As soon as Darrell had gone, Drummond again rang the bell for his servant.
“This afternoon, James, you and Mrs. Denny will leave here and go to Paddington. Go out by the front door, and should you find yourselves being followed—as you probably will be—consume a jujube and keep your heads. Having arrived at the booking-office—take a ticket to Cheltenham, say good-bye to Mrs. Denny in an impassioned tone, and exhort her not to miss the next train to that delectable inland resort. You might even speak slightingly about her sick aunt at Westbourne Grove, who alone prevents your admirable wife from accompanying you. Then, James, you will board the train for Cheltenham and go there. You will remain there for two days, during which period you must remember that you’re a married man—even if you do go to the movies. You will then return here, and await further orders. Do you get me?”
“Yes, sir.” James stood to attention with a smart heel-click.
“Your wife—she has a sister or something, hasn’t she, knocking about somewhere?”
“She ’as a palsied cousin in Camberwell, sir,” remarked James with justifiable pride.
“Magnificent,” murmured Hugh. “She will dally until eventide with her palsied cousin—if she can bear it—and then she must go by Underground to Ealing, where she will take a ticket to Goring. I don’t think there will be any chance of her being followed—you’ll have drawn them off. When she gets to Goring I want the cottage got ready at once, for two visitors.” He paused and lit a cigarette. “Above all, James—mum’s the word. As I told you a little while ago, the game has begun. Now just repeat what I’ve told you.”
He listened while his servant ran through his instructions, and nodded approvingly. “To think there are still people who think military service a waste of time!” he murmured. “Four years ago you couldn’t have got one word of it right.”
He dismissed Denny, and sat down at his desk. First he took the half-torn sheet out of his pocket, and putting it in an envelope, sealed it carefully. Then he placed it in another envelope, with a covering letter to his bank, requesting them to keep the enclosure intact.
Then he took a sheet of notepaper, and with much deliberation proceeded to pen a document which afforded him considerable amusement, judging by the grin which appeared from time to time on his face. This effusion he also enclosed in a sealed envelope, which he again addressed to his bank. Finally, he stamped the first, but not the second—and placed them both in his pocket.
For the next two hours he apparently found nothing better to do than eat a perfectly grilled chop prepared by Mrs. Denny, and superintend his visitor unwillingly consuming a sago pudding. Then, with the departure of the Dennys for Paddington, which coincided most aptly with the return of Peter Darrell, a period of activity commenced in Half Moon Street. But being interior activity, interfering in no way with the placid warmth of the street outside, the gentleman without, whom a keen observer might have thought strangely interested in the beauties of that well-known thoroughfare—seeing that he had been there for three hours—remained serenely unconscious of it. His pal had followed the Dennys to Paddington. Drummond had not come out—and the watcher who watched without was beginning to get bored.