'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.
II
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.'
He pressed the bell.
'In the event of your observing any suspicious characters in the neighbourhood, you have the telephone and can instantly communicate with the police. And you will have the assistance of—'
The door opened and Smooth Sam Fisher entered.
'You rang, sir?'
'Ah! Come in, White, and close the door. I have something to say to you. I have just been informing Mr Burns that Mr Ford has written asking me to allow his son to stay on at the school for the first few days of the vacation.'
He turned to Audrey.
'You will doubtless be surprised, Mrs Sheridan, and possibly—ah— somewhat startled, to learn the peculiar nature of White's position at Sanstead House. You have no objection to my informing Mrs Sheridan, White, in consideration of the fact that you will be working together in this matter? Just so. White is a detective in the employment of Pinkerton's Agency. Mr Ford'—a slight frown appeared on his lofty brow—'Mr Ford obtained his present situation for him in order that he might protect his son in the event of—ah—in fact, any attempt to remove him.'
I saw Audrey start. A quick flush came into her face. She uttered a little exclamation of astonishment.
'Just so,' said Mr Abney, by way of comment on this. 'You are naturally surprised. The whole arrangement is excessively unusual, and, I may say—ah—disturbing. However, you have your duty to fulfil to your employer, White, and you will, of course, remain here with the boy.'
'Yes, sir.'
I found myself looking into a bright brown eye that gleamed with genial triumph. The other was closed. In the exuberance of the moment, Smooth Sam had had the bad taste to wink at me.
'You will have Mr Burns to help you, White. He has kindly consented to postpone his departure during the short period in which I shall be compelled to be absent.'
I had no recollection of having given any kind consent, but I was very willing to have it assumed, and I was glad to see that Mr Fisher, though Mr Abney did not observe it, was visibly taken aback by this piece of information. But he made one of his swift recoveries.
'It is very kind of Mr Burns,' he said in his fruitiest voice, 'but I hardly think it will be necessary to put him to the inconvenience of altering his plans. I am sure that Mr Ford would prefer the entire charge of the affair to be in my hands.'
He had not chosen a happy moment for the introduction of the millionaire's name. Mr Abney was a man of method, who hated any dislocation of the fixed routine of life; and Mr Ford's letter had upset him. The Ford family, father and son, were just then extremely unpopular with him.
He crushed Sam.
'What Mr Ford would or would not prefer is, in this particular matter, beside the point. The responsibility for the boy, while he remains on the school premises, is—ah—mine, and I shall take such precautions as seem fit and adequate to—him—myself, irrespective of those which, in your opinion, might suggest themselves to Mr Ford. As I cannot be here myself, owing to—ah—urgent business in London, I shall certainly take advantage of Mr Burns's kind offer to remain as my deputy.'
He paused and blew his nose, his invariable custom after these occasional outbursts of his. Sam had not wilted beneath the storm. He waited, unmoved, till all was over:
'I am afraid I shall have to be more explicit,' he said: 'I had hoped to avoid scandal and unpleasantness, but I see it is impossible.'
Mr Abney's astonished face emerged slowly from behind his handkerchief.
'I quite agree with you, sir, that somebody should be here to help me look after the boy, but not Mr Burns. I am sorry to have to say it, but I do not trust Mr Burns.'
Mr Abney's look of astonishment deepened. I, too, was surprised. It was so unlike Sam to fling away his chances on a blundering attack like this.
'What do you mean?' demanded Mr Abney.
'Mr Burns is after the boy himself. He came to kidnap him.'
Mr Abney, as he had every excuse for doing, grunted with amazement. I achieved the ringing laugh of amused innocence. It was beyond me to fathom Sam's mind. He could not suppose that any credence would be given to his wild assertion. It seemed to me that disappointment had caused him momentarily to lose his head.
'Are you mad, White?'
'No, sir. I can prove what I say.
For an instant an uneasy thought came to me that he might have something in reserve, something unknown to me, which had encouraged him to this direct attack. I dismissed the notion. There could be nothing.
Mr Abney had turned to me with a look of hopeless bewilderment. I raised my eyebrows.
'Ridiculous,' I said.
That this was the only comment seemed to be Mr Abney's view. He turned on Sam with the pettish anger of the mild man.
'What do you mean, White, by coming to me with such a preposterous story?'
'I don't say Mr Burns wished to kidnap the boy in the ordinary way,' said Sam imperturbably, 'like those men who came that night. He had a special reason. Mr and Mrs Ford, as of course you know, sir, are divorced. Mr Burns was trying to get the boy away and take him back to his mother.'
 Mr Abney's anger became modified by a touch of doubt. I could see that these words, by lifting the accusation from the wholly absurd to the somewhat plausible, had impressed him. Once again I was gripped by the uneasy feeling that Sam had an unsuspected card to play. This might be bluff, but it had a sinister ring.
'You might say,' went on Sam smoothly, 'that this was creditable to Mr Burns's heart. But, from my employer's viewpoint and yours, too, it was a chivalrous impulse that needed to be checked. Will you please read this, sir?'
He handed a letter to Mr Abney, who adjusted his glasses and began to read—at first in a detached, judicial way, then with startled eagerness.
'I felt it necessary to search among Mr Burns's papers, sir, in the hope of finding—'
And then I knew what he had found. From the first the blue-grey notepaper had had a familiar look. I recognized it now. It was Cynthia's letter, that damning document which I had been mad enough to read to him in London. His prediction that the luck would change had come amazingly true.
I caught Sam's eye. For the second time he was unfeeling enough to wink. It was a rich, comprehensive wink, as expressive and joyous as a college yell.
Mr Abney had absorbed the letter and was struggling for speech. I could appreciate his emotion. If he had not actually been nurturing a viper in his bosom, he had come, from his point of view, very near it. Of all men, a schoolmaster necessarily looks with the heartiest dislike on the would-be kidnapper.
As for me, my mind was in a whirl. I was entirely without a plan, without the very beginnings of a plan, to help me cope with this appalling situation. I was crushed by a sense of the utter helplessness of my position. To denounce Sam was impossible; to explain my comparative innocence was equally out of the question. The suddenness of the onslaught had deprived me of the power of coherent thought. I was routed.
Mr Abney was speaking.
'Is your name Peter, Mr Burns?'
I nodded. Speech was beyond me.
'This letter is written by—ah—by a lady. It asks you in set terms to—ah—hasten to kidnap Ogden Ford. Do you wish me to read it to you? Or do you confess to knowing its contents?'
He waited for a reply. I had none to make.
'You do not deny that you came to Sanstead House for the deliberate purpose of kidnapping Ogden Ford?'
I had nothing to say. I caught a glimpse of Audrey's face, cold and hard, and shifted my eyes quickly. Mr Abney gulped. His face wore the reproachful expression of a cod-fish when jerked out of the water on the end of a line. He stared at me with pained repulsion. That scoundrelly old buccaneer Sam did the same. He looked like a shocked bishop.
'I—ah—trusted you implicitly,' said Mr Abney.
Sam wagged his head at me reproachfully. With a flicker of spirit I glared at him. He only wagged the more.
It was, I think, the blackest moment of my life. A wild desire for escape on any terms surged over me. That look on Audrey's face was biting into my brain like an acid.
'I will go and pack,' I said.
'This is the end of all things,' I said to myself.
I had suspended my packing in order to sit on my bed and brood. I was utterly depressed. There are crises in a man's life when Reason fails to bring the slightest consolation. In vain I tried to tell myself that what had happened was, in essence, precisely what, twenty-four hours ago, I was so eager to bring about. It amounted to this, that now, at last, Audrey had definitely gone out of my life. From now on I could have no relations with her of any sort. Was not this exactly what, twenty-four hours ago, I had wished? Twenty-four hours ago had I not said to myself that I would go away and never see her again? Undoubtedly. Nevertheless, I sat there and groaned in spirit.
It was the end of all things.
A mild voice interrupted my meditations.
'Can I help?'
Sam was standing in the doorway, beaming on me with invincible good-humour.
'You are handling them wrong. Allow me. A moment more and you would have ruined the crease.'
I became aware of a pair of trousers hanging limply in my grasp. He took them from me, and, folding them neatly, placed them in my trunk.
'Don't get all worked up about it, sonny,' he said. 'It's the fortune of war. Besides, what does it matter to you? Judging by that very snug apartment in London, you have quite enough money for a young man. Losing your job here won't break you. And, if you're worrying about Mrs Ford and her feelings, don't! I guess she's probably forgotten all about the Nugget by this time. So cheer up. You're all right!'
He stretched out a hand to pat me on the shoulder, then thought better of it and drew it back.
'Think of my happiness, if you want something to make you feel good. Believe me, young man, it's some. I could sing! Gee, when I think that it's all plain sailing now and no more troubles, I could dance! You don't know what it means to me, putting through this deal. I wish you knew Mary! That's her name. You must come and visit us, sonny, when we're fixed up in the home. There'll always be a knife and fork for you. We'll make you one of the family! Lord! I can see the place as plain as I can see you. Nice frame house with a good porch.... Me in a rocker in my shirt-sleeves, smoking a cigar and reading the baseball news; Mary in another rocker, mending my socks and nursing the cat! We'll sure have a cat. Two cats. I like cats. And a goat in the front garden. Say, it'll be great!'

There is a limit. I bounded to my feet.
'Get out!' I yelped. 'Get out of here!'
'Sure,' he replied agreeably. He rose without haste and regarded me compassionately. 'Cheer up, son! Be a sport!'
There are moments when the best of men become melodramatic. I offer this as excuse for my next observation.
Clenching my fists and glaring at him, I cried, 'I'll foil you yet, you hound!'
Some people have no soul for the dramatic. He smiled tolerantly.
'Sure,' he said. 'Anything you like, Desperate Desmond. Enjoy yourself!'
And he left me.
I evacuated Sanstead House unostentatiously, setting off on foot down the long drive. My luggage, I gathered, was to follow me to the station in a cart. I was thankful to Providence for the small mercy that the boys were in their classrooms and consequently unable to ask me questions. Augustus Beckford alone would have handled the subject of my premature exit in a manner calculated to bleach my hair.
It was a wonderful morning. The sky was an unclouded blue, and a fresh breeze was blowing in from the sea. I think that something of the exhilaration of approaching spring must have stirred me, for quite suddenly the dull depression with which I had started my walk left me, and I found myself alert and full of schemes.
Why should I feebly withdraw from the struggle? Why should I give in to Smooth Sam in this tame way? The memory of that wink came back to me with a tonic effect. I would show him that I was still a factor in the game. If the house was closed to me, was there not the 'Feathers'? I could lie in hiding there, and observe his movements unseen.
I stopped on reaching the inn, and was on the point of entering and taking up my position at once, when it occurred to me that this would be a false move. It was possible that Sam would not take my departure for granted so readily as I assumed. It was Sam's way to do a thing thoroughly, and the probability was that, if he did not actually come to see me off, he would at least make inquiries at the station to find out if I had gone. I walked on.
He was not at the station. Nor did he arrive in the cart with my trunk. But I was resolved to risk nothing. I bought a ticket for London, and boarded the London train. It had been my intention to leave it at Guildford and catch an afternoon train back to Stanstead; but it seemed to me, on reflection, that this was unnecessary. There was no likelihood of Sam making any move in the matter of the Nugget until the following day. I could take my time about returning.
I spent the night in London, and arrived at Sanstead by an early morning train with a suit-case containing, among other things, a Browning pistol. I was a little ashamed of this purchase. To the Buck MacGinnis type of man, I suppose, a pistol is as commonplace a possession as a pair of shoes, but I blushed as I entered the gun-shop. If it had been Buck with whom I was about to deal, I should have felt less self-conscious. But there was something about Sam which made pistols ridiculous.
