But before he could finish the sentence. “Pas ici, pas maintenant—c’est trop de péril,” she cried, and she must have gone, for he could get no more from her. When he rang again, Randall responded:
“Mrs. Winter says, sir, will you please come up here as quick as you can. She’s gone out. She thought she caught sight of Mr. Archie on the street.”
To the colonel’s demand, “Where, how did she see him?” he obtained no answer, and on his vicious pealing of the bell there came, eventually, mellow Anglican accents which asked: “Yes? Whom do you wish to see?” It is an evidence of the undisciplined nature of the sex that the soldier made a face and—hung up the receiver.
He found himself—although this to a really open mind is no excuse—in a muddle of conflicting impulses. He was on edge to get into the street for the search after the boy; he was clutched in a vise by his conviction that the clue to Archie’s whereabouts lay in Mercer’s hands, and that the Southerner meant no harm to the lad. And all the while he could feel Birdsall tugging at the leash.
“It’s on the cards,” he grumbled, with a wry face, “quite on the cards that he may bolt in spite of me, and do some foolish stunt of his own that will make a most awful muddle.”
Not nearly so composed as he looked, therefore, he turned to Mercer. However, his ammunition was ready, and to Mercer’s inquiry, was he satisfied? he replied calmly: “Well, not entirely. If Archie isn’t in the house, who is it whose throat you wish to cut? Who is hidden here?”
It could not have been an unexpected question or Mercer hardly had answered so readily: “You know who it is,” said he. “It is Mr. Keatcham.”
CHAPTER X
THE SMOLDERING EMBERS
If Mercer’s avowal surprised the colonel, there was no trace of such emotion in his face or his manner. “I rather thought it might be,” he said. “And our young friend who is promoting Fireless Stoves with the solemn energy he learned doing Dicky stunts?”
“Mr. Endicott Tracy.” Mercer had the manner of a ceremonious introduction. Tracy flavored the customary murmur of pleasure with his radiant smile.