"I have something to say to you," continued the gobernador hurriedly. "Pardon me for not receiving you in my house with the respect due to my preserver, but there are reasons...." He nodded with an air of mystery. Then he went on in nervous haste: "Tell your good father to be on his guard to-night. See that everything is secure. He must be careful not to arouse suspicion among his staff. Few are to be trusted in these disturbed times. If he sleeps at all, let him sleep with one eye open."
"What's going to happen, señor?" asked Tim.
"I say no more. Perhaps I have said too much. But I owe you so much gratitude----"
"Don't mention it, señor," said Tim, backing. "Thanks for your warning."
"Do not breathe my name to any one but your father," said the gobernador anxiously. "I must go. Next time I see you I hope it will be at my front door, with open arms."
"I hope it won't," thought Tim. He shook hands with the flurried gentleman, who, with another cautious look around, returned to the gate and slipped through into his garden.
Tim was very thoughtful as he walked home. Such a warning in Spanish America was not to be disregarded, and he could not help connecting it with the Prefect's visit, the object of which he had learnt from his mother. He had a lively imagination. Such a man as the Prefect was not likely to accept amiably the snub administered by Mr. O'Hagan. He might use other means than persuasion to enforce his will.
He wanted money. To-morrow was pay-day at the hacienda, and there was a large sum in the safe. San Rosario had no bank. The branch of a Lima bank at San Juan had shut its doors on the accession of the present Prefect to office: the managers feared that their floating assets would be attached by the new official, ostensibly for public purposes. Since then the employers of labour had had to be their own bankers, drawing cash at intervals from Lima by well-armed convoys. There could be little doubt that the gobernador had somehow got wind of a plot to rob Mr. O'Hagan on the coming night.
Tim wondered what his father would do to defeat the attempt. How would the burglars go to work? The safe was kept in the office. The key was on Mr. O'Hagan's bunch. To reach the office the robbers would have to pass through one or other of the patios. The middle patio had French doors opening on the garden. They were always locked and bolted at night, like the main door and the servants' entrance. It would be difficult to enter without making a noise, unless the servants were in league with the burglars. Tim thought of each of them in turn, and felt sure that all were trustworthy.
All at once a brilliant idea struck him. His father was rather vexed with him--or with the motor-cycle, which amounted to the same thing; what a score it would be if he could deal with this matter himself, without his father knowing anything about it! He chuckled with delight as he imagined himself telling at the breakfast-table, as calmly as though it were an everyday matter, how he had defeated an attempted burglary. But how was it to be done? Mr. O'Hagan was a light sleeper; a slight noise would disturb him, and Tim was at a loss for any means of routing the burglars silently.