. I objected to being looked upon as a humble cat's paw by this bland scoundrel.
'While you—what?' I said.
He looked at me in mild surprise.
'Why, I come in with you, sonny, and take my share like a gentleman.'
'Do you!'
'Well, don't I?'
He looked at me in the half-reproachful half-affectionate manner of the kind old uncle who reasons with a headstrong nephew.
'Young man,' he said, 'you surely aren't thinking you can put one over on me in this business? Tell me, you don't take me for that sort of ivory-skulled boob? Do you imagine for one instant, sonny, that I'm not next to every move in this game? Are you deluding yourself with the idea that this thing isn't a perfect cinch for me? Let's hear what's troubling you. You seem to have gotten some foolish ideas in your head. Let's talk it over quietly.'
'If you have no objection,' I said, 'no. I don't want to talk to you, Mr Fisher. I don't like you, and I don't like your way of earning your living. Buck MacGinnis was bad enough, but at least he was a straightforward tough. There's no excuse for you.'
'Surely we are unusually righteous this p.m., are we not?' saidSam suavely.
I did not answer.
'Is this not mere professional jealousy?'
This was too much for me.
'Do you imagine for a moment that I'm doing this for money?'
'I did have that impression. Was I wrong? Do you kidnap the sons of millionaires for your health?'
'I promised that I would get this boy back to his mother. That is why I gave him the money to go to London. And that is why my valet was to have taken him to—to where Mrs Ford is.'
He did not reply in words, but if ever eyebrows spoke, his said, 'My dear sir, really!' I could not remain silent under their patent disbelief.
'That's the simple truth,' I said.
He shrugged his shoulders, as who would say, 'Have it your own way. Let us change the subject.'
'You say "was to have taken". Have you changed your plans?'
'Yes, I'm going to take the boy back to the school.'
He laughed—a rich, rolling laugh. His double chin shook comfortably.
'It won't do,' he said, shaking his head with humorous reproach.'It won't do.'
'You don't believe me?'
'Frankly, I do not.'
'Very well,' I said, and began to read my book.
'If you want to give me the slip,' he chuckled, 'you must do better than that. I can see you bringing the Nugget back to the school.'
'You will, if you wait,' I said.
'I wonder what that address was that you gave him,' he mused.'Well, I shall soon know.'
He lapsed into silence. The train rolled on. I looked at my watch.London was not far off now.
'The present arrangement of equal division,' said Sam, breaking a long silence, 'holds good, of course, only in the event of your quitting this fool game and doing the square thing by me. Let me put it plainly. We are either partners or competitors. It is for you to decide. If you will be sensible and tell me that address, I will pledge my word—'
'Your word!' I said scornfully.
'Honour among thieves!' replied Sam, with unruffled geniality. 'I wouldn't double-cross you for worlds. If, however, you think you can manage without my assistance, it will then be my melancholy duty to beat you to the kid, and collect him and the money entirely on my own account. Am I to take it,' he said, as I was silent, 'that you prefer war to an alliance?'
I turned a page of my book and went on reading.
'If Youth but knew!' he sighed. 'Young man, I am nearly twice your age, and I have, at a modest estimate, about ten times as much sense. Yet, in your overweening self-confidence, with your ungovernable gall, you fancy you can hand me a lemon.Me!I should smile!'
'Do,' I said. 'Do, while you can.'
He shook his head reprovingly.
'You will not be so fresh, sonny, in a few hours. You will be biting pieces out of yourself, I fear. And later on, when my automobile splashes you with mud in Piccadilly, you will taste the full bitterness of remorse. Well, Youth must buy its experience, I suppose!'
I looked across at him as he sat, plump and rosy and complacent, puffing at his cigarette, and my heart warmed to the old ruffian. It was impossible to maintain an attitude of righteous iciness with him. I might loathe his mode of life, and hate him as a representative—and a leading representative—of one of the most contemptible trades on earth, but there was a sunny charm about the man himself which made it hard to feel hostile to him as an individual.
I closed my book with a bang and burst out laughing.
'You're a wonder!' I said.
He beamed at what he took to be evidence that I was coming round to the friendly and sensible view of the matter.
'Then you think, on consideration—' he said. 'Excellent! Now, my dear young man, all joking aside, you will take me with you to that address, will you not? You observe that I do not ask you to give it to me. Let there be not so much as the faintest odour of the double-cross about this business. All I ask is that you allow me to accompany you to where the Nugget is hidden, and then rely on my wider experience of this sort of game to get him safely away and open negotiations with the dad.'
'I suppose your experience has been wide?' I said.
'Quite tolerably—quite tolerably.'
'Doesn't it ever worry you the anxiety and misery you cause?'
'Purely temporary, both. And then, look at it in another way. Think of the joy and relief of the bereaved parents when sonny comes toddling home again! Surely it is worth some temporary distress to taste that supreme happiness? In a sense, you might call me a human benefactor. I teach parents to appreciate their children. You know what parents are. Father gets caught short in steel rails one morning. When he reaches home, what does he do? He eases his mind by snapping at little Willie. Mrs Van First-Family forgets to invite mother to her freak-dinner. What happens? Mother takes it out of William. They love him, maybe, but they are too used to him. They do not realize all he is to them. And then, one afternoon, he disappears. The agony! The remorse! "How could I ever have told our lost angel to stop his darned noise!" moans father. "I struck him!" sobs mother. "With this jewelled hand I spanked our vanished darling!" "We were not worthy to have him," they wail together. "But oh, if we could but get him back!" Well they do. They get him back as soon as ever they care to come across in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. And after that they think twice before working off their grouches on the poor kid. So I bring universal happiness into the home. I don't say father doesn't get a twinge every now and then when he catches sight of the hole in his bank balance, but, darn it, what's money for if it's not to spend?'
