“Nothing, my dear Dick. Don’t worry. It’s all bluff! Leave it to Gordon. He directs everything. He wriggled out in the past, and he’ll do it again.”
“That’s all very well. But I tell you I’m not so sure. Jimmie wrote to me the other day. The butler stunt at your house at Welwyn is all very well, but the game must be blown sooner or later. Believe me, Freda, it must?”
“I know. But we’re not staying at Willowden always.”
“But Gordon has his radio-telephone there. He talked to me on it to Nice the other night.”
“Yes. But we shall clear out at a moment’s notice—when it becomes desirable, and the little local police sergeant—no, I beg his pardon, he’s fat and red-faced and goes about on a push-bike—will be left guessing why the rich tenants of the big house have gone away on holidays. We’ve departed upon lots of holidays—haven’t we, Dick? And we’ll go once more! Each holiday brings us money—one holiday more or one less—what matters? And, after all, we who live with eyes skinned on people with money deserve all we get. England has now changed. Those stay-at-home cowards of the war have all the money, and poor people like ourselves deserve to touch it, if we can manage to lead them up the garden, eh?”
And the handsome adventuress laughed merrily.
“But surely our present game is not one against war profits?” the man remarked, during a lull in the blatant café orchestra.
“No. We’re up against saving ourselves—you and I and Gordon and Jimmie. Don’t you realise that not a word must ever leak out about young Willard? Otherwise we shall all be right in the cart—jugged at once!”
“I hope old Homfray knows nothing. What can he know?”
“He may, of course, know something, Dick,” the woman said in an altered voice. “If I had known what I do now I would never have been a party to taking his son Roddy away.” She paused for a moment and looked straight at him. “We made a silly mistake—I’m certain of it. Gordon laughs at me. But Jimmie is of my opinion.”