“Oh, just a mere whim of mine, that’s all. No—don’t press me for an explanation, please. ‘Where ignorance is bliss,’ et cetera. Besides, I’m a whimsical beggar at best, you know—and who bothers to inquire why a donkey prefers thistles to hay? So just drop me down when we reach the outskirts of Guildford, if you will be so kind.”
Mr. Narkom was discreet enough to drop the subject at that and to make no further allusion to the matter until they came, in the fulness of time, to the place in question. Here he called Lennard to a halt, and Cleek alighted—not furtively, nor yet in haste—and, standing beside the car, reached in and shook hands with him.
“Until you want me again,” he smiled in his easy, offhand way. “And if that turns out to be a long time off I shan’t be sorry. Meanwhile, if you wish to do me a favour, look about for a limousine of another make and a quite different colour. I’ve an odd idea that this one is fast coming to the end of its career of usefulness. Good-bye. All right, Lennard—let her go.”
Then the door of the car closed with a smack, and he was off and away—so openly and at such a leisurely pace that it was clear he had neither need nor desire to effect a getaway unobserved.
“Well, I’ll be dashed!” was Mr. Narkom’s unspoken comment upon the proceeding—for, under his hat, he had come to the conclusion that Cleek had, in some way, by some unconfessed means, learned that Waldemar or the Apache had come back into the game and were again on his heels, but had said nothing for fear of worrying him. “Walking off as cool as you please and never the first attempt to come any of his old Vanishing Cracksman’s dodges. Amazing beggar! What’s he up to now, I wonder?”
It is just possible that could he have followed he would have wondered still more, for Cleek was bearing straight down upon the populous portions of the town, and about ten minutes after the two had parted, struck into the High Street, walked along it for a short distance, studying the signs over the various buildings until, sighting one which announced that it was the Guildford Office of the Royal British Life Assurance Society, he crossed the street, and with great deliberation passed in under it, and disappeared from sight.
It was one of the contradictory points of his singularly contradictory character, that whereas he had chafed under the delay in getting away from the Royal dockyard at Portsea because he was eager to get back to his work in the little old walled garden, and all his thoughts were with the flowers he was preparing for her, in the end he did not see the place until after the moon was up, and all hope of gardening for that day had to be abandoned entirely, yet—he came back to Dollops whistling and as happy as a sandboy.
He was up with the first cock crow next morning, and dawn found him plying fork and rake and trowel among the flowers, and positively bubbling over with enthusiasm; for the budding roses were just beginning to show colour and to give promise of full bloom for the day of days—and more than that he did not ask of heaven.
Indeed, it was written that he might not, for the balance had again swung over, the call of Nature again sounded, and the Great Mother, taking him to her bosom, had again merged the Man in the Idealist and cradled him into forgetfulness of all spells but hers. So that all through the day he went in and out among his flowers whistling and singing and living in a sort of ecstasy that ran on like a dream without end.
On the morrow the little garden was all finished and ready, and nothing now remained but to sit in idleness and wait.