He snorted with altruistic fervour.
'What makes you so set on kidnapping Ogden Ford?' I asked. 'I know he is valuable, but you must have made your pile by this time. I gather that you have been practising your particular brand of philanthropy for a good many years. Why don't you retire?'
He sighed.
'It is the dream of my life to retire, young man. You may not believe me, but my instincts are thoroughly domestic. When I have the leisure to weave day-dreams, they centre around a cosy little home with a nice porch and stationary washtubs.'
He regarded me closely, as if to decide whether I was worthy of these confidences. There was something wistful in his brown eyes. I suppose the inspection must have been favourable, or he was in a mood when a man must unbosom himself to someone, for he proceeded to open his heart to me. A man in his particular line of business, I imagine, finds few confidants, and the strain probably becomes intolerable at times.
'Have you ever experienced the love of a good woman, sonny? It's a wonderful thing.' He brooded sentimentally for a moment, then continued, and—to my mind—somewhat spoiled the impressiveness of his opening words. 'The love of a good woman,' he said, 'is about the darnedest wonderful lay-out that ever came down the pike. I know. I've had some.'
A spark from his cigarette fell on his hand. He swore a startled oath.
'We came from the same old town,' he resumed, having recovered from this interlude. 'Used to be kids at the same school … Walked to school together … me carrying her luncheon-basket and helping her over the fences … Ah! … Just the same when we grew up. Still pals. And that was twenty years ago … The arrangement was that I should go out and make the money to buy the home, and then come back and marry her.'
'Then why the devil haven't you done it?' I said severely.
He shook his head.
'If you know anything about crooks, young man,' he said, 'you'll know that outside of their own line they are the easiest marks that ever happened. They fall for anything. At least, it's always been that way with me. No sooner did I get together a sort of pile and start out for the old town, when some smooth stranger would come along and steer me up against some skin-game, and back I'd have to go to work. That happened a few times, and when I did manage at last to get home with the dough I found she had married another guy. It's hard on women, you see,' he explained chivalrously. 'They get lonesome and Roving Rupert doesn't show up, so they have to marry Stay-at-Home Henry just to keep from getting the horrors.'
'So she's Mrs Stay-at-Home Henry now?' I said sympathetically.
'She was till a year ago. She's a widow now. Deceased had a misunderstanding with a hydrophobia skunk, so I'm informed. I believe he was a good man. Outside of licking him at school I didn't know him well. I saw her just before I left to come here. She's as fond of me as ever. It's all settled, if only I can connect with the mazuma. And she don't want much, either. Just enough to keep the home together.'
'I wish you happiness,' I said.
'You can do better than that. You can take me with you to that address.'
I avoided the subject.
'What does she say to your way of making money?' I asked.
'She doesn't know, and she ain't going to know. I don't see why a man has got to tell his wife every little thing in his past. She thinks I'm a drummer, travelling in England for a dry-goods firm. She wouldn't stand for the other thing, not for a minute. She's very particular. Always was. That's why I'm going to quit after I've won out over this thing of the Little Nugget.' He looked at me hopefully. 'So youwilltake me along, sonny, won't you?'
I shook my head.
'You won't?'
'I'm sorry to spoil a romance, but I can't. You must look around for some other home into which to bring happiness. The Fords' is barred.'
'You are very obstinate, young man,' he said, sadly, but without any apparent ill-feeling. 'I can't persuade you?'
'No.'
'Ah, well! So we are to be rivals, not allies. You will regret this, sonny. I may say you will regret it very bitterly. When you see me in my automo—'
'You mentioned your automobile before.'
'Ah! So I did.'
The train had stopped, as trains always do on English railways before entering a terminus. Presently it began to move forward hesitatingly, as if saying to itself, 'Now, am I really wanted here? Shall I be welcome?' Eventually, after a second halt, it glided slowly alongside the platform.
I sprang out and ran to the cab-rank. I was aboard a taxi, bowling out of the station before the train had stopped.
Peeping out of the window at the back, I was unable to see Sam. My adroit move, I took it, had baffled him. I had left him standing.
It was a quarter of an hour's drive to my rooms, but to me, in my anxiety, it seemed more. This was going to be a close thing, and success or failure a matter of minutes. If he followed my instructions Smith would be starting for the Continental boat-train tonight with his companion; and, working out the distances, I saw that, by the time I could arrive, he might already have left my rooms. Sam's supervision at Sanstead Station had made it impossible for me to send a telegram. I had had to trust to chance. Fortunately my train, by a miracle, had been up to time, and at my present rate of progress I ought to catch Smith a few minutes before he left the building.
The cab pulled up. I ran up the stairs and opened the door of my apartment.
'Smith!' I called.
A chair scraped along the floor and a door opened at the end of the passage. Smith came out.
