A knocking at the door of the library aroused Desmond from his cogitations. He hastened to replace the volumes of Shakespeare on their shelf and restore all to its former appearance. Then he went to the door and opened it. Old Martha stood in the hall.
"If you please, sir," she wheezed, "the doctor's come!"
"Oh," said Desmond, rather puzzled, "what doctor?"
"It's not Dr. Haines from the village, Mr. Bellward, sir," said the housekeeper, "It's a genel'man from Lunnon!"
Then Desmond remembered Crook's promise to look him up and guessed it must be he. He bade Martha show the doctor in and bring tea for two.
Desmond's surmise was right. The old woman ushered in Crook, looking the very pattern of medical respectability, with Harley Street written all over him from the crown of his glossy top-hat to the neat brown spats on his feet. In his hand he carried a small black bag.
"Well," he said, surveying Desmond, "and how do we find ourselves to-day? These chills are nasty things to shake off, my dear sir!"
"Oh, stow that!" growled Desmond, who was in little mood for joking.
"Voice inclined to be laryngeal," said Crook putting down his hat and bag on a chair, "we shall have to take care of our bronchial tubes! We are not so young as we were!"
"You can drop all that mumming, Crook!" snapped Desmond irascibly.
"Voice rotten," replied Crook calmly surveying him through his pince-nez. "Really, Major--I should say, Mr. Bellward--you must take more pains than that. You are talking to me exactly as though I were a British Tommy. Tut, tut, this will never do, sir! You must talk thicker, more guttural-like, and open the vowels well."
He had dropped his jesting manner altogether and spoke with the deep earnestness of the expert airing his pet topic. He was so serious that Desmond burst out laughing. It must be said, however, that he laughed as much like a German as he knew how. This appeared to mollify Crook who, nevertheless, read him a long lecture against ever, for a moment, even when alone, quitting the role he was playing. Desmond took it in good part; for he knew the soundness of the other's advice.
Then old Martha brought' tea, and over the cups and saucers Crook gave Desmond a budget of news. He told of the warrant issued for the arrest of Nur-el-Din and of the search being made for her.
Desmond heard the news of Nur-el-Din's disappearance from London with some consternation. He began to realize that his failure to detain Nur-el-Din that afternoon might have incalculable consequences. Sunk in thought, he let Crook run on. He was wondering whether he ought to give him a message for the Chief, telling him of Nur-el-Din's visit and of her flight on the arrival of Mortimer.
Now, Desmond had a good deal of pride, and like most proud people, he was inclined to be obstinate. To confess to the Chief that he had let both Nur-el-Din and Mortimer slip through his fingers was more than he could face. He could not bear to think that the Chief might believe him capable of failure, and take independent measures to guard against possible mistakes. Also, in his heart of hearts, Desmond was angry with the Chief. He thought the latter had acted precipitately in getting out a warrant for Nur-el-Din's arrest before he, Desmond, had had time to get into the skin of his part.
So Desmond heard Crook out and made no comment. When the other asked him if he had anything to tell the Chief, he shook his head. He was not to know then the consequences which his disobedience of orders was destined to have. If he had realized what the result of his obstinacy would be, he would not have hesitated to send a full report by Crook--and this story might never have been written!
But if youth followed reason instead of impulse, the world would stand still. Desmond was still at an age at which a man is willing to take on anything and anybody, and he was confident of bringing his mission to a successful conclusion without any extraneous aid. So Crook, after changing Desmond's make-up and giving him a further rehearsal of his role, packed up his pots and paints and brushes in his black bag and returned to London with "nothing to report" as the communiques say.
He repeated his visit every day for the next four days. Crook's arrival each afternoon was the only break in the monotony of a life which was rapidly becoming unbearable to Desmond's mercurial temperament. He found himself looking forward to the wizened little man's visits and for want of better employment, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the study of his role under the expert's able direction. Desmond's beard had sprouted wonderfully, and Crook assured him that, by about the end of the week, the tow substitute, which Desmond found a most unmitigated nuisance, would be no longer necessary. He also showed his pupil how to paint in the few deft lines about the eyes which completed the resemblance between Bellward and his impersonator.
The time hung terribly heavily on Desmond's hands. He had long since memorized and destroyed the list of Mr. Bellward's friends. Every morning he spent at least an hour before the mirror in his bedroom working up the role. With every day he felt more confident of himself; with every day he grew more anxious to go to London, and, taking the bull by the horns, boldly visit one of Mr. Bellward's acquaintances and test the effect of his disguise.
