第15章

Doctor Lennard glanced at the speaker a little curiously. He had known Julian since he was a boy but had never regarded him as anything but a dilettante.

"You may not know it," he said, "but you are practically expounding the views of that extraordinary writer of whom we were speaking - Paul Fiske."

"I have been told," the Bishop remarked, cracking a walnut, "that Paul Fiske is the pseudonym of a Cabinet Minister."

"And I," Hannaway Wells retorted, "have been informed most credibly that he is a Church of England clergyman."

"The last rumour I heard," Lord Shervinton put in, "was that he is a grocer in a small way of business at Wigan."

"Dear, me!" Doctor Lennard remarked. "The gossips have covered enough ground! A man at a Bohemian club of which I am a member - the Savage Club, in fact - assured me that he was an opium drugged journalist, kept alive by the charity of a few friends; a human wreck, who was once the editor of an important London paper."

"You have some slight connection with journalism, have you not, Julian?" the Earl asked his son condescendingly. "Have you heard no reports?"

"Many," Julian replied, "but none which I have been disposed to credit. I should imagine, myself, that Paul Fiske is a man who believes, having created a public, that his written words find an added value from the fact that he obviously desires neither reward nor recognition; just in the same way as the really earnest democrats of twenty years ago scoffed at the idea of a seat in Parliament, or of breaking bread in anyway with the enemy."

"It was a fine spirit, that," the Bishop declared. "I am not sure that we are not all of us a little over-inclined towards compromises. The sapping away of conscience is so easy."

The dining-room door was thrown open, and the butler announced a visitor.

"Colonel Henderson, your lordship."

They all turned around in their places. The colonel, a fine, military-looking figure of a man, shook hands with Lord Maltenby.

"My most profound apologies, sir," he said, as he accepted a chair. "The Countess was kind enough to say that if I were not able to get away in time for dinner, I might come up afterwards."

"You are sure that you have dined?"

"I had something at Mess, thank you."

"A glass of port, then?"

The Colonel helped himself from the decanter which was passed towards him and exchanged greetings with several of the guests to whom his host introduced him.

"No raids or invasions, I hope, Colonel?" the latter asked.

"Nothing quite so serious as that, I am glad to say. We have had a little excitement of another sort, though. One of my men caught a spy this morning."

Every one was interested. Even after three years of war, there was still something fascinating about the word.

"Dear me!" Lord Maltenby exclaimed. "I should scarcely have considered our out-of-the-way part of the world sufficiently important to attract attentions of that sort."

"It was a matter of communication," the Colonel confided. "There was an enemy submarine off here last night, and we have reason to believe that a message was landed. We caught one fellow just at dawn."

"What did you do with him?" the Bishop asked.

"We shot him an hour ago," was the cool reply.

"Are there any others at large?" Julian enquired, leaning forward.

"One other," the Colonel acknowledged, sipping his wine appreciatively. "My military police here, however, are very intelligent, and I should think it very doubtful whether he can escape."

"Was the man who was shot a foreigner?" the Earl asked. "I trust that he was not one of my tenants?"

"He was a stranger," was the prompt assurance.

"And his companion?" Julian ventured.

"His companion is believed to have been quite a youth. There is a suggestion that he escaped in a motor-car, but he is probably hiding in the neighbourhood."

Lord Maltenby frowned. There seemed to him something incongruous in the fact that a deed of this sort should have been committed in his domain without his knowledge. He rose to his feet.

"The Countess is probably relying upon some of us for bridge," he said. "I hope, Colonel, that you will take a hand."

The men rose and filed slowly out of the room. The Colonel, however, detained his host, and Julian also lingered.

"I hope, Lord Maltenby," the former said, "that you will excuse my men, but they tell me that they find it necessary to search your garage for a car which has been seen in the neighbourhood."

"Search my garage?" Lord Maltenby repeated, frowning.

"There is no doubt," the Colonel explained, "that a car was made use of last night by the man who is still at large, and it is very possible that it was stolen. You will understand, I am sure, that any enquiries which my men may feel it their duty to make are actuated entirely by military necessity."

"Quite so," the Earl acceded, still a little puzzled. "You will find my head chauffeur a most responsible man. He will, I am sure, give them every possible information. So far as I am aware, however, there is no strange car in the garage. Do you know of any, Julian?"

"Only Miss Abbeway's," his son replied. "Her little Panhard was out in the avenue all night, waiting for her to put some plugs in.

Every one else seems to have come by train."

The Colonel raised his eyebrows very slightly and moved slowly towards the door.

"The matter is in the hands of my police," he said, "but if you could excuse me for half a moment, Lord Maltenby, I should like to speak to your head chauffeur."

"By all means," the Earl replied. "I will take you round to the garage myself."