My first act, after engaging a room at the inn and leaving my suit-case, was to walk to the school. Before doing anything else, I felt I must see Audrey and tell her the facts in the case of Smooth Sam. If she were on her guard, my assistance might not be needed. But her present state of trust in him was fatal.
A school, when the boys are away, is a lonely place. The deserted air of the grounds, as I slipped cautiously through the trees, was almost eerie. A stillness brooded over everything, as if the place had been laid under a spell. Never before had I been so impressed with the isolation of Sanstead House. Anything might happen in this lonely spot, and the world would go on its way in ignorance. It was with quite distinct relief that, as I drew nearer the house, I caught sight of the wire of the telephone among the trees above my head. It had a practical, comforting look.
A tradesman's cart rattled up the drive and disappeared round the side of the house. This reminder, also, of the outside world was pleasant. But I could not rid myself of the feeling that the atmosphere of the place was sinister. I attributed it to the fact that I was a spy in an enemy's country. I had to see without being seen. I did not imagine that Johnson, grocer, who had just passed in his cart, found anything wrong with the atmosphere. It was created for me by my own furtive attitude.
Of Audrey and Ogden there were no signs. That they were out somewhere in the grounds this mellow spring morning I took for granted; but I could not make an extended search. Already I had come nearer to the house than was prudent.
My eye caught the telephone wire again and an idea came to me. I would call her up from the inn and ask her to meet me. There was the risk that the call would be answered by Smooth Sam, but it was not great. Sam, unless he had thrown off his role of butler completely—which would be unlike the artist that he was—would be in the housekeeper's room, and the ringing of the telephone, which was in the study, would not penetrate to him.
I chose a moment when dinner was likely to be over and Audrey might be expected to be in the drawing-room.
I had deduced her movements correctly. It was her voice that answered the call.
'This is Peter Burns speaking.'
There was a perceptible pause before she replied. When she did, her voice was cold.
'Yes?'
'I want to speak to you on a matter of urgent importance.'
'Well?'
'I can't do it through the telephone. Will you meet me in half an hour's time at the gate?'
'Where are you speaking from?'
'The “Feathers”. I am staying there.'
'I thought you were in London.'
'I came back. Will you meet me?'
She hesitated.
'Why?'
'Because I have something important to say to you—important to you.'
There was another pause.
'Very well.'
'In half an hour, then. Is Ogden Ford in bed?'
'Yes.'
'Is his door locked?'
'No.'
'Then lock it and bring the key with you.'
'Why?'
'I will tell you when we meet.'
'I will bring it.'
'Thank you. Good-bye.'
I hung up the receiver and set out at once for the school.
She was waiting in the road, a small, indistinct figure in the darkness.
'Is that you—Peter?'
Her voice had hesitated at the name, as if at some obstacle. It was a trivial thing, but, in my present mood, it stung me.
'I'm afraid I'm late. I won't keep you long. Shall we walk down the road? You may not have been followed, but it is as well to be on the safe side.'
'Followed? I don't understand.'
We walked a few paces and halted.
'Who would follow me?'
'A very eminent person of the name of Smooth Sam Fisher.'
'Smooth Sam Fisher?'
'Better known to you as White.'
'I don't understand.'
'I should be surprised if you did. I asked you to meet me here so that I could make you understand. The man who poses as a Pinkerton's detective, and is staying in the house to help you take care of Ogden Ford, is Smooth Sam Fisher, a professional kidnapper.'
'But—but—'
'But what proof have I? Was that what you were going to say? None. But I had the information from the man himself. He told me in the train that night going to London.'
She spoke quickly. I knew from her tone that she thought she had detected a flaw in my story.
'Why did he tell you?'
'Because he needed me as an accomplice. He wanted my help. It was I who got Ogden away that day. Sam overheard me giving money and directions to him, telling him how to get away from the school and where to go, and he gathered—correctly—that I was in the same line of business as himself. He suggested a partnership which I was unable to accept.'
'Why?'
'Our objects were different. My motive in kidnapping Ogden was not to extract a ransom.'
She blazed out at me in an absolutely unexpected manner. Till now she had listened so calmly and asked her questions with such a notable absence of emotion that the outburst overwhelmed me.
'Oh, I know what your motive was. There is no need to explain that. Isn't there any depth to which a man who thinks himself in love won't stoop?  A woman of her sort can trick a man into whatever meanness she pleases, and, just because she asks him, he thinks himself a kind of knight-errant. I suppose she told you that he had ill-treated her and didn't appreciate her higher self, and all that sort of thing?  The woman who sent you here to steal Ogden. The woman who wrote you that letter.'
'She did not write that letter. But never mind that. The reason why I wanted you to come here was to warn you against Sam Fisher. That was all. If there is any way in which I can help you, send for me. If you like, I will come and stay at the house till Mr Abney returns.'
Before the words were out of my mouth, I saw that I had made a mistake. The balance of her mind was poised between suspicion and belief, and my offer turned the scale.
'No, thank you,' she said curtly.
'You don't trust me?'
'Why should I? White may or may not be Sam Fisher. I shall be on my guard, and I thank you for telling me. But why should I trust you? It all hangs together.  You come here on an errand which no man would undertake except for a woman, and a woman with whom he was very much in love. There is that letter, imploring you to steal the boy.  Why should I trust you?'
'There is this. You forget that I had the opportunity to steal Ogden if I had wanted to. I had got him away to London. But I brought him back. I did it because you had told me what it meant to you.'
She hesitated, but only for an instant. Suspicion was too strong for her.
'I don't believe you.  Why should you have done it because of me? Why should you have put my interests before Mrs Ford's? I am nothing to you.'
For a moment a mad impulse seized me to cast away all restraint, to pour out the unspoken words that danced like imps in my brain, to make her understand, whatever the cost, my feelings towards her. But the thought of my letter to Cynthia checked me. That letter had been the irrevocable step. If I was to preserve a shred of self-respect I must be silent.
'Very well,' I said, 'good night.' And I turned to go.
'Peter!'
There was something in her voice which whirled me round, thrilling, despite my resolution.
'Are you going?'
Weakness would now be my undoing. I steadied myself and answered abruptly.
'I have said all I came to say. Good night.'
I turned once more and walked quickly off towards the village. I came near to running. I was in the mood when flight alone can save a man. She did not speak again, and soon I was out of danger, hurrying on through the friendly darkness, beyond the reach of her voice.
The bright light from the doorway of the 'Feathers', was the only illumination that relieved the blackness of the Market Square. As I approached, a man came out and stopped in the entrance to light a cigar. His back was turned towards me as he crouched to protect the match from the breeze, but something in his appearance seemed familiar.
I had only a glimpse of him as he straightened himself and walked out of the pool of light into the Square, but it was enough.
It was my much-enduring acquaintance, Mr Buck MacGinnis.
I
At the receipt of custom behind the bar sat Miss Benjafield, stately as ever, relaxing her massive mind over a penny novelette.
'Who was the man who just left, Miss Benjafield?' I asked.
She marked the place with a shapely thumb and looked up.
'The man? Oh, him! He's—why, weren't you in here, Mr Burns, one evening in January when—'
'That American?'
'That's him. What he's doing here I don't know. He disappeared quite a while back, and I haven't seen him since. Nor want.  I'd like to know what he's after. No good, if you ask me.'
Miss Benjafield's prejudices did not easily dissolve. She prided herself, as she frequently observed, on knowing her own mind.
'Is he staying here?'
'Not at the “Feathers”. We're particular who we have here.'
I thanked her for the implied compliment, ordered beer for the good of the house, and, lighting a pipe, sat down to meditate on this new development.
The vultures were gathered together with a vengeance. Sam within, Buck without, it was quite like old times, with the difference that now, I, too, was on the wrong side of the school door.
It was not hard to account for Buck's reappearance. He would, of course, have made it his business to get early information of Mr Ford's movements. It would be easy for him to discover that the millionaire had been called away to the north and that the Nugget was still an inmate of Sanstead House. And here he was preparing for the grand attack.
I had been premature in removing Buck's name from the list of active combatants. Broken legs mend. I ought to have remembered that.
His presence on the scene made, I perceived, a vast difference to my plan of campaign. It was at this point that my purchase of the Browning pistol lost its absurdity and appeared in the light of an acute strategic move. With Sam the only menace, I had been prepared to play a purely waiting game, watching proceedings from afar, ready to give my help if necessary. To check Buck, more strenuous methods were called for.
My mind was made up. With Buck, that stout disciple of the frontal attack, in the field, there was only one place for me. I must get into Sanstead House and stay there on guard.
Did he intend to make an offensive movement tonight? That was the question which occupied my mind. From the point of view of an opponent, there was this merit about Mr MacGinnis, that he was not subtle. He could be counted on with fair certainty to do the direct thing. Sooner or later he would make another of his vigorous frontal attacks upon the stronghold. The only point to be decided was whether he would make it that night. Would professional zeal cause him to omit his beauty sleep?
I did not relish the idea of spending the night patrolling the grounds, but it was imperative that the house be protected. Then it occurred to me that the man for the vigil was Smooth Sam. If the arrival of Mr MacGinnis had complicated matters in one way, it had simplified them in another, for there was no more need for the secrecy which had been, till now, the basis of my plan of action. Buck's arrival made it possible for me to come out and fight in the open, instead of brooding over Sanstead House from afar like a Providence. Tomorrow I proposed to turn Sam out. Tonight I would use him. The thing had resolved itself into a triangular tournament, and Sam and Buck should play the first game.
Once more I called up the house on the telephone. There was a long delay before a reply came. It was Mr Fisher's voice that spoke. Audrey, apparently, had not returned to the house immediately after leaving me.
'Hullo!' said Sam.
'Good evening, Mr Fisher.'
'Gee! Is that you, young fellow-me-lad? Are you speaking from London?'
'No. I am at the “Feathers”.'
He chuckled richly.
'Can't tear yourself away? Hat still in the ring? Say, what's the use? Why not turn it up, sonny? You're only wasting your time.'
'Do you sleep lightly, Mr Fisher?'
'I don't get you.'
'You had better do so tonight. Buck MacGinnis is back again.'
There was silence at the other end of the wire. Then I heard him swear softly. The significance of the information had not been lost on Mr Fisher.
'Is that straight?'
'It is.'
'You're not stringing me?'
'Certainly not.'
'You're sure it was Buck?'
'Is Buck's the sort of face one forgets?'
He swore again.
'You seem disturbed,' I said.
'Where did you see him?' asked Sam.
'Coming out of the “Feathers", looking very fierce and determined. The Berserk blood of the MacGinnises is up.  I'm afraid this means an all-night sitting for you, Mr Fisher.'
'I thought you had put him out of business!'
There was a somewhat querulous note in his voice.
'Only temporarily. I did my best, but he wasn't even limping when I saw him.'
He did not speak for a moment. I gathered that he was pondering over the new development.
'Thanks for tipping me off, sonny. It's a thing worth knowing. Why did you do it?'
'Because I love you, Samuel. Good night.'
I rose late and breakfasted at my leisure. The peace of the English country inn enveloped me as I tilted back my chair and smoked the first pipe of the morning. It was a day to hearten a man for great deeds, one of those days of premature summer which comes sometimes to help us bear the chill winds of early spring. The sun streamed in through the open window. In the yard below fowls made their soothing music. The thought of violence seemed very alien to such a morning.
I strolled out into the Square. I was in no hurry to end this interlude of peace and embark on what, for all practical purposes, would be a siege.
