“Will you,” said Miss Blow, “kindly go and fetch Mr. Goddard, your officer? He ought to know that his men have not returned.”
“I don’t know will I be able to find him.”
“Go and try.”
“I will,” said Moriarty. “I’ll go and ask Jimmy O’Loughlin. If anybody knows where the officer is, it’ll be Jimmy O’Loughlin.”
Jimmy O’Loughlin told Moriarty to go back to the ladies and keep them amused for a while by showing them over the barrack. Moriarty refused to do this. He said that the situation was urgent and critical, and that he would not take the responsibility of dealing with Miss Blow without help. Jimmy O’Loughlin reluctantly went down to the barrack. Miss Blow attacked him at once.
“Where is Mr. Goddard?” she said.
“He’s beyond,” said Jimmy, “in the post-office, and he left word that he wasn’t to be disturbed on account of his being terrible busy.”
“He ought to be told that his men have not returned from Rosivera.”
“I’d be in dread to go near him. It’s telegrams he’s sending, telegrams to the Lord Lieutenant and more of them high-up gentlemen, and that’s the kind of work that would be preying upon a man.”