The inquiries he made resulted in little. Some standers-by had seen two men leave the house a few minutes since, but had observed nothing, neither what they were like nor where they went. No, it had not been observed that they were of South Irish aspect.
It seemed hopeless to track them. The old lady said that she lived there alone with her husband, above the shop; but that, of course, any scoundrel might stray into it while the door stood open, and lurk in ambush.
“How did they guess that the old lady was going to invite me in?” Macdermott wondered. “If they did guess, that is, and if it was really part of the anti-delegate campaign. Of course, if not, they may merely have guessed she should ask some one (it may be her habit), and hidden in ambush to rob whoever it might be. But they didn't rob me.... It could be that this good old lady was in the plot herself, no less, for all she speaks so civil. But who is to prove that, I ask you? It's queer and strange....”
Thus pondering, Fergus Macdermott took a cab and drove to the hotel where he was to dine with Garth, the representative of the Morning Post. He would be doing Garth a good turn to let him get in with the tale before the other papers; he would be able to wire it home straight away. The Morning Post deserved that: a sound paper it was, and at times the only one in England that got hold of and stated the Truth. This attack on Macdermott proved conclusively to his mind, what he and the Morning Post had from the first suspected and said, that the Irish Republicans were at the back of the whole business, helped, as usual, by German and Bolshevik money.
“Ah, this proves it,” said Macdermott, his blue eyes very bright in his white face as he drove along.
As to the procession, he had forgotten all about it.
[31]
Mademoiselle Bjornsen, substitute delegate for one of the Scandinavian countries, a doctor of medicine, and a woman of high purpose and degree, of the type which used to be called, in the old days when it flourished in Great Britain, feminist, often walked out in the evening for a purpose which did her great credit. She was of those good and disinterested women who care greatly for the troubles of their less fortunate, less well-educated and less well-principled sisters, and who often patrol streets in whatever city they happen to find themselves, with a view to extending the hand of succour to those of their sex who appear to be in error or in need.