After lunch, I decided, would be time enough to begin active campaigning.
The clock on the church tower was striking two as I set forth, carrying my suit-case, on my way to the school. The light-heartedness of the morning still lingered with me. I was amused at the thought of the surprise I was about to give Mr Fisher. That wink still rankled.
As I made my way through the grounds I saw Audrey in the distance, walking with the Nugget. I avoided them and went on into the house.
About the house there was the same air of enchanted quiet which pervaded the grounds. Perhaps the stillness indoors was even more insistent. I had grown so accustomed to the never-ending noise and bustle of the boys' quarters that, as I crossed the silent hall, I had an almost guilty sense of intrusion. I felt like a burglar.
Sam, the object of my visit, would, I imagined, if he were in the house at all, be in the housekeeper's room, a cosy little apartment off the passage leading to the kitchen. I decided to draw that first, and was rewarded, on pushing open the half-closed door, by the sight of a pair of black-trousered legs stretched out before me from the depths of a wicker-work armchair. His portly middle section, rising beyond like a small hill, heaved rhythmically. His face was covered with a silk handkerchief, from beneath which came, in even succession, faint and comfortable snores. It was a peaceful picture—the good man taking his rest; and for me it had an added attractiveness in that it suggested that Sam was doing by day what my information had prevented him from doing in the night. It had been some small consolation to me, as I lay trying to compose my anxious mind for sleep on the previous night, that Mr Fisher also was keeping his vigil.
Pleasing as Sam was as a study in still life, pressure of business compelled me to stir him into activity. I prodded him gently in the centre of the rising territory beyond the black trousers. He grunted discontentedly and sat up. The handkerchief fell from his face, and he blinked at me, first with the dazed glassiness of the newly awakened, then with a 'Soul's Awakening' expression, which spread over his face until it melted into a friendly smile.
'Hello, young man!'
'Good afternoon. You seem tired.'
He yawned cavernously.
'Lord! What a night!'
'Did Buck drop in?'
'No, but I thought he had every time I heard a board creak. I didn't dare close my eyes for a minute. Have you ever stayed awake all night, waiting for the goblins that get you if you don't watch out? Well, take it from me it's no picnic.'
His face split in another mammoth yawn. He threw his heart into it, as if life held no other tasks for him. Only in alligators have I ever seen its equal.
I waited till the seismic upheaval had spent itself. Then I came to business.
'I'm sorry you had a disturbed night, Mr Fisher. You must make up for it this afternoon. You will find the beds very comfortable.'
'How's that?'
'At the “Feathers”. I should go there, if I were you. The charges are quite reasonable, and the food is good. You will like the “Feathers”.'
'I don't get you, sonny.'
'I was trying to break it gently to you that you are about to move from this house. Now. At once. Take your last glimpse of the old home, Sam, and out into the hard world.'
He looked at me inquiringly.
'You seem to be talking, young man; words appear to be fluttering from you; but your meaning, if any, escapes me.'
'My meaning is that I am about to turn you out. I am coming back here, and there is not room for both of us. So, if you do not see your way to going quietly, I shall take you by the back of the neck and run you out. Do I make myself fairly clear now?'
He permitted himself a rich chuckle.
'You have gall, young man. Well, I hate to seem unfriendly.  You amuse me—but there are moments when one wants to be alone. I have a whole heap of arrears of sleep to make up. Trot along, kiddo, and quit disturbing uncle. Tie a string to yourself and disappear. Bye-bye.'
The wicker-work creaked as he settled his stout body. He picked up the handkerchief.
'Mr Fisher,' I said, 'I have no wish to propel your grey hairs at a rapid run down the drive, so I will explain further. I am physically stronger than you. I mean to turn you out. How can you prevent it? Mr Abney is away. You can't appeal to him. The police are at the end of the telephone, but you can't appeal to them. So what can you do, except go? Do you get me now?'
He regarded the situation in thoughtful silence. He allowed no emotion to find expression in his face, but I knew that the significance of my remarks had sunk in. I could almost follow his mind as he tested my position point by point and found it impregnable.
When he spoke it was to accept defeat jauntily.
'You are my jinx, young man. I said it all along. You're really set on my going? Say no more. I'll go. After all, it's quiet at the inn, and what more does a man want at my time of life?'
I went out into the garden to interview Audrey.
She was walking up and down on the tennis-lawn. The Nugget, lounging in a deck-chair, appeared to be asleep.
She caught sight of me as I came out from the belt of trees, and stopped. I had the trying experience of walking across open country under hostile observation.
The routing of Sam had left me alert and self-confident. I felt no embarrassment. I greeted her briskly.
'Good afternoon. I have been talking to Sam Fisher. If you wait, you will see him passing away down the drive. He is leaving the house. I am coming back.'
'Coming back?'
She spoke incredulously, or, rather, as if my words had conveyed no meaning. It was so that Sam had spoken. Her mind, like his, took time to adjust itself to the unexpected.
She seemed to awake to my meaning with a start.
'Coming back?' Her eyes widened. The flush deepened on her cheeks. 'But I told you—'
'I know what you told me. You said you did not trust me. It doesn't matter. I am coming back whether you trust me or not. This house is under martial law, and I am in command. The situation has changed since I spoke to you last night. Last night I was ready to let you have your way. I intended to keep an eye on things from the inn. But it's different now. It is not a case of Sam Fisher any longer. You could have managed Sam. It's Buck MacGinnis now, the man who came that night in the automobile. I saw him in the village after I left you. He's dangerous.'
She looked away, past me, in the direction of the drive. I followed her gaze. A stout figure, carrying a suit-case, was moving slowly down it.
I smiled. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the anger that had been lying at the back of them flash out. Her chin went up with the old defiant tilt. I was sorry I had smiled. It was my old fault, the complacency that would not be hidden.
'I don't believe you!' she cried. 'I don't trust you!'
It is curious how one's motive for embarking on a course of conduct changes or disappears altogether as the action develops. Once started on an enterprise it is as if one proceeded with it automatically, irrespective of one's original motives. I had begun what I might call the second phase of this matter of the Little Nugget, the abandoning of Cynthia's cause in favour of Audrey's, with a clear idea of why I was doing it. I had set myself to resist the various forces which were trying to take Ogden from Audrey, for one simple reason, because I loved Audrey and wished to help her. That motive, if it still existed at all, did so only in the form of abstract chivalry. My personal feelings towards her seemed to have undergone a complete change, dating from our parting in the road the night before. I found myself now meeting hostility with hostility. I looked at her critically and told myself that her spell was broken at last, that, if she disliked me, I was at least indifferent to her.
And yet, despite my altered feelings, my determination to help her never wavered. The guarding of Ogden might be—primarily—no business of mine, but I had adopted it as my business.
'I don't ask you to trust me,' I said. 'We have settled all that. There's no need to go over old ground. Think what you please about this. I've made up my mind.'
'If you mean to stay, I suppose I can't prevent you.'
'Exactly.'
Sam appeared again in a gap in the trees, walking slowly and pensively, as one retreating from his Moscow. Her eyes followed him till he was out of sight.
'If you like,' I said bitterly, 'you may put what I am doing down to professional rivalry. If I am in love with Mrs Ford and am here to steal Ogden for her, it is natural for me to do all I can to prevent Buck MacGinnis getting him. There is no need for you to look on me as an ally because we are working together.'
'We are not working together.'
'We shall be in a very short time. Buck will not let another night go by without doing something.'
'I don't believe that you saw him.'
'Just as you please,' I said, and walked away. What did it matter to me what she believed?
The day dragged on. Towards evening the weather broke suddenly, after the fashion of spring in England. Showers of rain drove me to the study.
It must have been nearly ten o'clock when the telephone rang.
It was Mr Fisher.
'Hello, is that you, sonny?'
'It is. Do you want anything?'
'I want a talk with you. Business. Can I come up?'
'If you wish it.'
'I'll start right away.'
It was some fifteen minutes later that I heard in the distance the engines of an automobile. The headlights gleamed through the trees, and presently the car swept round the bend of the drive and drew up at the front door. A portly figure got down and rang the bell. I observed these things from a window on the first floor, overlooking the front steps; and it was from this window that I spoke.
'Is that you, Mr Fisher?'
He backed away from the door.
'Where are you?'
'Is that your car?'
'It belongs to a friend of mine.'
'I didn't know you meant to bring a party.'
'There's only three of us. Me, the chauffeur, and my friend—MacGinnis.'
The possibility, indeed the probability, of Sam seeking out Buck and forming an alliance had occurred to me, and I was prepared for it. I shifted my grip on the automatic pistol in my hand.
'Mr Fisher.'
'Hello!'
'Ask your friend MacGinnis to be good enough to step into the light of that lamp and drop his gun.'
There was a muttered conversation. I heard Buck's voice rumbling like a train going under a bridge. The request did not appear to find favour with him. Then came an interlude of soothing speech from Mr Fisher. I could not distinguish the words, but I gathered that he was pointing out to him that, on this occasion only, the visit being for the purposes of parley and not of attack, pistols might be looked on as non-essentials. Whatever his arguments, they were successful, for, finally, humped as to the back and muttering, Buck moved into the light.
'Good evening, Mr MacGinnis,' I said. 'I'm glad to see your leg is all right again. I won't detain you a moment. Just feel in your pockets and shed a few of your guns, and then you can come in out of the rain. To prevent any misunderstanding, I may say I have a gun of my own.  This is no time for airy persiflage. Out with them.'

'No more?'
'Think I'm a regiment?'
'I don't know what you are. Well, I'll take your word for it. You will come in one by one, with your hands up.'
I went down and opened the door, holding my pistol in readiness against the unexpected.
II
Sam came first. His raised hands gave him a vaguely pontifical air (Bishop Blessing Pilgrims), and the kindly smile he wore heightened the illusion. Mr MacGinnis, who followed, suggested no such idea. He was muttering moodily to himself, and he eyed me askance.
I showed them into the classroom and switched on the light. The air was full of many odours. Disuse seems to bring out the inky-chalky, appley-deal-boardy bouquet of a classroom as the night brings out the scent of flowers. During the term I had never known this classroom smell so exactly like a classroom. I made use of my free hand to secure and light a cigarette.
Sam rose to a point of order.
'Young man,' he said. I should like to remind you that we are here, as it were, under a flag of truce. To pull a gun on us and keep us holding our hands up this way is raw work. I feel sure I speak for my friend Mr MacGinnis.'
He cocked an eye at his friend Mr MacGinnis, who seconded the motion by expectorating into the fireplace. I had observed at a previous interview his peculiar gift for laying bare his soul by this means of mode of expression. A man of silent habit, judged by the more conventional standard of words, he was almost an orator in expectoration.
'Mr MacGinnis agrees with me,' said Sam cheerfully. 'Do we take them down? Have we your permission to assume Position Two of these Swedish exercises? All we came for was a little friendly chat among gentlemen, and we can talk just as well—speaking for myself, better—in a less strained attitude. A little rest, Mr Burns! A little folding of the hands? Thank you.'
He did not wait for permission, nor was it necessary. Sam and the melodramatic atmosphere was as oil and water. It was impossible to blend them. I laid the pistol on the table and sat down. Buck, after one wistful glance at the weapon, did the same. Sam was already seated, and was looking so cosy and at home that I almost felt it remiss of me not to have provided sherry and cake for this pleasant gathering.
'Well,' I said, 'what can I do for you?'
'Let me explain,' said Sam. 'As you have, no doubt, gathered, Mr MacGinnis and I have gone into partnership. The Little Nugget Combine!'
'I gathered that—well?'
