The recently married Mrs. Spettigue leaned towards him and impulsively laid a small, gloved hand upon his. “Now do say you’ll get my letters for me, Mr. Mullins!” she beseeched, her pretty eyes fixed on his in a look of infinite entreaty. “You can’t possibly pretend it’s real burgling, can you? Please!”
The good red blood leapt in Mr. Priestley’s veins as it had not done for fifteen years. After all, what did it matter? The cause was just enough in all conscience, and even if things did go wrong, his own name would not be brought into it. But, bother all that—what did anything matter beside the good name of this poor, charming creature, whose little hand still lay so trustfully upon his?
“I—I’ll do my best,” he promised huskily. “My dear young lady, I’ll certainly do my best.”
His companion’s relief was undisguised. “Oh, you dear!” Her little hand gently squeezed Mr. Priestley’s in touching gratitude. She smiled at him through her tears. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down when it really came to the point.”
Many heroes have had less reward.
For the rest of the journey, and during the long ride through the darkness in the powerful two-seater, Mr. Priestley remained strangely silent. As a matter of fact he was trying hard to remember anything he had ever read which might prove helpful to one about to commit a felony. Wasn’t there somebody once called Charlie Peace? Or was it Charlie Raffles?
Chapter IV.
Red Blood and Red Ink
The girl backed the car skilfully up an almost invisible lane, and switched off the engine.
“We’d better get out here,” she said, in matter-of-fact tones. “The house is only a few yards away.”
They got out and walked down the road. Behind trim hedges, broken by white gates, loomed up dimly the shadowy masses of substantial houses. Before one of the white gates Mrs. Spettigue paused.