“There’d be nothing to tell if you did,” said Susy Lizzie.
“Wouldn’t there? I suppose you’d try and make out he was talking to you about buying a new hat for his mother, and you were showing him the way it ought to be trimmed.”
Susy Lizzie grinned. Then she removed the official notice of no admission, lifted up a slab of her counter, and invited Mr. Goddard to enter. The first telegram he handed her completely restored her good-humour. It was a message of a delightfully exciting kind.
“To the Inspector-General of Police, Dublin Castle. Your Members of Parliament are unfortunately lost. Am making inquiries. Goddard, District Inspector.”
After this came eight much longer messages. They were addressed to detective sergeants in Derry, Larne, Belfast, Greenore, Dublin, Kingstown, Rosslare, and Queenstown. They contained inadequate descriptions of the appearance of Mr. Dick and Mr. Sanders; and an earnest request that all steamers leaving for America, Scottish, or English ports might be watched. While Susy Lizzie was tapping her way through these messages, Mr. Goddard unrolled an ordnance survey map, and made a list of all the railway stations within fifty miles of Clonmore. He then wrote out a series of messages to the police sergeants of these places, directing them to make inquiries at the railway stations about all strangers who had left by train that day. He appended, for the further guidance of the police, his descriptions of the Members of Parliament, and a note to the effect that one of them was riding a lady’s bicycle.
Susy Lizzie handed him a reply to his first message.
“From Under Secretary, Dublin Castle. Inspector-General of police in Belfast quelling riot. Wire forwarded. Lord Lieutenant anxious to know whether ladies of party safe.”
Mr. Goddard replied at once, “Ladies perfectly safe, but anxious and tearful.”
Susy Lizzie, by this time in a state of extreme excitement and perfect good temper, set to work again at the seaport messages. She had got as far as Greenore when she had to stop to receive another incoming message.