'Judicious partnerships are the soul of business. Mr MacGinnis and I have been rivals in the past, but we both saw that the moment had come for the genial smile, the hearty handshake, in fact, for an alliance. We form a strong team, sonny. My partner's speciality is action. I supply the strategy. Say, can't you see you're up against it? Why be foolish?'
'You think you're certain to win?'
'It's a cinch.'
'Then why trouble to come here and see me?'
I appeared to have put into words the smouldering thought which was vexing Mr MacGinnis. He burst into speech.
'Ahr chee! Sure! What's de use? Didn't I tell youse? What's de use of wastin' time? What are we spielin' away here for? Let's get busy.'
Sam waved a hand towards him with the air of a lecturer making a point.
'You see! The man of action! He likes trouble. He asks for it. He eats it alive. Now I prefer peace. Why have a fuss when you can get what you want quietly? That's my motto. That's why we've come. It's the old proposition. We're here to buy you out. Yes, I know you have turned the offer down before, but things have changed. Your stock has fallen. In fact, instead of letting you in on sharing terms, we only feel justified now in offering a commission. For the moment you may seem to hold a strong position. You are in the house, and you've got the boy. But there's nothing to it really. We could get him in five minutes if we cared to risk having a fuss. But it seems to me there's no need of any fuss. We should win dead easy all right, if it came to trouble; but, on the other hand, you've a gun, and there's a chance some of us might get hurt, so what's the good when we can settle it quietly? How about it, sonny?'
Mr MacGinnis began to rumble, preparatory to making further remarks on the situation, but Sam waved him down and turned his brown eyes inquiringly on me.
'Fifteen per cent is our offer,' he said.
'And to think it was once fifty-fifty!'
'Strict business!'
'Business? It's sweating!'
'It's our limit. And it wasn't easy to make Buck here agree to that. He kicked like a mule.'
Buck shuffled his feet and eyed me disagreeably. I suppose it is hard to think kindly of a man who has broken your leg. It was plain that, with Mr MacGinnis, bygones were by no means bygones.
I rose.
'Well, I'm sorry you should have had the trouble of coming here for nothing. Let me see you out. Single file, please.'
Sam looked aggrieved.
'You turn it down?'
'I do.'
'One moment. Let's have this thing clear. Do you realize what you're up against? Don't think it's only Buck and me you've got to tackle. All the boys are here, waiting round the corner, the same gang that came the other night. Be sensible, sonny. You don't stand a dog's chance. I shouldn't like to see you get hurt. And you never know what may not happen. The boys are pretty sore at you because of what you did that night. I shouldn't act like a bonehead, sonny—honest.'
There was a kindly ring in his voice which rather touched me. Between him and me there had sprung up an odd sort of friendship. He meant business; but he would, I knew, be genuinely sorry if I came to harm. And I could see that he was quite sincere in his belief that I was in a tight corner and that my chances against the Combine were infinitesimal. I imagine that, with victory so apparently certain, he had had difficulty in persuading his allies to allow him to make his offer.
But he had overlooked one thing—the telephone. That he should have made this mistake surprised me. If it had been Buck, I could have understood it. Buck's was a mind which lent itself to such blunders. From Sam I had expected better things, especially as the telephone had been so much in evidence of late. He had used it himself only half an hour ago.
I clung to the thought of the telephone. It gave me the quiet satisfaction of the gambler who holds the unforeseen ace. The situation was in my hands. The police, I knew, had been profoundly stirred by Mr MacGinnis's previous raid. When I called them up, as I proposed to do directly the door had closed on the ambassadors, there would be no lack of response. It would not again be a case of Inspector Bones and Constable Johnson to the rescue. A great cloud of willing helpers would swoop to our help.
With these thoughts in my mind, I answered Sam pleasantly but firmly.
'I'm sorry I'm unpopular, but all the same—'
I indicated the door.
Emotion that could only be expressed in words and not through his usual medium welled up in Mr MacGinnis. He sprang forward with a snarl, falling back as my faithful automatic caught his eye.
'Say, you! Listen here! You'll—'
Sam, the peaceable, plucked at his elbow.
'Nothing doing, Buck. Step lively.'
Buck wavered, then allowed himself to be drawn away. We passed out of the classroom in our order of entry.
An exclamation from the stairs made me look up. Audrey was leaning over the banisters. Her face was in the shadow, but I gathered from her voice that the sight of our little procession had startled her. I was not surprised. Buck was a distinctly startling spectacle, and his habit of growling to himself, as he walked, highly disturbing to strangers.
'Good evening, Mrs Sheridan,' said Sam suavely.
Audrey did not speak. She seemed fascinated by Buck.
I opened the front door and they passed out. The automobile was still purring on the drive. Buck's pistol had disappeared. I supposed the chauffeur had picked it up, a surmise which was proved correct a few moments later, when, just as the car was moving off, there was a sharp crack and a bullet struck the wall to the right of the door. It was a random shot, and I did not return it. Its effect on me was to send me into the hall with a leap that was almost a back-somersault. Somehow, though I was keyed up for violence and the shooting of pistols, I had not expected it at just that moment, and I was disagreeably surprised at the shock it had given me. I slammed the door and bolted it. I was intensely irritated to find that my fingers were trembling.
Audrey had left the stairs and was standing beside me.
'They shot at me,' I said.
By the light of the hall lamp I could see that she was very pale.
'It missed by a mile.' My nerves had not recovered and I spoke abruptly. 'Don't be frightened.'
'I—I was not frightened,' she said, without conviction.
'I was,' I said, with conviction. 'It was too sudden for me. It's the sort of thing one wants to get used to gradually. I shall be ready for it another time.'
I made for the stairs.
 He and Sam have gone into partnership.'
She hesitated.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
I was half-way up the stairs by this time. I stopped and looked over the banisters.
'Sorry?'
'I didn't believe you this afternoon.'
'Oh, that's all right,' I said. I tried to make my voice indifferent, for I was on guard against insidious friendliness. I had bludgeoned my mind into an attitude of safe hostility towards her, and I saw the old chaos ahead if I allowed myself to abandon it.
I went to the telephone and unhooked the receiver.
There is apt to be a certain leisureliness about the methods of country telephone-operators, and the fact that a voice did not immediately ask me what number I wanted did not at first disturb me. Suspicion of the truth came to me, I think, after my third shout into the receiver had remained unanswered. I had suffered from delay before, but never such delay as this.
I must have remained there fully two minutes, shouting at intervals, before I realized the truth. Then I dropped the receiver and leaned limply against the wall. For the moment I was as stunned as if I had received a blow. I could not even think. It was only by degrees that I recovered sufficiently to understand that Audrey was speaking to me.
'What is it? Don't they answer?'
It is curious how the mind responds to the need for making an effort for the sake of somebody else. If I had had only myself to think of, it would, I believe, have been a considerable time before I could have adjusted my thoughts to grapple with this disaster. But the necessity of conveying the truth quietly to Audrey and of helping her to bear up under it steadied me at once. I found myself thinking quite coolly how best I might break to her what had happened.
'I'm afraid,' I said, 'I have something to tell you which may—'
She interrupted me quickly.
'What is it? Can't you make them answer?'
I shook my head. We looked at each other in silence.
Her mind leaped to the truth more quickly than mine had done.
'They have cut the wire!'
I took up the receiver again and gave another call. There was no reply.
'I'm afraid so,' I said.
I
'What shall we do?' said Audrey.
She looked at me hopefully, as if I were a mine of ideas. Her voice was level, without a suggestion of fear in it. Women have the gift of being courageous at times when they might legitimately give way. It is part of their unexpectedness.
This was certainly such an occasion. Daylight would bring us relief, for I did not suppose that even Buck MacGinnis would care to conduct a siege which might be interrupted by the arrival of tradesmen's carts; but while the darkness lasted we were completely cut off from the world. With the destruction of the telephone wire our only link with civilization had been snapped. Even had the night been less stormy than it was, there was no chance of the noise of our warfare reaching the ears of anyone who might come to the rescue. It was as Sam had said, Buck's energy united to his strategy formed a strong combination.
Broadly speaking, there are only two courses open to a beleaguered garrison. It can stay where it is, or it can make a sortie. I considered the second of these courses.
It was possible that Sam and his allies had departed in the automobile to get reinforcements, leaving the coast temporarily clear; in which case, by escaping from the house at once, we might be able to slip unobserved through the grounds and reach the village in safety. To support this theory there was the fact that the car, on its late visit, had contained only the chauffeur and the two ambassadors, while Sam had spoken of the remainder of Buck's gang as being in readiness to attack in the event of my not coming to terms. That might mean that they were waiting at Buck's headquarters, wherever those might be—at one of the cottages down the road, I imagined; and, in the interval before the attack began, it might be possible for us to make our sortie with success.
'Is Ogden in bed?' I asked.

I strained my eyes at the window, but it was impossible to see anything. The rain was still falling heavily. If the drive had been full of men they would have been invisible to me.
Presently Audrey returned, followed by Ogden. The Little Nugget was yawning the aggrieved yawns of one roused from his beauty sleep.
'What's all this?' he demanded.
'Listen,' I said. 'Buck MacGinnis and Smooth Sam Fisher have come after you. They are outside now. Don't be frightened.'
He snorted derisively.
'Who's frightened? I guess they won't hurt me. How do you know it's them?'
'They have just been here. The man who called himself White, the butler, was really Sam Fisher. He has been waiting an opportunity to get you all the term.'
'White! Was he Sam Fisher?' He chuckled admiringly.
His only emotions at the news seemed to be amusement and a renewed admiration for Smooth Sam. He smiled broadly, the little brute.
'He's a wonder!' he repeated. 'I guess he's smooth, all right. He's the limit! He'll get me all right this trip. I bet you a nickel he wins out.'
I found his attitude trying. That he, the cause of all the trouble, should be so obviously regarding it as a sporting contest got up for his entertainment, was hard to bear. And the fact that, whatever might happen to myself, he was in no danger, comforted me not at all. If I could have felt that we were in any way companions in peril, I might have looked on the bulbous boy with quite a friendly eye. As it was, I nearly kicked him.
'We had better waste no time,' suggested Audrey, 'if we are going.'
'I think we ought to try it,' I said.
'What's that?' asked the Nugget. 'Go where?'
'We are going to steal out through the back way and try to slip through to the village.'
The Nugget's comment on the scheme was brief and to the point. He did not embarrass me with fulsome praise of my strategic genius.
'Of all the fool games!' he said simply. 'In this rain? No, sir!'
This new complication was too much for me. In planning out my manoeuvres I had taken his cooperation for granted. I had looked on him as so much baggage—the impedimenta of the retreating army. And, behold, a mutineer!
I took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him. It was a relief to my feelings and a sound move. The argument was one which he understood.
'Oh, all right,' he said. 'Anything you like. Come on. But it sounds to me like darned foolishness!'
If nothing else had happened to spoil the success of that sortie, the Nugget's depressing attitude would have done so. Of all things, it seems to me, a forlorn hope should be undertaken with a certain enthusiasm and optimism if it is to have a chance of being successful. Ogden threw a gloom over the proceedings from the start. He was cross and sleepy, and he condemned the expedition unequivocally. As we moved towards the back door he kept up a running stream of abusive comment. I silenced him before cautiously unbolting the door, but he had said enough to damp my spirits. I do not know what effect it would have had on Napoleon's tactics if his army—say, before Austerlitz—had spoken of his manoeuvres as a 'fool game' and of himself as a 'big chump', but I doubt if it would have stimulated him.
