"Oh, no fears. I'm past that game. But Mrs Craigie is a great one for p's and q's and not being what she calls vulgar, and a joke like that is a sure draw. I get her every time with my governess riddles. Here's a good one now—Why's a pretty governess like a——"
In spite of the need for caution, my impatience was fast overcoming me.
"Then you have been sent by Mrs Craigie to make inquiries about Miss Holland?" I interrupted a trifle brusquely.
Mr Craigie seemed at least to have the merit of not taking offence readily.
"That's the idea," he agreed. "You see, it's this way: my wife's been at me ever since our governess bolted, as she calls it. Well now, what's the good in making inquiries about a thing that's happened and finished and come to an end? If it was a case of engaging another governess, that's a different story. I'd take care not to have any German spies next time!"
"German spies!" I exclaimed, with I hope well-simulated horror; "you don't mean to suspect Miss Holland of that surely!"
"Oh, 'German Spy' is just a kind of term nowadays for any one you don't know all about," said Mr Craigie easily. "Every one you haven't seen before is a German Spy. I spotted five myself in my own parish at the beginning of the war, and Mrs Craigie wrote straight off to the Naval Authorities and reported them all."
"And were they actually spies?" I asked a trifle uncomfortably.
"Not one of them!" laughed he. "The nearest approach was a tinker who'd had German measles! Ha, ha! It's no good my wife reporting any more spies, and I just reminded her of that whenever she worried me, and pulled her leg a bit about me and Miss Holland being in the game together, and so it was all right till she got wind of a girl who was the image of the disappearing governess being here at the manse as Mr Burnett's sister, and then there was simply no quieting her till I'd taken the car and run over to see what there was in the story. Mind you, I didn't think there was a word of truth in it myself; but when I'd got here, by Jingo, there I saw Miss Holland's tweed coat in the hall! Now that's a funny kettle of fish, isn't it?"
I didn't say so, but I had to admit that he was not so very far wrong. The audacity of the performance was quite worthy of Tiel, but its utter recklessness seemed not in the least like him. Had the vanishing governess's employer been any one less easy-going than Mr Craigie, how readily our whole scheme might have been wrecked! Even as it was, I saw detection staring me straight in the face. However, I put on as cool and composed a face as I could.