'Thank goodness you have not started. I thought I should miss you.Where is the boy?'
'The boy, sir?'
'The boy I wrote to you about.'
'He has not arrived, sir.'
'Not arrived?'
'No, sir.'
I stared at him blankly.
'How long have you been here?'
'All day, sir.'
'You have not been out?'
'Not since the hour of two, sir.'
'I can't understand it,' I said.
'Perhaps the young gentleman changed his mind and never started, sir?'
'I know he started.'
Smith had no further suggestion to offer.
'Pending the young gentleman's arrival, sir, I remain in London?'
A fruity voice spoke at the door behind me.
'What! Hasn't he arrived?'
I turned. There, beaming and benevolent, stood Mr Fisher.
'It occurred to me to look your name out in the telephone directory,' he explained. 'I might have thought of that before.'
'Come in here,' I said, opening the door of the sitting-room. I did not want to discuss the thing with him before Smith.
He looked about the room admiringly.
'So these are your quarters,' he said. 'You do yourself pretty well, young man. So I understand that the Nugget has gone wrong in transit. He has altered his plans on the way?'
'I can't understand it.'
'I can! You gave him a certain amount of money?'
'Yes. Enough to get him to—where he was going.'
'Then, knowing the boy, I should say that he has found other uses for it. He's whooping it up in London, and, I should fancy, having the time of his young life.'
He got up.
'This of course,' he said, 'alters considerably any understanding we may have come to, sonny. All idea of a partnership is now out of the question. I wish you well, but I have no further use for you. Somewhere in this great city the Little Nugget is hiding, and I mean to find him—entirely on my own account. This is where our paths divide, Mr Burns. Good night.'
When Sam had left, which he did rather in the manner of a heavy father in melodrama, shaking the dust of an erring son's threshold off his feet, I mixed myself a high-ball, and sat down to consider the position of affairs. It did not take me long to see that the infernal boy had double-crossed me with a smooth effectiveness which Mr Fisher himself might have envied. Somewhere in this great city, as Sam had observed, he was hiding. But where? London is a vague address.
I wondered what steps Sam was taking. Was there some underground secret service bureau to which persons of his profession had access? I doubted it. I imagined that he, as I proposed to do, was drawing the city at a venture in the hope of flushing the quarry by accident. Yet such was the impression he had made upon me as a man of resource and sagacity, that I did not relish the idea of his getting a start on me, even in a venture so uncertain as this. My imagination began to picture him miraculously inspired in the search, and such was the vividness of the vision that I jumped up from my chair, resolved to get on the trail at once. It was hopelessly late, however, and I did not anticipate that I should meet with any success.
Nor did I. For two hours and a half I tramped the streets, my spirits sinking more and more under the influence of failure and a blend of snow and sleet which had begun to fall; and then, tired out, I went back to my rooms, and climbed sorrowfully into bed.
It was odd to wake up and realize that I was in London. Years seemed to have passed since I had left it. Time is a thing of emotions, not of hours and minutes, and I had certainly packed a considerable number of emotional moments into my stay at Sanstead House. I lay in bed, reviewing the past, while Smith, with a cheerful clatter of crockery, prepared my breakfast in the next room.
A curious lethargy had succeeded the feverish energy of the previous night. More than ever the impossibility of finding the needle in this human bundle of hay oppressed me. No one is optimistic before breakfast, and I regarded the future with dull resignation, turning my thoughts from it after a while to the past. But the past meant Audrey, and to think of Audrey hurt.
It seemed curious to me that in a life of thirty years I should have been able to find, among the hundreds of women I had met, only one capable of creating in me that disquieting welter of emotions which is called love, and hard that that one should reciprocate my feeling only to the extent of the mild liking which Audrey entertained for me.
I tried to analyse her qualifications for the place she held in my heart. I had known women who had attracted me more physically, and women who had attracted me more mentally. I had known wiser women, handsomer women, more amiable women, but none of them had affected me like Audrey. The problem was inexplicable. Any idea that we might be affinities, soul-mates destined for each other from the beginning of time, was disposed of by the fact that my attraction for her was apparently in inverse ratio to hers for me. For possibly the millionth time in the past five years I tried to picture in my mind the man Sheridan, that shadowy wooer to whom she had yielded so readily. What quality had he possessed that I did not? Wherein lay the magnetism that had brought about his triumph?
These were unprofitable speculations. I laid them aside until the next occasion when I should feel disposed for self-torture, and got out of bed. A bath and breakfast braced me up, and I left the house in a reasonably cheerful frame of mind.
To search at random for an individual unit among London's millions lends an undeniable attraction to a day in town. In a desultory way I pursued my investigations through the morning and afternoon, but neither of Ogden nor of his young friend Lord Beckford was I vouchsafed a glimpse. My consolation was that Smooth Sam was probably being equally unsuccessful.
Towards the evening there arose the question of return to Sanstead. I had not gathered whether Mr Abney had intended to set any time-limit on my wanderings, or whether I was not supposed to come back except with the deserters. I decided that I had better remain in London, at any rate for another night, and went to the nearest post office to send Mr Abney a telegram to that effect.