The back door of Sanstead House opened on to a narrow yard, paved with flagstones and shut in on all sides but one by walls. To the left was the outhouse where the coal was stored, a squat barnlike building: to the right a wall that appeared to have been erected by the architect in an outburst of pure whimsicality. It just stood there. It served no purpose that I had ever been able to discover, except to act as a cats' club-house.
Tonight, however, I was thankful for this wall. It formed an important piece of cover. By keeping in its shelter it was possible to work round the angle of the coal-shed, enter the stable-yard, and, by making a detour across the football field, avoid the drive altogether. And it was the drive, in my opinion, that might be looked on as the danger zone.
The Nugget's complaints, which I had momentarily succeeded in checking, burst out afresh as the rain swept in at the open door and lashed our faces. Certainly it was not an ideal night for a ramble. The wind was blowing through the opening at the end of the yard with a compressed violence due to the confined space. There was a suggestion in our position of the Cave of the Winds under Niagara Falls, the verisimilitude of which was increased by the stream of water that poured down from the gutter above our heads. The Nugget found it unpleasant, and said so shrilly.
I pushed him out into the storm, still protesting, and we began to creep across the yard. Half-way to the first point of importance of our journey, the corner of the coal-shed, I halted the expedition. There was a sudden lull in the wind, and I took advantage of it to listen.
From somewhere beyond the wall, apparently near the house, sounded the muffled note of the automobile. The siege-party had returned.
There was no time to be lost. Apparently the possibility of a sortie had not yet occurred to Sam, or he would hardly have left the back door unguarded; but a general of his astuteness was certain to remedy the mistake soon, and our freedom of action might be a thing of moments. It behoved us to reach the stable-yard as quickly as possible. Once there, we should be practically through the enemy's lines.
Administering a kick to the Nugget, who showed a disposition to linger and talk about the weather, I moved on, and we reached the corner of the coal-shed in safety.
We had now arrived at the really perilous stage in our journey. Having built his wall to a point level with the end of the coal-shed, the architect had apparently wearied of the thing and given it up; for it ceased abruptly, leaving us with a matter of half a dozen yards of open ground to cross, with nothing to screen us from the watchers on the drive. The flagstones, moreover, stopped at this point. On the open space was loose gravel. Even if the darkness allowed us to make the crossing unseen, there was the risk that we might be heard.
It was a moment for a flash of inspiration, and I was waiting for one, when that happened which took the problem out of my hands. From the interior of the shed on our left there came a sudden scrabbling of feet over loose coal, and through the square opening in the wall, designed for the peaceful purpose of taking in sacks, climbed two men. A pistol cracked. From the drive came an answering shout. We had been ambushed.
I had misjudged Sam. He had not overlooked the possibility of a sortie.
It is the accidents of life that turn the scale in a crisis. The opening through which the men had leaped was scarcely a couple of yards behind the spot where we were standing. If they had leaped fairly and kept their feet, they would have been on us before we could have moved. But Fortune ordered it that, zeal outrunning discretion, the first of the two should catch his foot in the woodwork and fall on all fours, while the second, unable to check his spring, alighted on top of him, and, judging from the stifled yell which followed, must have kicked him in the face.
In the moment of their downfall I was able to form a plan and execute it.
'The stables!'
I shouted the words to Audrey in the act of snatching up the Nugget and starting to run. She understood. She did not hesitate in the direction of the house for even the instant which might have undone us, but was with me at once; and we were across the open space and in the stable-yard before the first of the men in the drive loomed up through the darkness. Half of the wooden double-gate of the yard was open, and the other half served us as a shield. They fired as they ran—at random, I think, for it was too dark for them to have seen us clearly—and two bullets slapped against the gate. A third struck the wall above our heads and ricocheted off into the night. But before they could fire again we were in the stables, the door slammed behind us, and I had dumped the Nugget on the floor, and was shooting the heavy bolts into their places. Footsteps clattered over the flagstones and stopped outside. Some weighty body plunged against the door. Then there was silence. The first round was over.
The stables, as is the case in most English country-houses, had been, in its palmy days, the glory of Sanstead House. In whatever other respect the British architect of that period may have fallen short, he never scamped his work on the stables. He built them strong and solid, with walls fitted to repel the assaults of the weather, and possibly those of men as well, for the Boones in their day had been mighty owners of race-horses at a time when men with money at stake did not stick at trifles, and it was prudent to see to it that the spot where the favourite was housed had something of the nature of a fortress. The walls were thick, the door solid, the windows barred with iron. We could scarcely have found a better haven of refuge.
Under Mr Abney's rule, the stables had lost their original character. They had been divided into three compartments, each separated by a stout wall. One compartment became a gymnasium, another the carpenter's shop, the third, in which we were, remained a stable, though in these degenerate days no horse ever set foot inside it, its only use being to provide a place for the odd-job man to clean shoes. The mangers which had once held fodder were given over now to brushes and pots of polish. In term-time, bicycles were stored in the loose-box which had once echoed to the tramping of Derby favourites.
I groped about among the pots and brushes, and found a candle-end, which I lit. I was running a risk, but it was necessary to inspect our ground. I had never troubled really to examine this stable before, and I wished to put myself in touch with its geography.
I blew out the candle, well content with what I had seen. The only two windows were small, high up, and excellently barred. Even if the enemy fired through them there were half a dozen spots where we should be perfectly safe. Best of all, in the event of the door being carried by assault, we had a second line of defence in a loft. A ladder against the back wall led to it, by way of a trap-door. Circumstances had certainly been kind to us in driving us to this apparently impregnable shelter.
On concluding my inspection, I became aware that the Nugget was still occupied with his grievances. I think the shots must have stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on life's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a staccato briskness.
'Of all the darned fool lay-outs I ever struck, this is the limit.  It went within an inch of my head. It might have killed me. Gee, and I'm all wet. I'm catching cold. It's all through your blamed foolishness, bringing us out here. Why couldn't we stay in the house?'
'We could not have kept them out of the house for five minutes,' I explained. 'We can hold this place.'
'Who wants to hold it? I don't. What does it matter if they do get me? I don't care. I've a good mind to walk straight out through that door and let them rope me in. It would serve Dad right. It would teach him not to send me away from home to any darned school again. What did he want to do it for? I was all right where I was. I—'
A loud hammering on the door cut off his eloquence. The intermission was over, and the second round had begun.
It was pitch dark in the stable now that I had blown out the candle, and there is something about a combination of noise and darkness which tries the nerves. If mine had remained steady, I should have ignored the hammering. From the sound, it appeared to be made by some wooden instrument—a mallet from the carpenter's shop I discovered later—and the door could be relied on to hold its own without my intervention. For a novice to violence, however, to maintain a state of calm inaction is the most difficult feat of all. I was irritated and worried by the noise, and exaggerated its importance. It seemed to me that it must be stopped at once.
A moment before, I had bruised my shins against an empty packing-case, which had found its way with other lumber into the stable. I groped for this, swung it noiselessly into position beneath the window, and, standing on it, looked out. I found the catch of the window, and opened it. There was nothing to be seen, but the sound of the hammering became more distinct; and pushing an arm through the bars, I emptied my pistol at a venture.
As a practical move, the action had flaws. The shots cannot have gone anywhere near their vague target. But as a demonstration, it was a wonderful success. The yard became suddenly full of dancing bullets. They struck the flagstones, bounded off, chipped the bricks of the far wall, ricocheted from those, buzzed in all directions, and generally behaved in a manner calculated to unman the stoutest hearted.
The siege-party did not stop to argue. They stampeded as one man. I could hear them clattering across the flagstones to every point of the compass. In a few seconds silence prevailed, broken only by the swish of the rain. Round two had been brief, hardly worthy to be called a round at all, and, like round one, it had ended wholly in our favour.
I jumped down from my packing-case, swelling with pride. I had had no previous experience of this sort of thing, yet here I was handling the affair like a veteran. I considered that I had a right to feel triumphant. I lit the candle again, and beamed protectively upon the garrison.
The Nugget was sitting on the floor, gaping feebly, and awed for the moment into silence. Audrey, in the far corner, looked pale but composed. Her behaviour was perfect. There was nothing for her to do, and she was doing it with a quiet self-control which won my admiration. Her manner seemed to me exactly suited to the exigencies of the situation. With a super-competent dare-devil like myself in charge of affairs, all she had to do was to wait and not get in the way.
'I didn't hit anybody,' I announced, 'but they ran like rabbits. They are all over Hampshire.'
I laughed indulgently. I could afford an attitude of tolerant amusement towards the enemy.
'Will they come back?'
'Possibly. And in that case'—I felt in my left-hand coat-pocket—'I had better be getting ready.' I felt in my right-hand coat-pocket. 'Ready,' I repeated blankly. A clammy coldness took possession of me. My voice trailed off into nothingness. For in neither pocket was There a single one of the shells with which I had fancied that I was abundantly provided. In moments of excitement man is apt to make mistakes. I had made mine when, starting out on the sortie, I had left all my ammunition in the house.
II
I should like to think that it was an unselfish desire to spare my companions anxiety that made me keep my discovery to myself. But I am afraid that my reticence was due far more to the fact that I shrank from letting the Nugget discover my imbecile carelessness. Even in times of peril one retains one's human weaknesses; and I felt that I could not face his comments. If he had permitted a certain note of querulousness to creep into his conversation already, the imagination recoiled from the thought of the caustic depths he would reach now should I reveal the truth.
I tried to make things better with cheery optimism.
'They won't come back!' I said stoutly, and tried to believe it.
The Nugget as usual struck the jarring note.
'Well, then, let's beat it,' he said. 'I don't want to spend the night in this darned icehouse. I tell you I'm catching cold. My chest's weak.
I was not prepared to go as far as this.
'They may be somewhere near, hiding.'
'Well, what if they are? I don't mind being kidnapped. Let's go.'
'I think we ought to wait,' said Audrey.
'Of course,' I said. 'It would be madness to go out now.'
'Oh, pshaw!' said the Little Nugget; and from this point onwards punctuated the proceedings with a hacking cough.
I had never really believed that my demonstration had brought the siege to a definite end. I anticipated that there would be some delay before the renewal of hostilities, but I was too well acquainted with Buck MacGinnis's tenacity to imagine that he would abandon his task because a few random shots had spread momentary panic in his ranks. He had all the night before him, and sooner or later he would return.
I had judged him correctly. Many minutes dragged wearily by without a sign from the enemy, then, listening at the window, I heard footsteps crossing the yard and voices talking in cautious undertones. The fight was on once more.
A bright light streamed through the window, flooding the opening and spreading in a wide circle on the ceiling. It was not difficult to understand what had happened. They had gone to the automobile and come back with one of the head-lamps, an astute move in which I seemed to see the finger of Sam. The danger-spot thus rendered harmless, they renewed their attack on the door with a reckless vigour. The mallet had been superseded by some heavier instrument—of iron this time. I think it must have been the jack from the automobile. It was a more formidable weapon altogether than the mallet, and even our good oak door quivered under it.
A splintering of wood decided me that the time had come to retreat to our second line of entrenchments. How long the door would hold it was impossible to say, but I doubted if it was more than a matter of minutes.
Relighting my candle, which I had extinguished from motives of economy, I caught Audrey's eye and jerked my head towards the ladder.
'You go first,' I whispered.
The Nugget watched her disappear through the trap-door, then turned to me with an air of resolution.
'If you think you're going to get me up there, you've another guess coming. I'm going to wait here till they get in, and let them take me. I'm about tired of this foolishness.'
It was no time for verbal argument. I collected him, a kicking handful, bore him to the ladder, and pushed him through the opening. He uttered one of his devastating squeals. The sound seemed to encourage the workers outside like a trumpet-blast. The blows on the door redoubled.
I climbed the ladder and shut the trap-door behind me.
