Men of Affairs Part 41

"I was right--I was right," he gasped. "Hispano Suisa by the look of it--and fast too. Shouldn't have much chance against that outfit."

Naturally enough he resolved that it would never do to allow Barraclough to get as far as the stable. On the other hand it would be a wise precaution to disable the big automobile in case of accident.

But between him and the carrying out of this resolve was an iron bar and a padlock. To attempt violence against the door would surely attract attention from the house. And all at once a simple and effective alternative suggested itself. If he himself were unable to enter the stable he would take measures to prevent the entrance of any other person. There was no difficulty about that and when five minutes later he strolled down the road toward the inn it was with the comforting reflection that the keyhole of the padlock was entirely filled up with clay and grit in such a manner that no key could ever again force its way in.

He found Dirk already settling himself down for the night and Harrison Smith smote him boisterously on the back.

"A red hot scent, my son," said he. "We're on the winning side.

Success, my boy--success."

Freddie Dirk smiled beatifically through a fog of beer.

"Goo' ni'," he murmured.

"It's up with the dawn for you and me--and then success."

Curious how success reacts even on the best balanced brain and obliterates the most obvious considerations. Harrison Smith entirely forgot the second blue dot on the map--the one situated a mile outside the village where a little footpath converged with the high road.

CHAPTER 22.

PLAIN SAILING.

The steam trawler "Felice" out of Cherbourg was not much to look at, but none the less she was a lady of virtue and of good intention. Her engines had lost the sweet voice of youth through long argument and bitter contest with the stern affronts of life. Where once they had hummed and purred now they racketed and nagged, but they got through the work none the less well on that account. The life of a fish wife hardens the temperament and loosens the tongue and the "Felice" was no exception to the rule. A plain, strident, powerful old woman bucketing through calm and trouble with the same reproach for either. The "Felice" wore rusty black--coa.r.s.e and patched. She had long ago forsaken her girlish waist band of royal blue esteeming such fallals better suited to the children of the fleet. She was a no-nonsense lady, one of the "up and doing and you be d.a.m.ned" sort, but she boasted at least one unusual feature, the pride and envy of her fellows. She was fitted with an aerial, the relic of an age when small vessels went forth to sweep up big mines very often to be swept up themselves while so engaged and to mention the fact by wireless in the short interval between being struck and sinking.

Anthony Barraclough, wrapped in a suit of borrowed oilskins, leaned against the deck-house and grinned at the breaking day. Like a fire opal the sun rose out of the sea, its first rays dissipating the ghostlike wisps of fog that drifted over the water. The "Felice" was shouldering her way up channel against the slap of a running tide and the greeny-black waves, as yet undyed by the morning blue, spumed and spattered over the bows and wetted her decks with a sharp salt rain.

"Oh, Lord!" said Barraclough, dashing the spray out of his eyes. "Oh, Lord! it's good to be alive."

His hand travelled to an inside breast pocket and stayed there, his fingers lovingly caressing a case of morocco leather.

"And it's good to have brought it off. d.a.m.ned good." His eyes looked aloft to the sagging wires of the aerial.

"Wonder if I dare send 'em a message. Better not perhaps. Besides, I want the fun of springing it on 'em myself. Still, I might give 'em a hint--something to set 'em thinking."

He puzzled for a moment then broke into a fresh grin for a dainty little code had suggested itself. It would be rather amusing to talk to a group of financiers in the language of flowers. A memory of Isabel's last words put the idea into his head when she had given him the dog rose on the evening of his departure.

"It means hope, Tony," and "Hope it is," he had replied.

He turned to the little companion ladder and shouted into the dark beneath.

"Ohe, Jean Prevost, half a minute."

And in answer appeared the head and shoulders of a short, thick-set, twinkly eyed, unshaven man who gruffly demanded "Quoi?"

Jean Prevost, skipper of the "Felice," was not an "oil painting" to look at but he was just as reliable as the craft he commanded. He and Barraclough had had dealings together during the war and they respected each other. If Jean Prevost were proud of anything it was of his acquaintance with Barraclough and the knowledge he esteemed himself to possess of the English tongue.

"Fizz me off a message on the wireless, there's a good soul."

"Hah!"

"Gerard, Regent Street, W. Deliver immediately single dog rose to Lord Almont Frayne, Park Lane Mansions."

Jean Prevost nodded and repeated the message verbatim.

"That's it. Quick as you can."

"I send 'im now, I blerdy will. We find ze trawlers blerdy soon."

Jean Prevost showed a regrettable liberality in the use of this popular adjective which he firmly believed lent vitality and refinement to any sentence.

"That'll set them thinking," said Barraclough, as he turned away with a smile. "Ha, the Eddystone!"

In direct line with their course rising like a thin twig out of the sea showed the silhouette of the lighthouse, while between it and the now faintly discernible mainland tiny dots of brown showed upon the water.

Your true Englishman is an absurd creation for he cannot return to his native land even after the shortest absence, he cannot see the faint familiar landmarks, the nestling villages, the rolling downs, the white chalk or grey granite of her battlements, without a throb of honest grateful pride. An imperial singing sounds in his ears--tuned to the measure of breaking surf--such a song as lovers sing whose single words are no more than this, "I am yours and you are mine."

"Tonight," he said. "Tonight I shall see her again."

There was the appointment at his rooms at 11 o'clock when he would place the concession in Mr. Torrington's hands. That would be a big moment. He could imagine Cranbourne's unbridled enthusiasm, Lord Almont's congratulations in the style of P. G. Wodehouse, and Ca.s.sis, that person of dry ashes and parchment, unbending to the greatness of the occasion. He, Barraclough, was a made man, every newspaper in the country would send its reporters to clamour at his doors, every charity seek his aid when the story and the magnitude of his find became known.

From an ordinary commonplace individual, he would be transformed into a figure of the age, the observed of all eyes, the target of every tongue. And yet, the world at his feet, the wealth, the prominence, the power, the achievement, faded and dwindled into nothing at all beside one absurd but adorable longing. It was the thought of Isabel sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, resting her chin upon them, looking at him with great wide open eyes, smiling at him with moist trembling lips.

Over head the aerial fizzed and crackled as his message voyaged forth into s.p.a.ce. The tiny dots between the Eddystone and the land took form and detail and became the brown sails of a fishing fleet lolling idly in the bay.

A hand on his shoulder aroused him from his reverie and he turned to find Jean Prevost standing beside him.

Barraclough pointed to the North East.

"Number fifty-seven," he said.

The old skipper focussed a pair of binoculars and steadied them against a stay of the funnel.

"Zere," he said, and pointed at a solitary sail to the West of its fellows. "Heem! You see?"

Barraclough nodded.

"Diamond's a reliable chap. Always as good as his word. How long shall we be?"

"Quarter hour--ten minit."

Nothing more was said until the "Felice" came alongside the solitary fishing boat from the bows of which a tall bronzed seaman gave them a welcoming hail.

"Good-bye and good luck, Jean Prevost," said Barraclough. "You'll hear from me in a day or two."

"And blerdy good luck to you," said the Frenchman gripping the extended hand.

Barraclough dropped over the side and landed on the stern sheets of Number 57. A bell clanked and the "Felice" lurched away ruffing the gla.s.sy water with her screw.