As I was writing it, the problem which had baffled me for twenty-four hours, solved itself in under a minute. Whether my powers of inductive reasoning had been under a cloud since I left Sanstead, or whether they were normally beneath contempt, I do not know. But the fact remains, that I had completely overlooked the obvious solution of my difficulty. I think I must have been thinking so exclusively of the Little Nugget that I had entirely forgotten the existence of Augustus Beckford. It occurred to me now that, by making inquiries at the latter's house, I should learn something to my advantage. A boy of the Augustus type does not run away from school without a reason. Probably some party was taking place tonight at the ancestral home, at which, tempted by the lawless Nugget, he had decided that his presence was necessary.
I knew the house well. There had been a time, when Lord Mountry and I were at Oxford, when I had spent frequent week-ends there. Since then, owing to being abroad, I had seen little of the family. Now was the moment to reintroduce myself. I hailed a cab.
Inductive reasoning had not played me false. There was a red carpet outside the house, and from within came the sounds of music.
Lady Wroxham, the mother of Mountry and the vanishing Augustus, was one of those women who take things as they come. She did not seem surprised at seeing me.
'How nice of you to come and see us,' she said. 'Somebody told me you were abroad. Ted is in the south of France in the yacht. Augustus is here. Mr Abney, his schoolmaster, let him come up for the night.'
I perceived that Augustus had been playing a bold game. I saw the coaching of Ogden behind these dashing falsehoods.
'You will hardly remember Sybil. She was quite a baby when you were here last. She is having her birthday-party this evening.'
'May I go in and help?' I said.
'I wish you would. They would love it.'
I doubted it, but went in. A dance had just finished. Strolling towards me in his tightest Eton suit, his face shining with honest joy, was the errant Augustus, and close behind him, wearing the blase' air of one for whom custom has staled the pleasures of life, was the Little Nugget.
I think they both saw me at the same moment. The effect of my appearance on them was illustrative of their respective characters. Augustus turned a deep shade of purple and fixed me with a horrified stare. The Nugget winked. Augustus halted and shuffled his feet. The Nugget strolled up and accosted me like an old friend.
'Hello!' he said. 'How did you get here? Say, I was going to try and get you on the phone some old time and explain things. I've been pretty much on the jump since I hit London.'
'You little brute!'
My gleaming eye, travelling past him, met that of the Hon. Augustus Beckford, causing that youth to jump guiltily. The Nugget looked over his shoulder.
'I guess we don't want him around if we're to talk business,' he said. 'I'll go and tell him to beat it.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind. I don't propose to lose sight of either of you.'
'Oh, he's all right. You don't have to worry about him. He was going back to the school anyway tomorrow. He only ran away to go to this party. Why not let him enjoy himself while he's here? I'll go and make a date for you to meet at the end of the show.'
He approached his friend, and a short colloquy ensued, which ended in the latter shuffling off in the direction of the other revellers. Such is the buoyancy of youth that a moment later he was dancing a two-step with every appearance of careless enjoyment. The future, with its storms, seemed to have slipped from his mind.
'That's all right,' said the Nugget, returning to me. 'He's promised he won't duck away. You'll find him somewhere around whenever you care to look for him. Now we can talk.'
'I hardly like to trespass on your valuable time,' I said. The airy way in which this demon boy handled what should have been—to him—an embarrassing situation irritated me. For all the authority I seemed to have over him I might have been the potted palm against which he was leaning.
'That's all right.' Everything appeared to be all right with him. 'This sort of thing does not appeal to me. Don't be afraid of spoiling my evening. I only came because Becky was so set on it. Dancing bores me pallid, so let's get somewhere where we can sit down and talk.'
I was beginning to feel that a children's party was the right place for me. Sam Fisher had treated me as a child, and so did the Little Nugget. That I was a responsible person, well on in my thirty-first year, with a narrow escape from death and a hopeless love-affair on my record, seemed to strike neither of them. I followed my companion to a secluded recess with the utmost meekness.
He leaned back and crossed his legs.
'Got a cigarette?'
'I have not got a cigarette, and, if I had, I wouldn't give it to you.'
He regarded me tolerantly.
'Got a grouch tonight, haven't you? You seem all flittered up about something. What's the trouble? Sore about my not showing up at your apartment? I'll explain that all right.'
'I shall be glad to listen.'
'It's like this. It suddenly occurred to me that a day or two one way or the other wasn't going to affect our deal and that, while I was about it, I might just as well see a bit of London before I left. I suggested it to Becky, and the idea made the biggest kind of a hit with him. I found he had only been in an automobile once in his life. Can you beat it? I've had one of my own ever since I was a kid. Well, naturally, it was up to me to blow him to a joy-ride, and that's where the money went.'
'Where the money went?'
'Sure. I've got two dollars left, and that's all. It wasn't altogether the automobiling. It was the meals that got away with my roll. Say, that kid Beckford is one swell feeder. He's wrapping himself around the eats all the time. I guess it's not smoking that does it. I haven't the appetite I used to have. Well, that's how it was, you see. But I'm through now. Cough up the fare and I'll make the trip tomorrow. Mother'll be tickled to death to see me.'
'She won't see you. We're going back to the school tomorrow.'
He looked at me incredulously.
'What's that? Going back to school?'
'I've altered my plans.'
'I'm not going back to any old school. You daren't take me. Where'll you be if I tell the hot-air merchant about our deal and you slipping me the money and all that?'
'Tell him what you like. He won't believe it.'
He thought this over, and its truth came home to him. The complacent expression left his face.