But no orders came from Headquarters to release him from his confinement. Moreover, no word arrived from Nur-el-Din nor did Mortimer send any message or call again at the Mill House. The silence of the two conspirators made Desmond uneasy. Suppose Mortimer, who, he felt sure, had caught him out lying about Nur-el-Din's presence in the house at the time of his visit, had grown suspicious! What if Nur-el-Din had succeeded in making good her escape to the Continent? He had had his chance of laying hold of both suspects and he had failed. Would that chance come again?
Desmond doubted it. Every morning he awoke long before the dawn and lay awake until daylight, his mind racked by these apprehensions. He chafed bitterly at his inaction and he plied Crook with questions as to whether he had any orders for him. Each time Crook replied in the negative.
In the library Desmond found an Ordnance map of Essex. His military training had given him a good schooling in the use of maps, and he spent many hours studying the section of the country about the Mill House, seeking to impress it upon his mind against future emergencies.
He was surprised to find how remote the Mill House lay from other habitations. Between it and Wentfield station, once Wentfield village was passed, there were only a few lonely farms; but to the south there was an absolutely uninhabited tract of fen traversed by the road running past the front gate of the Mill House. The Mill House was duly marked on the map; with a little blue line showing the millrace which Desmond traced to its junction with one of the broad dykes intersecting Morstead Fen. The only inhabited house to the south of the Bellward villa appeared to be a lonely public house situated on the far edge of the fen, a couple of hundred yards away from the road. It was called "The Dyke Inn."
One afternoon--it was the fifth day after Desmond's arrival at Bellward's--Mr. Crook announced that this was to be his last visit.
"I go abroad to-night, Mr. Bellward," he said (he always insisted on addressing Desmond by his assumed name), "a little job o' work in Switzerland; at Berne, to be precise. Urgent, you might call it, and really, sir, you've made so much progress that I think I can safely leave you. And I was to say that you will be able to go out very soon now."
"Good!" exclaimed Desmond, rubbing his hands together. "And you think I'll do, Crook, eh?"
Crook rubbed his nose meditatively.
"I'll be quite frank with you, Mr. Bellward," he said: "With a superficial acquaintance, even with an intimate friend, if he's as unobservant as most people are, you'll pass muster. But I shouldn't like to guarantee anything if you were to meet, say, Mrs. Bellward, if the gentleman has got a wife, or his mother. Keep out of a strong light; don't show your profile more than you can help, and remember that a woman is a heap more observant than a man.
"That's my advice to you, sir. And now I'll take my leave! You won't want that tow beard any more after to-day."
That night Desmond slept well and did not awake until the sunshine was streaming in between the Venetian blinds in his bedroom. He felt keen and vigorous, and he had an odd feeling that something was going to happen to him that day.
It was a delicious morning, the air as balmy as spring. As he brushed his hair in front of the window, Desmond saw the peewits running about in the sunshine on the fields by the road. He made an excellent breakfast and then, lighting a pipe, opened the Times which lay folded by his plate.
He turned first, as was his daily habit, to the casualty list. There it was! Under the names of the "Killed in Action," he read: "Okewood, Major D. J. P.," followed by the name of his regiment. It gave him an odd little shock, though he had looked for the announcement every day; but the feeling of surprise was quickly followed by one of relief. That brief line in the casualty list meant the severing of all the old ties until he had hunted down his quarry.
Now he was ready to start.
He spent the morning in the garden. Here, for the first time, he met Mr. Hill, the odd man, who, on seeing him, became intensely busy picking up handfuls of leaves and conveying them to a fire which was smouldering in a corner. Desmond essayed to enter into conversation with him but the man was so impenetrably deaf that Desmond, tiring of bawling, "It's a fine day!" in Mr. Hill's ear, left him and strolled over to the shed where the motor-cycle was stored. Here he amused himself for more than an hour in taking the machine to pieces and putting it together again. He satisfied himself that the bike was in working order and filled up the tank. He had an idea that this means of conveyance might come in useful.
The day was so mild that he lunched by the open window with the sunshine casting rainbows can the tablecloth through the wine-glasses. He was just finishing his coffee when the housekeeper came in and told him he was wanted on the telephone.
Desmond sprang from his chair with alacrity. His marching orders at last! he thought, as he hurried across the hall to the library.
"Hullo!" he cried as he picked up the receiver.
"Is that Mr. Bellward?" answered a nasal voice.
"Bellward speaking!" said Desmond, wondering who had called him up. The voice was a man's but it was not the abrupt clear tones of the Chief nor yet Mr. Matthews' careful accents.
"Madame Le Bon wishes to see you!"
Madame Le Bon? thought Desmond. Why, that was the name that Nur-el-Din had given him. "I am Madame Le Bon, a Belgian refugee," she had said.
"Do you know whom I mean?" the voice continued.
