“Well, O’Brien and Lawrence, what part did you play in the late unpleasantness?”
CHAPTER IV
O’Brien burst out with an exclamation of anger, “By gosh, sir, this thing is going too far! I don’t intend to stand by and see you murdered. You have had a close shave here tonight, and something has got to be done. Where is Mrs. Ridgeway?”
“She is in England visiting some relatives,” said Mr. Ridgeway with a triumphant laugh. “So you won’t get any backing from her. I sent her over there three months ago.”
“Well, something has got to be done all right, all right,” said the secret service man sullenly.
Mr. Ridgeway pressed his aching head. “I think this will end it,” he said. “They have found no papers, and they will let well enough alone. You know as well as I do, O’Brien, that they will know that I will be on guard after this. And I will be. I will set a lot of detectives around here, each with a badge as big as a dinner plate. And I will sit and do nothing, and you can do the work.”
“All right; that is more like what I want to hear,” said O’Brien, smiling at last. “You are doing enough, Mr. Ridgeway, when you finance the affair. You have had all those airplanes built, and those dirigibles, and if you sit tight and boss, that is all we will ask for. Just you let me and Lawrence push the rest of the work.”
“I will have to keep quiet for a day or two anyway,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “I feel sort of old tonight. I wish I had a son or two to look out for me. But you are all right, O’Brien. Do whatever you like.”
“Then to bed you go, first of all,” said the practical Irishman, “and whilst I get some plainclothes men here for a guard, you can sit with him, Lawrence, and don’t you let a soul in the room.”
“The servants are all in bed and there is no one else to come,” said Mr. Ridgeway drowsily.