'What's the matter with you? Are you dippy, or what? You get me away up to London, and the first thing that happens when I'm here is that you want to take me back. You make me tired.'
It was borne in upon me that there was something in his point of view. My sudden change of mind must have seemed inexplicable to him. And, having by a miracle succeeded in finding him, I was in a mood to be generous. I unbent.
'Ogden, old sport,' I said cordially, I think we've both had all we want of this children's party. You're bored and if I stop on another half hour I may be called on to entertain these infants with comic songs. We men of the world are above this sort of thing. Get your hat and coat and I'll take you to a show. We can discuss business later over a bit of supper.'
The gloom of his countenance melted into a pleased smile.
'You said something that time!' he observed joyfully; and we slunk away to get our hats, the best of friends. A note for Augustus Beckford, requesting his presence at Waterloo Station at ten minutes past twelve on the following morning, I left with the butler. There was a certain informality about my methods which I doubt if Mr Abney would have approved, but I felt that I could rely on Augustus.
Much may be done by kindness. By the time the curtain fell on the musical comedy which we had attended all was peace between the Nugget and myself. Supper cemented our friendship, and we drove back to my rooms on excellent terms with one another. Half an hour later he was snoring in the spare room, while I smoked contentedly before the fire in the sitting-room.
I had not been there five minutes when the bell rang. Smith was in bed, so I went to the door myself and found Mr Fisher on the mat.
My feeling of benevolence towards all created things, the result of my successful handling of the Little Nugget, embraced Sam. I invited him in.
'Well,' I said, when I had given him a cigar and filled his glass, 'and how have you been getting on, Mr Fisher? Any luck?'
He shook his head at me reproachfully.
'Young man, you're deep. I've got to hand it to you. I underestimated you. You're very deep.'
'Approbation from Smooth Sam Fisher is praise indeed. But why these stately compliments?'
'You took me in, young man. I don't mind owning it. When you told me the Nugget had gone astray, I lapped it up like a babe. And all the time you were putting one over on me. Well, well!'
'But he had gone astray, Mr Fisher.'
He knocked the ash off his cigar. He wore a pained look.
'You needn't keep it up, sonny. I happened to be standing within three yards of you when you got into a cab with him in Shaftesbury Avenue.'
I laughed.
'Well, if that's the case, let there be no secrets between us.He's asleep in the next room.'
Sam leaned forward earnestly and tapped me on the knee.
'Young man, this is a critical moment. This is where, if you aren't careful, you may undo all the good work you have done by getting chesty and thinking that, because you've won out so far, you're the whole show. Believe me, the difficult part is to come, and it's right here that you need an experienced man to work in with you. Let me in on this and leave the negotiations with old man Ford to me. You would only make a mess of them. I've handled this kind of thing a dozen times, and I know just how to act. You won't regret taking me on as a partner. You won't lose a cent by it. I can work him for just double what you would get, even supposing you didn't make a mess of the deal and get nothing.'
'It's very good of you, but there won't be any negotiations with Mr Ford. I am taking the boy back to Sanstead, as I told you.' I caught his pained eye. 'I'm afraid you don't believe me.'
He drew at his cigar without replying.
It is a human weakness to wish to convince those who doubt us, even if their opinion is not intrinsically valuable. I remembered that I had Cynthia's letter in my pocket. I produced it as exhibit A in my evidence and read it to him.
Sam listened carefully.
'I see,' he said. 'Who wrote that?'
'Never mind. A friend of mine.'
I returned the letter to my pocket.
'I was going to have sent him over to Monaco, but I altered my plans. Something interfered.'
'What?'
'I might call it coincidence, if you know what that means.'
'And you are really going to take him back to the school?'
'I am.'
'We shall travel back together,' he said. 'I had hoped I had seen the last of the place. The English countryside may be delightful in the summer, but for winter give me London. However,' he sighed resignedly, and rose from his chair, 'I will say good-bye till tomorrow. What train do you catch?'
'Do you mean to say,' I demanded, 'that you have the nerve to come back to Sanstead after what you have told me about yourself?'
'You entertain some idea of exposing me to Mr Abney? Forget it, young man. We are both in glass houses. Don't let us throw stones. Besides, would he believe it? What proof have you?'
I had thought this argument tolerably sound when I had used it on the Nugget. Now that it was used on myself I realized its soundness even more thoroughly. My hands were tied.
'Yes,' said Sam, 'tomorrow, after our little jaunt to London, we shall all resume the quiet, rural life once more.'
He beamed expansively upon me from the doorway.
'However, even the quiet, rural life has its interest. I guess we shan't be dull!' he said.
I believed him.
Considering the various handicaps under which he laboured notably a cold in the head, a fear of the Little Nugget, and a reverence for the aristocracy—Mr Abney's handling of the situation, when the runaways returned to school, bordered on the masterly. Any sort of physical punishment being out of the question—especially in the case of the Nugget, who would certainly have retaliated with a bout of window-breaking—he had to fall back on oratory, and he did this to such effect that, when he had finished, Augustus wept openly and was so subdued that he did not ask a single question for nearly three days.
