I said: “Sure… anything you say.’
He looked relieved. “You go and call these fellows in. Once they’re in, you go round to the back and get the car out. Then come back here.”
I told myself I was at least going to have a peep at this dame. “Okay. Shall I start now?”
“Just wait a minute.” He went out into the hall. I heard him call up the stairs. “Come down now.”
It wasn’t possible for me to go to the door and watch because he would have seen me, and I certainly was burnt up to stand there and let that dame get away with it.
I heard someone run down the stairs quickly and walk with clicking heels down the passage. Then Kennedy came back. He nodded to me. “Fetch ’em in,” he said.
I walked to the front door and flung it open.
The boys came running. They looked like the Klondyke gold rush.
“The Colonel will see you now,” I said. “Take your hats off, wipe your feet, an’ for Gawd’s sake behave like gentlemen.”
They crowded past me and barged into the big room. I certainly handed it to Kennedy. He stood at the end of the room, looking at them coldly, not a muscle of his face moving. As soon as the last one had piled himself into the room I quietly shut the door.