§ 9
They got back to the hotel about half-past eleven and the Captain went and had an unpleasant time with one of the tyres of his motor bicycle which had got down in the night. In replacing the tyre he pinched the top of one of his fingers rather badly. Then he got the ordnance map of the district and sat at a green table in the open air in front of the hotel windows and speculated on the probable flight of Bealby. He had been last seen going south by east. That way lay the sea, and all boy fugitives go naturally for the sea.
He tried to throw himself into the fugitive’s mind and work out just exactly the course Bealby must take to the sea.
For a time he found this quite an absorbing occupation.
Bealby probably had no money or very little money. Therefore he would have to beg or steal. He wouldn’t go to the workhouse because he wouldn’t know about the workhouse, respectable poor people never know anything about the workhouse, and the chances were he would be both too honest and too timid to steal. He’d beg. He’d beg at front doors because of dogs and things, and he’d probably go along a high road. He’d be more likely to beg from houses than from passers-by, because a door is at first glance less formidable than a pedestrian and more accustomed to being addressed. And he’d try isolated cottages rather than the village street doors, an isolated wayside cottage is so much more confidential. He’d ask for food—not money. All that seemed pretty sound.
Now this road on the map—into it he was bound to fall and along it he would go begging. No other?... No.
In the fine weather he’d sleep out. And he’d go—ten, twelve, fourteen—thirteen, thirteen miles a day.
So now, he ought to be about here. And to-night,—here.
To-morrow at the same pace,—here.
But suppose he got a lift!...
He’d only get a slow lift if he got one at all. It wouldn’t make much difference in the calculation....
So if to-morrow one started and went on to these cross roads marked Inn, just about twenty-six miles it must be by the scale, and beat round it one ought to get something in the way of tidings of Mr. Bealby. Was there any reason why Bealby shouldn’t go on south by east and seaward?...
None.
And now there remained nothing to do but to explain all this clearly to Madeleine. And why didn’t she come down? Why didn’t she come down?
But when one got Bealby what would one do with him?
Wring the truth out of him—half by threats and half by persuasion. Suppose after all he hadn’t any connexion with the upsetting of Lord Moggeridge? He had. Suppose he hadn’t. He had. He had. He had.
And when one had the truth?
Whisk the boy right up to London and confront the Lord Chancellor with the facts. But suppose he wouldn’t be confronted with the facts. He was a touchy old sinner....
For a time Captain Douglas balked at this difficulty. Then suddenly there came into his head the tall figure, the long moustaches of that kindly popular figure, his adopted uncle Lord Chickney. Suppose he took the boy straight to Uncle Chickney, told him the whole story. Even the Lord Chancellor would scarcely refuse ten minutes to General Lord Chickney....
The clearer the plans of Captain Douglas grew the more anxious he became to put them before Madeleine—clearly and convincingly....
Because first he had to catch his boy....
Presently, as Captain Douglas fretted at the continued eclipse of Madeleine, his thumb went into his waistcoat pocket and found a piece of paper. He drew it out and looked at it. It was a little piece of stiff note-paper cut into the shape of a curved V rather after the fashion of a soaring bird. It must have been there for months. He looked at it. His care-wrinkled brow relaxed. He glanced over his shoulder at the house and then held this little scrap high over his head and let go. It descended with a slanting flight curving round to the left and then came about and swept down to the ground to the right.... Now why did it go like that? As if it changed its mind. He tried it again. Same result.... Suppose the curvature of the wings was a little greater? Would it make a more acute or a less acute angle? He did not know.... Try it.
He felt in his pocket for a piece of paper, found Lady Laxton’s letter, produced a stout pair of nail scissors in a sheath from a waistcoat pocket, selected a good clear sheet, and set himself to cut out his improved V....
As he did so his eyes were on V number one, on the ground. It would be interesting to see if this thing turned about to the left again. If in fact it would go on zig-zagging. It ought, he felt, to do so. But to test that one ought to release it from some higher point so as to give it a longer flight. Stand on the chair?...
Not in front of the whole rotten hotel. And there was a beastly looking man in a green apron coming out of the house,—the sort of man who looks at you. He might come up and watch; these fellows are equal to anything of that sort. Captain Douglas replaced his scissors and scraps in his pockets, leaned back with an affectation of boredom, got up, lit a cigarette—sort of thing the man in the green apron would think all right—and strolled off towards a clump of beech trees, beyond which were bushes and a depression. There perhaps one might be free from observation. Just try these things for a bit. That point about the angle was a curious one; it made one feel one’s ignorance not to know that....