One result of the adventure was that Ogden's bed was moved to a sort of cubby-hole adjoining my room. In the house, as originally planned, this had evidently been a dressing-room. Under Mr Abney's rule it had come to be used as a general repository for lumber. My boxes were there, and a portmanteau of Glossop's. It was an excellent place in which to bestow a boy in quest of whom kidnappers might break in by night. The window was too small to allow a man to pass through, and the only means of entrance was by way of my room. By night, at any rate, the Nugget's safety seemed to be assured.
The curiosity of the small boy, fortunately, is not lasting. His active mind lives mainly in the present. It was not many days, therefore, before the excitement caused by Buck's raid and the Nugget's disappearance began to subside. Within a week both episodes had been shelved as subjects of conversation, and the school had settled down to its normal humdrum life.
To me, however, there had come a period of mental unrest more acute than I had ever experienced. My life, for the past five years, had run in so smooth a stream that, now that I found myself tossed about in the rapids, I was bewildered. It was a peculiar aggravation of the difficulty of my position that in my world, the little world of Sanstead House, there should be but one woman, and she the very one whom, if I wished to recover my peace of mind, it was necessary for me to avoid.
My feelings towards Cynthia at this time defied my powers of analysis. There were moments when I clung to the memory of her, when she seemed the only thing solid and safe in a world of chaos, and moments, again, when she was a burden crushing me. There were days when I would give up the struggle and let myself drift, and days when I would fight myself inch by inch. But every day found my position more hopeless than the last.
At night sometimes, as I lay awake, I would tell myself that if only I could see her or even hear from her the struggle would be easier. It was her total disappearance from my life that made it so hard for me. I had nothing to help me to fight.
And then, one morning, as if in answer to my thoughts her letter came.
The letter startled me. It was as if there had been some telepathic communion between us.
It was very short, almost formal:
'MY DEAR PETER—I want to ask you a question. I can put it quite shortly. It is this. Are your feelings towards me still the same? I don't tell you why I ask this. I simply ask it. Whatever your answer is, it cannot affect our friendship, so be quite candid. CYNTHIA.'
I sat down there and then to write my reply. The letter, coming when it did and saying what it said, had affected me profoundly. It was like an unexpected reinforcement in a losing battle. It filled me with a glow of self-confidence. I felt strong again, able to fight and win. My mood bore me away, and I poured out my whole heart to her. I told her that my feelings had not altered, that I loved her and nobody but her. It was a letter, I can see, looking back, born of fretted nerves; but at the time I had no such criticism to make. It seemed to me a true expression of my real feelings.
That the fight was not over because in my moment of exaltation I had imagined that I had conquered myself was made uncomfortably plain to me by the thrill that ran through me when, returning from posting my letter, I met Audrey. The sight of her reminded me that a reinforcement is only a reinforcement, a help towards victory, not victory itself.
For the first time I found myself feeling resentful towards her. There was no reason in my resentment. It would not have borne examination. But it was there, and its presence gave me support. I found myself combating the thrill the sight of her had caused, and looking at her with a critical and hostile eye. Who was she that she should enslave a man against his will? Fascination exists only in the imagination of the fascinated. If he have the strength to deny the fascination and convince himself that it does not exist, he is saved. It is purely a matter of willpower and calm reasonableness. There must have been sturdy, level-headed Egyptian citizens who could not understand what people saw to admire in Cleopatra.
Thus reasoning, I raised my hat, uttered a crisp 'Good morning', and passed on, the very picture of the brisk man of affairs.
'Peter!'
Even the brisk man of affairs must stop when spoken to. Otherwise, apart from any question of politeness, it looks as if he were running away.
Her face was still wearing the faint look of surprise which my manner had called forth.
'You're in a great hurry.'
I had no answer. She did not appear to expect one.
We moved towards the house in silence, to me oppressive silence. The force of her personality was beginning to beat against my defences, concerning the stability of which, under pressure, a certain uneasiness troubled my mind.
'Are you worried about anything, Peter?' she said at last.
'No,' I said. 'Why?'
'I was afraid you might be.'
I felt angry with myself. I was mismanaging this thing in the most idiotic way. Instead of this bovine silence, gay small-talk, the easy eloquence, in fact, of the brisk man of affairs should have been my policy. No wonder Smooth Sam Fisher treated me as a child. My whole bearing was that of a sulky school-boy.
The silence became more oppressive.
We reached the house. In the hall we parted, she to upper regions, I to my classroom. She did not look at me. Her face was cold and offended.
One is curiously inconsistent. Having created what in the circumstances was a most desirable coldness between Audrey and myself, I ought to have been satisfied. Reason told me that this was the best thing that could have happened. Yet joy was one of the few emotions which I did not feel during the days which followed. My brief moment of clear-headedness had passed, and with it the exhilaration that had produced the letter to Cynthia and the resentment which had helped me to reason calmly with myself on the intrinsic nature of fascination in woman. Once more Audrey became the centre of my world. But our friendship, that elusive thing which had contrived to exist side by side with my love, had vanished. There was a breach between us which widened daily. Soon we hardly spoke.
Nothing, in short, could have been more eminently satisfactory, and the fact that I regretted it is only a proof of the essential weakness of my character.
In those grey days there was one thought, of the many that occupied my mind, which brought with it a certain measure of consolation. It was the reflection that this state of affairs could not last for ever. The school term was drawing to a close. Soon I should be free from the propinquity which paralysed my efforts to fight. I was resolved that the last day of term should end for ever my connection with Sanstead House and all that was in it. Mrs Ford must find some other minion. If her happiness depended on the recovery of the Little Nugget, she must learn to do without happiness, like the rest of the inhabitants of this horrible world.