The air of the loft was close and musty and smelt of mildewed hay. It was not the sort of spot which one would have selected of one's own free will to sit in for any length of time. There was a rustling noise, and a rat scurried across the rickety floor, drawing a startled gasp from Audrey and a disgusted 'Oh, piffle!' from the Nugget. Whatever merits this final refuge might have as a stronghold, it was beyond question a noisome place.
The beating on the stable-door was working up to a crescendo. Presently there came a crash that shook the floor on which we sat and sent our neighbours, the rats, scuttling to and fro in a perfect frenzy of perturbation. The light of the automobile lamp poured in through the numerous holes and chinks which the passage of time had made in the old boards. There was one large hole near the centre which produced a sort of searchlight effect, and allowed us for the first time to see what manner of place it was in which we had entrenched ourselves. The loft was high and spacious. The roof must have been some seven feet above our heads. I could stand upright without difficulty.
In the proceedings beneath us there had come a lull. The mystery of our disappearance had not baffled the enemy for long, for almost immediately the rays of the lamp had shifted and begun to play on the trap-door. I heard somebody climb the ladder, and the trap-door creaked gently as a hand tested it. I had taken up a position beside it, ready, if the bolt gave way, to do what I could with the butt of my pistol, my only weapon. But the bolt, though rusty, was strong, and the man dropped to the ground again. Since then, except for occasional snatches of whispered conversation, I had heard nothing.
Suddenly Sam's voice spoke.
'Mr Burns!'
I saw no advantage in remaining silent.
'Well?'
'Haven't you had enough of this? You've given us a mighty good run for our money, but you can see for yourself that you're through now.  Pass the kid down, and we'll call it off.'
He paused.
'Well?' he said. 'Why don't you answer?'
'I did.'
'Did you? I didn't hear you.'
'I smiled.'
'You mean to stick it out? Don't be foolish, sonny.  What's the use of getting yourself in bad for nothing? We've got you in a pocket. I know all about that gun of yours, young fellow. I had a suspicion what had happened, and I've been into the house and found the shells you forgot to take with you. So, if you were thinking of making a bluff in that direction forget it!'
The exposure had the effect I had anticipated.
'Of all the chumps!' exclaimed the Nugget caustically. 'You ought to be in a home. Well, I guess you'll agree to end this foolishness now?  I'm getting pneumonia.'
'You're quite right, Mr Fisher,' I said. 'But don't forget I still have the pistol, even if I haven't the shells. The first man who tries to come up here will have a headache tomorrow.'
'I shouldn't bank on it, sonny. Come along, kiddo! You're done. Be good, and own it. We can't wait much longer.'
'You'll have to try.'
Buck's voice broke in on the discussion, quite unintelligible except that it was obviously wrathful.
'Oh well!' I heard Sam say resignedly, and then there was silence again below.
I resumed my watch over the trap-door, encouraged. This parleying, I thought, was an admission of failure on the part of the besiegers. I did not credit Sam with a real concern for my welfare—thereby doing him an injustice. I can see now that he spoke perfectly sincerely. The position, though I was unaware of it, really was hopeless, for the reason that, like most positions, it had a flank as well as a front. In estimating the possibilities of attack, I had figured assaults as coming only from below. I had omitted from my calculations the fact that the loft had a roof.
It was a scraping on the tiles above my head that first brought the new danger-point to my notice. There followed the sound of heavy hammering, and with it came a sickening realization of the truth of what Sam had said. We were beaten.
I was too paralysed by the unexpectedness of the attack to form any plan; and, indeed, I do not think that there was anything that I could have done. I was unarmed and helpless. I stood there, waiting for the inevitable.
Affairs moved swiftly. Plaster rained down on to the wooden floor. I was vaguely aware that the Nugget was speaking, but I did not listen to him.
A gap appeared in the roof and widened. I could hear the heavy breathing of the man as he wrenched at the tiles.
And then the climax arrived, with anticlimax following so swiftly upon it that the two were almost simultaneous. I saw the worker on the roof cautiously poise himself in the opening, hunched up like some strange ape. The next moment he had sprung.
As his feet touched the floor there came a rending, splintering crash; the air was filled with a choking dust, and he was gone. The old worn out boards had shaken under my tread. They had given way in complete ruin beneath this sharp onslaught. The rays of the lamp, which had filtered in like pencils of light through crevices, now shone in a great lake in the centre of the floor.
In the stable below all was confusion. Everybody was speaking at once. The hero of the late disaster was groaning horribly, for which he certainly had good reason: I did not know the extent of his injuries, but a man does not do that sort of thing with impunity. The next of the strange happenings of the night now occurred.
I had not been giving the Nugget a great deal of my attention for some time, other and more urgent matters occupying me.
His action at this juncture, consequently, came as a complete and crushing surprise.
I was edging my way cautiously towards the jagged hole in the centre of the floor, in the hope of seeing something of what was going on below, when from close beside me his voice screamed. 'It's me, Ogden Ford. I'm coming!' and, without further warning, he ran to the hole, swung himself over, and dropped.
Manna falling from the skies in the wilderness never received a more whole-hearted welcome. Howls and cheers and ear-splitting whoops filled the air. The babel of talk broke out again. Some exuberant person found expression of his joy in emptying his pistol at the ceiling, to my acute discomfort, the spot he had selected as a target chancing to be within a foot of where I stood. Then they moved off in a body, still cheering. The fight was over.
I do not know how long it was before I spoke. It may have been some minutes. I was dazed with the swiftness with which the final stages of the drama had been played out. If I had given him more of my attention, I might have divined that Ogden had been waiting his opportunity to make some such move; but, as it was, the possibility had not even occurred to me, and I was stunned.
In the distance I heard the automobile moving off down the drive. The sound roused me.
'Well, we may as well go,' I said dully. I lit the candle and held it up.
I raised the trap-door and followed her down the ladder.
The rain had ceased, and the stars were shining. After the closeness of the loft, the clean wet air was delicious. For a moment we stopped, held by the peace and stillness of the night.
Then, quite suddenly, she broke down.
It was the unexpectedness of it that first threw me off my balance. In all the time I had known her, I had never before seen Audrey in tears. Always, in the past, she had borne the blows of fate with a stoical indifference which had alternately attracted and repelled me, according as my mood led me to think it courage or insensibility. In the old days, it had done much, this trait of hers, to rear a barrier between us. It had made her seem aloof and unapproachable. Subconsciously, I suppose, it had offended my egoism that she should be able to support herself in times of trouble, and not feel it necessary to lean on me.
And now the barrier had fallen. The old independence, the almost aggressive self-reliance, had vanished. A new Audrey had revealed herself.
 There was something in her attitude so hopeless, so beaten, that the pathos of it seemed to cut me like a knife.
'Audrey!'
The stars glittered in the little pools among the worn flagstones. The night was very still. Only the steady drip of water from the trees broke the silence.
A great wave of tenderness seemed to sweep from my mind everything in the world but her. Everything broke abruptly that had been checking me, stifling me, holding me gagged and bound since the night when our lives had come together again after those five long years. I forgot Cynthia, my promise, everything.
'Audrey!'
She was in my arms, clinging to me, murmuring my name. The darkness was about us like a cloud.
And then she had slipped from me, and was gone.
In my recollections of that strange night there are wide gaps. Trivial incidents come back to me with extraordinary vividness; while there are hours of which I can remember nothing. What I did or where I went I cannot recall. It seems to me, looking back, that I walked without a pause till morning; yet, when day came, I was still in the school grounds. Perhaps I walked, as a wounded animal runs, in circles. I lost, I know, all count of time. I became aware of the dawn as something that had happened suddenly, as if light had succeeded darkness in a flash. It had been night; I looked about me, and it was day—a steely, cheerless day, like a December evening. And I found that I was very cold, very tired, and very miserable.
My mind was like the morning, grey and overcast. Conscience may be expelled, but, like Nature, it will return. Mine, which I had cast from me, had crept back with the daylight. I had had my hour of freedom, and it was now for me to pay for it.
I paid in full. My thoughts tore me. I could see no way out. Through the night the fever and exhilaration of that mad moment had sustained me, but now the morning had come, when dreams must yield to facts, and I had to face the future.
I sat on the stump of a tree, and buried my face in my hands. I must have fallen asleep, for, when I raised my eyes again, the day was brighter. Its cheerlessness had gone. The sky was blue, and birds were singing.
It must have been about half an hour later that the first beginnings of a plan of action came to me. I could not trust myself to reason out my position clearly and honestly in this place where Audrey's spell was over everything. The part of me that was struggling to be loyal to Cynthia was overwhelmed here. London called to me. I could think there, face my position quietly, and make up my mind.
I turned to walk to the station. I could not guess even remotely what time it was. The sun was shining through the trees, but in the road outside the grounds there were no signs of workers beginning the day.
It was half past five when I reached the station. A sleepy porter informed me that there would be a train to London, a slow train, at six.
* * * * *
I remained in London two days, and on the third went down to Sanstead to see Audrey for the last time. I had made my decision.
I found her on the drive, close by the gate. She turned at my footstep on the gravel; and, as I saw her, I knew that the fight which I had thought over was only beginning.
I was shocked at her appearance. Her face was very pale, and there were tired lines about her eyes.
I could not speak. Something choked me. Once again, as on that night in the stable-yard, the world and all that was in it seemed infinitely remote.
It was she who broke the silence.
'Well, Peter,' she said listlessly.
We walked up the drive together.
'Have you been to London?'
'Yes. I came down this morning.' I paused. 'I went there to think,' I said.
She nodded.
'I have been thinking, too.'
I stopped, and began to hollow out a groove in the wet gravel with my heel. Words were not coming readily.
Suddenly she found speech. She spoke quickly, but her voice was dull and lifeless.
'Let us forget what has happened, Peter. We were neither of us ourselves. I was tired and frightened and disappointed. You were sorry for me just at the moment, and your nerves were strained, like mine. It was all nothing. Let us forget it.'
I shook my head.
'No,' I said. 'It was not that. I can't let you even pretend you think that was all. I love you.  After a time, I thought I had got over it. But when I met you again down here, I knew that I had not, and never should. I came back to say good-bye, but I shall always love you. It is my punishment for being the sort of man I was five years ago.'
'And mine for being the sort of woman I was five years ago.' She laughed bitterly. 'Woman!  My punishment is going to be worse than yours, Peter. You will not be always thinking that you had the happiness of two lives in your hands, and threw it away because you had not the sense to hold it.'
'It is just that that I shall always be thinking. What happened five years ago was my fault, Audrey, and nobody's but mine. I don't think that, even when the loss of you hurt most, I ever blamed you for going away. You had made me see myself as I was, and I knew that you had done the right thing. I was selfish, patronizing—I was insufferable. It was I who threw away our happiness. You put it in a sentence that first day here, when you said that I had been kind—sometimes—when I happened to think of it. That summed me up. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. I think we have not had the best of luck; but all the blame is mine.'
A flush came into her pale face.
'I remember saying that. I said it because I was afraid of myself. I was shaken by meeting you again. I thought you must be hating me—you had every reason to hate me, and you spoke as if you did—and I did not want to show you what you were to me. It wasn't true, Peter. Five years ago I may have thought it, but not now. I have grown to understand the realities by this time. I have been through too much to have any false ideas left. I have had some chance to compare men, and I realize that they are not all kind, Peter, even sometimes, when they happen to think of it.'
'Audrey,' I said—I had never found myself able to ask the question before—'was—was—he—was Sheridan kind to you?'
She did not speak for a moment, and I thought she was resenting the question.
'No!' she said abruptly.