"Certainly," replied Desmond. "You will come alone. Otherwise, Madame will not see you. You understand? If you do not come alone, you will waste your time!"
"Where are you speaking from?" Desmond asked.
"If you will turn to the left on leaving your front gate," the voice resumed, "and follow the road, a messenger will meet you and take you to the lady."
"But..." Desmond began.
"Will you come at once? And alone?" the nasal voice broke in sharply.
Desmond took a moment's thought. To go was to disobey orders; not to go was to risk losing a second chance of meeting Nur-el-Din. To telephone to 700 Stanning for assistance would bring a hornets' nest about his ears; yet he might only see the dancer if he went alone. He lost no time in making up his mind. The Chief must allow him latitude for meeting emergencies of this kind. He would go.
"I will come at once," said Desmond.
"Good," said the voice and the communication ceased.
Somewhere aloft there sits a sweet little cherub whose especial job is to look after the headstrong. It was doubtless this emissary of providence that leant down from his celestial seat and whispered in Desmond's ear that it would be delightful to walk out across the fen on this sunny afternoon. Desmond was in the act of debating whether he would not take the motor-bike, but the cherub's winning way clinched it and he plumped for walking.
In the hall he met the housekeeper who told him she wanted to go into Stanning to do some shopping that afternoon. Desmond told her that he himself was going out and would not be back for tea. Then, picking a stout blackthorn out of the hallstand, he strode down the drive and out into the road.
It was still beautifully fine, but already the golden sunshine was waning and there were little wisps and curls of mist stealing low along the fields. Desmond turned to the left, on leaving the Mill House, as he was bid and saw the road running like a khaki ribbon before him into the misty distance.
Swinging his stick, he strode on rapidly. The road was neglected, broken and flinty and very soft. After he had gone about a mile it narrowed to pursue its way between two broad ditches lined with pollard willows and brimful of brown peaty water. By this time he judged, from his recollection of the map, that he must be on Morstead Fen. An interminable waste of sodden, emerald green fields, intersected by ditches, stretched away on either hand.
He had walked for half an hour when he made out in the distance a clump of trees standing apart and seemingly in the middle of the fields. Then in the foreground he descried a gate. A figure was standing by it.
As he approached the gate he saw it was a small boy. On remarking the stranger, the urchin opened the gate and without looking to right or left led off down the road towards the clump of trees: Desmond followed at his leisure.
As they neared the trees, the low red roof of a house detached itself. By this time the sun was sinking in a smear of red across a delicately tinted sky. Its dying rays held some glittering object high up on the side of the house.
At first Desmond thought it was a window, but presently the light went out, kindled again and once more vanished. It was too small for a window, Desmond decided, and then, turning the matter over in his mind, as observant people are accustomed to do even with trifles, he suddenly realized that the light he had seen was the reflection of the sun on a telescope or glasses.
They were now within a few hundred yards of the house. The road had made a right angle turn to the left, but the diminutive guide had quitted it and struck out along a very muddy cart track. Shading his eyes, Desmond gazed at the house and presently got a glimpse of a figure at a window surveying the road through a pair of field glasses. Even as he looked, the figure bobbed down and did not reappear.
"They want to be sure I'm alone," thought Desmond, and congratulated himself on having had the strength of mind to break his orders.
The cart-track led up to a little bridge over a ditch. By the bridge stood a tall pole, on the top of which was a blue and gold painted sign-board inscribed, "The Dyke Inn by J. Rass." The urchin led him across the bridge and up to the door of the inn.
An undersized, yellow-faced man, wearing neither collar nor tie, came to the door as they approached. Although of short stature, he was immensely broad with singularly long arms. Altogether he had something of the figure of a gorilla, Desmond thought on looking at him.
The man put a finger up and touched his forelock.
"Madame Le Bon is upstairs waiting for you!" he said in a nasal voice which Desmond recognized as that he had heard on the telephone. "Please to follow me!"
He led the way across a long low tap-room through a door and past the open trap-door of a cellar to a staircase. On the first landing, lit by a window looking out on a dreary expanse of fen, he halted Desmond.
"That's her room," he said, pointing to a door opposite the head of the staircase, half a dozen steps up, and so saying, the yellow-faced man walked quickly downstairs and left him. Desmond heard his feet echo on the staircase and the door of the tap-room slam.
He hesitated a moment. What if this were a trap? Suppose Mortimer, growing suspicious, had made use of Nur-el-Din to lure him to an ambush in this lonely place? Why the devil hadn't he brought a revolver with him?
Then Desmond's Irish blood came to his rescue. He gave his head a little shake, took a firm hold of his stick which was a stoutish sort of cudgel and striding boldly up to the door indicated, tapped.
"Entrez!" said a pretty voice that made Desmond's heart flutter.