Meanwhile, however, I held myself to be still on duty. By what tortuous processes of thought I had arrived at the conclusion I do not know, but I considered myself responsible to Audrey for the safeguarding of the Little Nugget, and no altered relations between us could affect my position. Perhaps mixed up with this attitude of mind, was the less altruistic wish to foil Smooth Sam. His continued presence at the school was a challenge to me.
Sam's behaviour puzzled me. I do not know exactly what I expected him to do, but I certainly did not expect him to do nothing. Yet day followed day, and still he made no move. He was the very model of a butler. But our dealings with one another in London had left me vigilant, and his inaction did not disarm me. It sprang from patience, not from any weakening of purpose or despair of success. Sooner or later I knew he would act, swiftly and suddenly, with a plan perfected in every detail.
But when he made his attack it was the very simplicity of his methods that tricked me, and only pure chance defeated him.
I have said that it was the custom of the staff of masters at Sanstead House School—in other words, of every male adult in the house except Mr Fisher himself—to assemble in Mr Abney's study after dinner of an evening to drink coffee. It was a ceremony, like most of the ceremonies at an establishment such as a school, where things are run on a schedule, which knew of no variation. Sometimes Mr Abney would leave us immediately after the ceremony, but he never omitted to take his part in it first.
On this particular evening, for the first time since the beginning of the term, I was seized with a prejudice against coffee. I had been sleeping badly for several nights, and I decided that abstention from coffee might remedy this.
I waited, for form's sake, till Glossop and Mr Abney had filled their cups, then went to my room, where I lay down in the dark to wrestle with a more than usually pronounced fit of depression which had descended upon me. Solitude and darkness struck me as the suitable setting for my thoughts.
At this moment Smooth Sam Fisher had no place in my meditations. My mind was not occupied with him at all. When, therefore, the door, which had been ajar, began to open slowly, I did not become instantly on the alert. Perhaps it was some sound, barely audible, that aroused me from my torpor and set my blood tingling with anticipation. Perhaps it was the way the door was opening. An honest draught does not move a door furtively, in jerks.
I sat up noiseless, tense, and alert. And then, very quietly, somebody entered the room.
There was only one person in Sanstead House who would enter a room like that. I was amused. The impudence of the thing tickled me. It seemed so foreign to Mr Fisher's usual cautious methods. This strolling in and helping oneself was certainly kidnappingde luxe. In the small hours I could have understood it; but at nine o'clock at night, with Glossop, Mr Abney and myself awake and liable to be met at any moment on the stairs, it was absurd. I marvelled at Smooth Sam's effrontery.
I lay still. I imagined that, being in, he would switch on the electric light. He did, and I greeted him pleasantly.
'And what can I do foryou, Mr Fisher?'
For a man who had learned to control himself in difficult situations he took the shock badly. He uttered a startled exclamation and spun round, open-mouthed.
I could not help admiring the quickness with which he recovered himself. Almost immediately he was the suave, chatty Sam Fisher who had unbosomed his theories and dreams to me in the train to London.
'I quit,' he said pleasantly. 'The episode is closed. I am a man of peace, and I take it that you would not keep on lying quietly on that bed while I went into the other room and abstracted our young friend? Unless you have changed your mind again, would a fifty-fifty offer tempt you?'
'Not an inch.'
'Just so. I merely asked.'
'And how about Mr Abney, in any case? Suppose we met him on the stairs?'
'We should not meet him on the stairs,' said Sam confidently. 'You did not take coffee tonight, I gather?'
'I didn't—no. Why?'
He jerked his head resignedly.
'Can you beat it! I ask you, young man, could I have foreseen that, after drinking coffee every night regularly for two months, you would pass it up tonight of all nights? You certainly are my jinx, sonny. You have hung the Indian sign on me all right.'
His words had brought light to me.
'Did you drug the coffee?'
'Did I! I fixed it so that one sip would have an insomnia patientin dreamland before he had time to say "Good night". That stuffRip Van Winkle drank had nothing on my coffee. And all wasted!Well, well!'
He turned towards the door.
'Shall I leave the light on, or would you prefer it off?'
'On please. I might fall asleep in the dark.'
'Not you! And, if you did, you would dream that I was there, and wake up. There are moments, young man, when you bring me pretty near to quitting and taking to honest work.'
He paused.
'But not altogether. I have still a shot or two in my locker. We shall see what we shall see. I am not dead yet. Wait!'
'I will, and some day, when I am walking along Piccadilly, a passing automobile will splash me with mud. A heavily furred plutocrat will stare haughtily at me from the tonneau, and with a start of surprise I shall recognize—'
'Stranger things have happened. Be flip while you can, sonny. You win so far, but this hoodoo of mine can't last for ever.'
He passed from the room with a certain sad dignity. A moment later he reappeared.
'A thought strikes me,' he said. 'The fifty-fifty proposition does not impress you. Would it make things easier if I were to offer my cooperation for a mere quarter of the profit?'
'Not in the least.'
'It's a handsome offer.'
'Wonderfully. I'm afraid I'm not dealing on any terms.'