She shot out the monosyllable with a force that startled and silenced me. There was a whole history of unhappiness in the word.
'No,' she said again, after a pause, more gently this time. I understood. She was speaking of a dead man.
'I can't talk about him,' she went on hurriedly. 'I expect most of it was my fault. I was unhappy because he was not you, and he saw that I was unhappy and hated me for it. We had nothing in common.  He swept me off my feet. I never had a great deal of sense, and I lost it all then. I was far happier when he had left me.'
'Left you?'
'He deserted me almost directly we reached America.' She laughed. 'I told you I had grown to understand the realities. I began then.'
I was horrified. For the first time I realized vividly all that she had gone through. When she had spoken to me before of her struggles that evening over the study fire, I had supposed that they had begun only after her husband's death, and that her life with him had in some measure trained her for the fight. That she should have been pitched into the arena, a mere child, with no experience of life, appalled me. And, as she spoke, there came to me the knowledge that now I could never do what I had come to do. I could not give her up. She needed me. I tried not to think of Cynthia.
I took her hand.
'Audrey,' I said, 'I came here to say good-bye. I can't. I want you. Nothing matters except you.  'You are engaged to Mrs Ford.'
'I am engaged, but not to Mrs Ford. I am engaged to someone you have never met—Cynthia Drassilis.'
She pulled her hand away quickly, wide-eyed, and for some moments was silent.
'Do you love her?' she asked at last.
'No.'
'Does she love you?'
Cynthia's letter rose before my eyes, that letter that could have had no meaning, but one.
'I am afraid she does,' I said.
She looked at me steadily. Her face was very pale.
'You must marry her, Peter.'
I shook my head.
'You must. She believes in you.'
'I can't. I want you. And you need me. Can you deny that you need me?'
'No.'
She said it quite simply, without emotion. I moved towards her, thrilling, but she stepped back.
'She needs you too,' she said.
A dull despair was creeping over me. I was weighed down by a premonition of failure. I had fought my conscience, my sense of duty and honour, and crushed them. She was raising them up against me once more. My self-control broke down.
'Audrey,' I cried, 'for God's sake can't you see what you're doing? We have been given a second chance. Our happiness is in your hands again, and you are throwing it away. Why should we make ourselves wretched for the whole of our lives? What does anything else matter except that we love each other? Why should we let anything stand in our way? I won't give you up.'
She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Hope began to revive in me, telling me that I had persuaded her. But when she looked up it was with the same steady gaze, and my heart sank again.
'Peter,' she said, 'I want to tell you something. It will make you understand, I think. I haven't been honest, Peter. I have not fought fairly. All these weeks, ever since we met, I have been trying to steal you. It's the only word. I have tried every little miserable trick I could think of to steal you from the girl you had promised to marry. And she wasn't here to fight for herself. I didn't think of her. I was wrapped up in my own selfishness. And then, after that night, when you had gone away, I thought it all out. I had a sort of awakening. I saw the part I had been playing. Even then I tried to persuade myself that I had done something rather fine. I thought, you see, at that time that you were infatuated with Mrs Ford—and I know Mrs Ford. If she is capable of loving any man, she loves Mr Ford, though they are divorced. I knew she would only make you unhappy. I told myself I was saving you. Then you told me it was not Mrs Ford, but this girl. That altered everything.  You would despise me. I shouldn't feel clean. I should feel as if I had stabbed her in the back.'
I forced a laugh. It rang hollow against the barrier that separated us. In my heart I knew that this barrier was not to be laughed away.
'Can't you see, Peter? You must see.'
'I certainly don't. I think you're overstrained, and that you have let your imagination run away with you. I—'
She interrupted me.
'Do you remember that evening in the study?' she asked abruptly. 'We had been talking. I had been telling you how I had lived during those five years.'
'I remember.'
'Every word I spoke was spoken with an object—calculated.... Yes, even the pauses. I tried to make them tell, too. I knew you, you see, Peter. I knew you through and through, because I loved you, and I knew the effect those tales would have on you. Oh, they were all true. I was honest as far as that goes. But they had the mean motive at the back of them. I was playing on your feelings. I knew how kind you were, how you would pity me. I set myself to create an image which would stay in your mind and kill the memory of the other girl; the image of a poor, ill-treated little creature who should work through to your heart by way of your compassion. I knew you, Peter, I knew you. And then I did a meaner thing still. I pretended to stumble in the dark. I meant you to catch me and hold me, and you did. And ...'
Her voice broke off.
'I'm glad I have told you,' she said. 'It makes it a little better. You understand now how I feel, don't you?'
She held out her hand.
'Good-bye.'
'I am not going to give you up,' I said doggedly.
'Good-bye,' she said again. Her voice was a whisper.
I took her hand and began to draw her towards me.
'It is not good-bye. There is no one else in the world but you, and I am not going to give you up.'
'Peter!' she struggled feebly. 'Oh, let me go.'
I drew her nearer.
'I won't let you go,' I said.
But, as I spoke, there came the sound of automobile wheels on the gravel. A large red car was coming up the drive. I dropped Audrey's hand, and she stepped back and was lost in the shrubbery. The car slowed down and stopped beside me. There were two women in the tonneau. One, who was dark and handsome, I did not know. The other was Mrs Drassilis.
I was given no leisure for wondering how Cynthia's mother came to be in the grounds of Sanstead House, for her companion, almost before the car had stopped, jumped out and clutched me by the arm, at the same time uttering this cryptic speech: 'Whatever he offers I'll double!'
She fixed me, as she spoke, with a commanding eye. She was a woman, I gathered in that instant, born to command. There seemed, at any rate, no doubt in her mind that she could command me. If I had been a black beetle she could not have looked at me with a more scornful superiority. Her eyes were very large and of a rich, fiery brown colour, and it was these that gave me my first suspicion of her identity. As to the meaning of her words, however, I had no clue.
'Bear that in mind,' she went on. 'I'll double it if it's a million dollars.'
'I'm afraid I don't understand,' I said, finding speech.
She clicked her tongue impatiently.
'There's no need to be so cautious and mysterious. This lady is a friend of mine. She knows all about it. I asked her to come. I'm Mrs Elmer Ford. I came here directly I got your letter. I think you're the lowest sort of scoundrel that ever managed to keep out of gaol, but that needn't make any difference just now. We're here to talk business, Mr Fisher, so we may as well begin.'
I was getting tired of being taken for Smooth Sam.
'I am not Smooth Sam Fisher.'
I turned to the automobile. 'Will you identify me, Mrs Drassilis?'
She was regarding me with wide-open eyes.
'What on earth are you doing down here? I have been trying everywhere to find you, but nobody—'
Mrs Ford interrupted her. She gave me the impression of being a woman who wanted a good deal of the conversation, and who did not care how she got it. In a conversational sense she thugged Mrs Drassilis at this point, or rather she swept over her like some tidal wave, blotting her out.
'Oh,' she said fixing her brown eyes, less scornful now but still imperious, on mine. 'I must apologize. I have made a mistake. I took you for a low villain of the name of Sam Fisher. I hope you will forgive me. I was to have met him at this exact spot just about this time, by appointment, so, seeing you here, I mistook you for him.'
'If I might have a word with you alone?' I said.
Mrs Ford had a short way with people. In matters concerning her own wishes, she took their acquiescence for granted.
'Drive on up to the house, Jarvis,' she said, and Mrs Drassilis was whirled away round the curve of the drive before she knew what had happened to her.
'Well?'
'My name is Burns,' I said.
'Now I understand,' she said. 'I know who you are now.' She paused, and I was expecting her to fawn upon me for my gallant service in her cause, when she resumed in quite a different strain.
'I can't think what you can have been about, Mr Burns, not to have been able to do what Cynthia asked you. Surely in all these weeks and months.... And then, after all, to have let this Fisher scoundrel steal him away from under your nose...!'
She gave me a fleeting glance of unfathomable scorn. And when I thought of all the sufferings I had gone through that term owing to her repulsive son and, indirectly, for her sake, I felt that the time had come to speak out.
'May I describe the way in which I allowed your son to be stolen away from under my nose?' I said. And in well-chosen words, I sketched the outline of what had happened. I did not omit to lay stress on the fact that the Nugget's departure with the enemy was entirely voluntary.
She heard me out in silence.
'That was too bad of Oggie,' she said tolerantly, when I had ceased dramatically on the climax of my tale.
As a comment it seemed to me inadequate.
'Oggie was always high-spirited,' she went on. 'No doubt you have noticed that?'
'A little.'
'He could be led, but never driven. With the best intentions, no doubt, you refused to allow him to leave the stables that night and return to the house, and he resented the check and took the matter into his own hands.' She broke off and looked at her watch. 'Have you a watch? What time is it? Only that? I thought it must be later. I arrived too soon. I got a letter from this man Fisher, naming this spot and this hour for a meeting, when we could discuss terms. He said that he had written to Mr Ford, appointing the same time.' She frowned. 'I have no doubt he will come,' she said coldly.
'Perhaps this is his car,' I said.
A second automobile was whirring up the drive. There was a shout as it came within sight of us, and the chauffeur put on the brake. A man sprang from the tonneau. He jerked a word to the chauffeur, and the car went on up the drive.
He was a massively built man of middle age, with powerful shoulders, and a face—when he had removed his motor-goggles very like any one of half a dozen of those Roman emperors whose features have come down to us on coins and statues, square-jawed, clean-shaven, and aggressive. Like his late wife (who was now standing, drawn up to her full height, staring haughtily at him) he had the air of one born to command. I should imagine that the married life of these two must have been something more of a battle even than most married lives. The clashing of those wills must have smacked of a collision between the immovable mass and the irresistible force.
He met Mrs Ford's stare with one equally militant, then turned to me.
'I'll give you double what she has offered you,' he said. He paused, and eyed me with loathing. 'You damned scoundrel,' he added.
Custom ought to have rendered me immune to irritation, but it had not. I spoke my mind.
'One of these days, Mr Ford,' I said, 'I am going to publish a directory of the names and addresses of the people who have mistaken me for Smooth Sam Fisher. I am not Sam Fisher. Can you grasp that? My name is Peter Burns, and for the past term I have been a master at this school. And I may say that, judging from what I know of the little brute, any one who kidnapped your son as long as two days ago will be so anxious by now to get rid of him that he will probably want to pay you for taking him back.'
My words almost had the effect of bringing this divorced couple together again. They made common cause against me. It was probably the first time in years that they had formed even a temporary alliance.
 'Oggie is a sweet boy in every respect.'
'You're perfectly right, Nesta,' said Mr Ford. 'He may want intelligent handling, but he's a mighty fine boy. I shall make inquiries, and if this man has been ill-treating Ogden, I shall complain to Mr Abney. Where the devil is this man Fisher?' he broke off abruptly.
'On the spot,' said an affable voice. The bushes behind me parted, and Smooth Sam stepped out on to the gravel.
I had recognized him by his voice. I certainly should not have done so by his appearance. He had taken the precaution of 'making up' for this important meeting. A white wig of indescribable respectability peeped out beneath his black hat. His eyes twinkled from under two penthouses of white eyebrows.  He was venerable to a degree.
He nodded to me, and bared his white head gallantly to Mrs Ford.
'No worse for our little outing, Mr Burns, I am glad to see. Mrs Ford, I must apologize for my apparent unpunctuality, but I was not really behind time. I have been waiting in the bushes. I thought it just possible that you might have brought unwelcome members of the police force with you, and I have been scouting, as it were, before making my advance. I see, however, that all is well, and we can come at once to business. May I say, before we begin, that I overheard your recent conversation, and that I entirely disagree with Mr Burns. Master Ford is a charming boy. Already I feel like an elder brother to him. I am loath to part with him.'
