"Well—because he's compelled to mix himself up with queer affairs and queer people sometimes, and in his position as the younger son of a peer it wouldn't do if it leaked out. I simply act as he bids, and seek no explanation. You'll have to do the same."
Hardly had he ceased speaking when "the guv'nor," in dinner-jacket and black tie, entered, and said:
"William, I want you to take a letter for me to Raven at Nottingham by the next train. It leaves St. Pancras at 10.45. You'll be there at 2.30 in the morning. He's at the 'Black Boy.' Get an answer and take the 5.50 back. You'll be here again soon after nine in the morning."
"Very well, sir," answered the valet, taking the letter from his master's hand; and ten minutes later he went downstairs to catch his train.
This incident showed that Robert Brackenbury was essentially a man of action. His keen, dark aquiline face, bright, sharp eyes, and quick, almost electric movements combined to show him to be a man of nerve, resource, and rapid decision. The square lower jaw betokened hard determination, while at the same time his manner was easy, nonchalant, and essentially that of a born gentleman.
William returned next morning, and a few days passed uneventfully. Both morning and evening each day, at hours prearranged, he "got on" to Shand, but their conversations were very enigmatical. Several times I happened to be in the room, but could learn nothing from the talk, which seemed, in the main, to refer to the rise and fall of certain mining shares.
Each day I drove him out in the "ninety." The car, a four-cylinder, had no flexibility, and was a perfect terror in traffic. The noise it caused was as though it had no silencer, while the police everywhere looked askance as we crept through the Strand, dodged the motor-buses in Oxford Street, or put on a move down Kensington Gore.
While Bob Brackenbury—as he was known to his friends of the "Savoy"—was out one day, I was in his bedroom with William, when the latter opened one of the huge wardrobes there. Inside I saw hanging a collection of at least fifty coats of all kinds, some smart and of latest style, others old-fashioned and dingy, while more than one was greasy, out-at-elbow, and ragged. I made no remark. Never in my life had I seen such an extensive collection of clothes belonging to one man. Surely those ragged coats were kept there for purposes of disguise! Yet would it not be highly necessary for a member of the Secret Service to possess certain disguises, I reflected!
William noticed my interest, and shut the doors hurriedly.
I drove Brackenbury hither and thither to various parts of London, for he seemed to possess many friends. Once we took two pretty young ladies from Hampstead down to the "Mitre" at Hampton Court, and on another afternoon we took a young French girl and her mother from the "Carlton" down to the "Old Bridge House" at Windsor.