He left the room, only to return once more. His head appeared, staring at me round the door, in a disembodied way, like the Cheshire Cat.
'You won't say later on I didn't give you your chance?' he said anxiously.
He vanished again, permanently this time. I heard his steps passing down the stairs.
We had now arrived at the last week of term, at the last days of the last week. The holiday spirit was abroad in the school. Among the boys it took the form of increased disorderliness. Boys who had hitherto only made Glossop bellow now made him perspire and tear his hair as well. Boys who had merely spilt ink now broke windows. The Little Nugget abandoned cigarettes in favour of an old clay pipe which he had found in the stables.
As for me, I felt like a spent swimmer who sees the shore almost within his reach. Audrey avoided me when she could, and was frigidly polite when we met. But I suffered less now. A few more days, and I should have done with this phase of my life for ever, and Audrey would once more become a memory.
Complete quiescence marked the deportment of Mr Fisher during these days. He did not attempt to repeat his last effort. The coffee came to the study unmixed with alien drugs. Sam, like lightning, did not strike twice in the same place. He had the artist's soul, and disliked patching up bungled work. If he made another move, it would, I knew, be on entirely fresh lines.
Ignoring the fact that I had had all the luck, I was inclined to be self-satisfied when I thought of Sam. I had pitted my wits against his, and I had won. It was a praiseworthy performance for a man who had done hitherto nothing particular in his life.
If all the copybook maxims which had been drilled into me in my childhood and my early disaster with Audrey had not been sufficient, I ought to have been warned by Sam's advice not to take victory for granted till the fight was over. As Sam had said, his luck would turn sooner or later.
One realizes these truths in theory, but the practical application of them seldom fails to come as a shock. I received mine on the last morning but one of the term.
Shortly after breakfast a message was brought to me that Mr Abney would like to see me in his study. I went without any sense of disaster to come. Most of the business of the school was discussed in the study after breakfast, and I imagined that the matter had to do with some detail of the morrow's exodus.
I found Mr Abney pacing the room, a look of annoyance on his face. At the desk, her back to me, Audrey was writing. It was part of her work to take charge of the business correspondence of the establishment. She did not look round when I came in, nor when Mr Abney spoke my name, but went on writing as if I did not exist.
There was a touch of embarrassment in Mr Abney's manner, for which I could not at first account. He was stately, but with the rather defensive stateliness which marked his announcements that he was about to pop up to London and leave me to do his work. He coughed once or twice before proceeding to the business of the moment.
'Ah, Mr Burns,' he said at length, 'might I ask if your plans for the holidays, the—ah—earlier part of the holidays are settled? No? ah—excellent.'
He produced a letter from the heap of papers on the desk.
'Ah—excellent. That simplifies matters considerably. I have no right to ask what I am about to—ah—in fact ask. I have no claim on your time in the holidays. But, in the circumstances, perhaps you may see your way to doing me a considerable service. I have received a letter from Mr Elmer Ford which puts me in a position of some difficulty. It is not my wish—indeed, it is foreign to my policy—to disoblige the parents of the boys who are entrusted to my—ah—care, and I should like, if possible, to do what Mr Ford asks. It appears that certain business matters call him to the north of England for a few days, this rendering it impossible for him to receive little Ogden tomorrow. It is not my custom to criticize parents who have paid me the compliment of placing their sons at the most malleable and important period of their lives, in my—ah—charge, but I must say that a little longer notice would have been a—in fact, a convenience. But Mr Ford, like so many of his countrymen, is what I believe is called a hustler. He does it now, as the expression is. In short, he wishes to leave little Ogden at the school for the first few days of the holidays, and I should be extremely obliged, Mr Burns, if you should find it possible to stay here and—ah—look after him.'
Audrey stopped writing and turned in her chair, the first intimation she had given that she had heard Mr Abney's remarks.
'It really won't be necessary to trouble Mr Burns,' she said, without looking at me. 'I can take care of Ogden very well by myself.'
'In the case of an—ah—ordinary boy, Mrs Sheridan, I should not hesitate to leave you in sole charge as you have very kindly offered to stay and help me in this matter. But we must recollect not only—I speak frankly—not only the peculiar—ah—disposition of this particular lad, but also the fact that those ruffians who visited the house that night may possibly seize the opportunity to make a fresh attack. I should not feel—ah—justified in thrusting so heavy a responsibility upon you.'
There was reason in what he said. Audrey made no reply. I heard her pen tapping on the desk and deduced her feelings. I, myself, felt like a prisoner who, having filed through the bars of his cell, is removed to another on the eve of escape. I had so braced myself up to endure till the end of term and no longer that this postponement of the day of release had a crushing effect.
Mr Abney coughed and lowered his voice confidentially.
'I would stay myself, but the fact is, I am called to London on very urgent business, and shall be unable to return for a day or so. My late pupil, the—ah—the Earl of Buxton, has been—I can rely on your discretion, Mr Burns—has been in trouble with the authorities at Eton, and his guardian, an old college friend of mine—the—in fact, the Duke of Bessborough, who, rightly or wrongly, places—er—considerable reliance on my advice, is anxious to consult me on the matter. I shall return as soon as possible, but you will readily understand that, in the circumstances, my time will not be my own. I must place myself unreservedly at—ah—Bessborough's disposal.'