'How much?' snapped Mr Ford. 'You've got me. How much do you want?'
'I'll give you double what he offers,' cried Mrs Ford.

'May I speak? Thank you. This is a little embarrassing. When I asked you both to meet me here, it was not for the purpose of holding an auction. I had a straight-forward business proposition to make to you. It will necessitate a certain amount of plain and somewhat personal speaking. May I proceed? Thank you. I will be as brief as possible.'
His eloquence appeared to have had a soothing effect on the two Fords. They remained silent.
'You must understand,' said Sam, 'that I am speaking as an expert. I have been in the kidnapping business many years, and I know what I am talking about.  Bless you'—Sam's manner became fatherly—'I've seen it a hundred times. Couple get divorced, and, if there's a child, what happens? They start in playing battledore-and-shuttlecock with him. Wife sneaks him from husband. Husband sneaks him back from wife. After a while along comes a gentleman in my line of business, a professional at the game, and he puts one across on both the amateurs. He takes advantage of the confusion, slips in, and gets away with the kid. That's what has happened here, and I'm going to show you the way to stop it another time. Now I'll make you a proposition. What you want to do'—I have never heard anything so soothing, so suggestive of the old family friend healing an unfortunate breach, as Sam's voice at this juncture—'what you want to do is to get together again right quick. Never mind the past. Let bygones be bygones. Kiss and be friends.'
A snort from Mr Ford checked him for a moment, but he resumed.
'I guess there were faults on both sides. Get together and talk it over.  Well, see here. What you want to do is to give me a salary—we can talk figures later on—to stay by you and watch over the kid. Don't snort—I'm talking plain sense. You'd a sight better have me with you than against you. Set a thief to catch a thief. What I don't know about the fine points of the game isn't worth knowing. I'll guarantee, if you put me in charge, to see that nobody comes within a hundred miles of the kid unless he has an order-to-view. You'll find I earn every penny of that salary ... Mr Burns and I will now take a turn up the drive while you think it over.'
He linked his arm in mine and drew me away. As we turned the corner of the drive I caught a glimpse over my shoulder of the Little Nugget's parents. They were standing where we had left them, as if Sam's eloquence had rooted them to the spot.
'Well, well, well, young man,' said Sam, eyeing me affectionately, 'it's pleasant to meet you again, under happier conditions than last time. You certainly have all the luck, sonny, or you would have been badly hurt that night. I was getting scared how the thing would end.  If they had grabbed you, there's no knowing what might not have happened. However, all's well that ends well, and this little game has surely had the happy ending. I shall get that job, sonny. Old man Ford isn't a fool, and it won't take him long, when he gets to thinking it over, to see that I'm right. He'll hire me.'
'Aren't you rather reckoning without your partner?' I said. 'Where does Buck MacGinnis come in on the deal?'
Sam patted my shoulder paternally.
'He doesn't, sonny, he doesn't. It was a shame to do it—it was like taking candy from a kid—but business is business, and I was reluctantly compelled to double-cross poor old Buck. I sneaked the Nugget away from him next day. It's not worth talking about; it was too easy.  I hate to think of it.'
He sighed. Buck's misfortunes seemed to move him deeply.
'I shouldn't be surprised if he gave up the profession after this. He has had enough to discourage him. I told you about what happened to him that night, didn't I? No? I thought I did. Why, Buck was the guy who did the Steve Brodie through the roof; and, when we picked him up, we found he'd broken his leg again! Isn't that enough to jar a man? I guess he'll retire from the business after that. He isn't intended for it.'
We were approaching the two automobiles now, and, looking back, I saw Mr and Mrs Ford walking up the drive. Sam followed my gaze, and I heard him chuckle.
'It's all right,' he said. 'They've fixed it up. Something in the way they're walking tells me they've fixed it up.'
Mrs Drassilis was still sitting in the red automobile, looking piqued but resigned. Mrs Ford addressed her.
'I shall have to leave you, Mrs Drassilis,' she said. 'Tell Jarvis to drive you wherever you want to go. I am going with my husband to see my boy Oggie.'
She stretched out a hand towards the millionaire. He caught it in his, and they stood there, smiling foolishly at each other, while Sam, almost purring, brooded over them like a stout fairy queen. The two chauffeurs looked on woodenly.
Mr Ford released his wife's hand and turned to Sam.
'Fisher.'
'Sir?'
'I've been considering your proposition. There's a string tied to it.'
'Oh no, sir, I assure you!'
'There is. What guarantee have I that you won't double-cross me?'
Sam smiled, relieved.
 My wife won't let me!'
Mr Ford waved his hand towards the automobile.
'Jump in,' he said briefly, 'and tell him where to drive to. You're engaged!'
'No manners!' said Mrs Drassilis. 'None whatever. I always said so.'
She spoke bitterly. She was following the automobile with an offended eye as it moved down the drive.
The car rounded the corner. Sam turned and waved a farewell. Mr and Mrs Ford, seated close together in the tonneau, did not even look round.
Mrs Drassilis sniffed disgustedly.
'She's a friend of Cynthia's. Cynthia asked me to come down here with her to see you. I came, to oblige her. And now, without a word of apology, she leaves me stranded. She has no manners whatever.'
I offered no defence of the absent one. The verdict more or less squared with my own opinion.
'Is Cynthia back in England?' I asked, to change the subject.
'The yacht got back yesterday. Peter, I have something of the utmost importance to speak to you about.' She glanced at Jarvis the chauffeur, leaning back in his seat with the air, peculiar to chauffeurs in repose, of being stuffed. 'Walk down the drive with me.'
I helped her out of the car, and we set off in silence. There was a suppressed excitement in my companion's manner which interested me, and something furtive which brought back all my old dislike of her. I could not imagine what she could have to say to me that had brought her all these miles.
'How do you come to be down here?' she said. 'When Cynthia told me you were here, I could hardly believe her. Why are you a master at this school? I cannot understand it!'
'What did you want to see me about?' I asked.
She hesitated. It was always an effort for her to be direct. Now, apparently, the effort was too great. The next moment she had rambled off on some tortuous bypath of her own, which, though it presumably led in the end to her destination, was evidently a long way round.
'I have known you for so many years now, Peter, and I don't know of anybody whose character I admire more. You are so generous—quixotic in fact.  You are always thinking of other people. Whatever it cost you, I know you would not hesitate to give up anything if you felt that it was for someone else's happiness. I do admire you so for it. One meets so few young men nowadays who consider anybody except themselves.'
She paused, either for breath or for fresh ideas, and I took advantage of the lull in the rain of bouquets to repeat my question.
'What did you want to see me about?' I asked patiently.
'About Cynthia. She asked me to see you.'
'Oh!'
'You got a letter from her.'
'Yes.'
'Last night, when she came home, she told me about it, and showed me your answer. It was a beautiful letter, Peter. I'm sure I cried when I read it. And Cynthia did, I feel certain. Of course, to a girl of her character that letter was final. She is so loyal, dear child.'
'I don't understand.'
As Sam would have said, she seemed to be speaking; words appeared to be fluttering from her; but her meaning was beyond me.
'Once she has given her promise, I am sure nothing would induce her to break it, whatever her private feelings. She is so loyal.  I said sharply. 'I really don't understand what it is you are trying to tell me. What do you mean about loyalty and character? I don't understand.'
She was not to be hustled from her bypath. She had chosen her route, and she meant to travel by it, ignoring short-cuts.
'To Cynthia, as I say, it was final. She simply could not see that the matter was not irrevocably settled. I thought it so fine of her. But I am her mother, and it was my duty not to give in and accept the situation as inevitable while there was anything I could do for her happiness. I knew your chivalrous, unselfish nature, Peter. I could speak to you as Cynthia could not. I could appeal to your generosity in a way impossible, of course, for her. I could put the whole facts of the case clearly before you.'
I snatched at the words.
'I wish you would. What are they?'
She rambled off again.
'She has such a rigid sense of duty. There is no arguing with her. I told her that, if you knew, you would not dream of standing in her way. You are so generous, such a true friend, that your only thought would be for her. If her happiness depended on your releasing her from her promise, you would not think of yourself. So in the end I took matters into my own hands and came to see you. I am truly sorry for you, dear Peter, but to me Cynthia's happiness, of course, must come before everything. You do understand, don't you?'
Gradually, as she was speaking, I had begun to grasp hesitatingly at her meaning, hesitatingly, because the first hint of it had stirred me to such a whirl of hope that I feared to risk the shock of finding that, after all, I had been mistaken. If I were right—and surely she could mean nothing else—I was free, free with honour. But I could not live on hints. I must hear this thing in words.
'Has—has Cynthia—' I stopped, to steady my voice. 'Has Cynthia found—' I stopped again. I was finding it absurdly difficult to frame my sentence. 'Is there someone else?' I concluded with a rush.
Mrs Drassilis patted my arm sympathetically.
'Be brave, Peter!'
'There is?'
'Yes.'
The trees, the drive, the turf, the sky, the birds, the house, the automobile, and Jarvis, the stuffed chauffeur, leaped together for an instant in one whirling, dancing mass of which I was the centre. And then, out of the chaos, as it separated itself once more into its component parts, I heard my voice saying, 'Tell me.'
The world was itself again, and I was listening quietly and with a mild interest which, try as I would, I could not make any stronger. I had exhausted my emotion on the essential fact: the details were an anticlimax.
'I liked him directly I saw him,' said Mrs Drassilis. 'And, of course, as he was such a friend of yours, we naturally—'
'A friend of mine?'
'I am speaking of Lord Mountry.'
'Mountry? What about him?' Light flooded in on my numbed brain. 'You don't mean—Is it Lord Mountry?'
My manner must have misled her. She stammered in her eagerness to dispel what she took to be my misapprehension.
'Don't think that he acted in anything but the most honourable manner. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He knew nothing of Cynthia's engagement to you. She told him when he asked her to marry him, and he—as a matter of fact, it was he who insisted on dear Cynthia writing that letter to you.'
She stopped, apparently staggered by this excursion into honesty.
'Well?'
'In fact, he dictated it.'
'Oh!'
'Unfortunately, it was quite the wrong sort of letter. It was the very opposite of clear. It can have given you no inkling of the real state of affairs.'
'It certainly did not.'
'He would not allow her to alter it in any way. He is very obstinate at times, like so many shy men. And when your answer came, you see, things were worse than before.'
'I suppose so.'
'I could see last night how unhappy they both were. And when Cynthia suggested it, I agreed at once to come to you and tell you everything.'
She looked at me anxiously. From her point of view, this was the climax, the supreme moment. She hesitated. I seemed to see her marshalling her forces, the telling sentences, the persuasive adjectives; rallying them together for the grand assault.
But through the trees I caught a glimpse of Audrey, walking on the lawn; and the assault was never made.
'I will write to Cynthia tonight,' I said, 'wishing her happiness.'
'Oh, Peter!' said Mrs Drassilis.
'Don't mention it,' said I.
Doubts appeared to mar her perfect contentment.
'You are sure you can convince her?'
'Convince her?'
'And—er—Lord Mountry. He is so determined not to do anything— er—what he would call unsportsmanlike.'
'Perhaps I had better tell her I am going to marry some one else,' I suggested.
'I think that would be an excellent idea,' she said, brightening visibly. 'How clever of you to have thought of it.'
She permitted herself a truism.
'After all, dear Peter, there are plenty of nice girls in the world. You have only to look for them.'
'You're perfectly right,' I said. 'I'll start at once.'
A gleam of white caught my eye through the trees by the lawn. I moved towards it.