The officer looked the strangers up and down, and then asked—
“What’s this extraordinary story? Germans landed in England—eh? That’s fresh, certainly!”
“Yes. Can’t you hear what the newsboys are crying? Listen!” exclaimed the motorist.
“H’m. Well, you’re not the first gentleman who’s been here with a scare, you know. If I were you I’d wait till to-morrow,” and he glanced significantly at the caretaker.
“I won’t wait till to-morrow!” cried Fergusson. “The country is in peril, and you refuse to assist me on your own responsibility—you understand?”
“All right, my dear sir,” replied the officer, leisurely hooking his thumbs in his belt. “You’d better drive home, and call again in the morning.”
“So this is the way the safety of the country is neglected!” cried the motorist bitterly, turning away. “Everyone away, and this great place, built merely to gull the public, I suppose, empty and its machinery useless. What will England say when she learns the truth?”
As they were walking in disgust out from the portico towards the car, a man jumped from a hansom in breathless haste. He was the reporter whom Fergusson had sent out to Sir James Taylor’s house in Cleveland Square, Hyde Park.
“They thought Sir James spent the night with his brother up at Hampstead,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been there, but find that he’s away for the week-end at Chilham Hall, near Buckden.”
“Buckden! That’s on the Great North Road!” cried Horton. “We’ll go at once and find him. Sixty miles from London. We can be there under two hours!”