"Don't you realise you are holding up a special? Great Heavens, man, this is very serious! You are holding up the business of the country!"

The engine-driver of the special came to the rescue.

"There's a switch-over about half a mile further on," he said.

"There's not a down train due for an hour. I'll unlock the switch and put you on to the other line, and, after we have pa.s.sed, you can come on."

"But I don't want to come on, dear old thing," said Bones. "I want to go back."

"Well, that's simple," said the driver.

He it was who piloted the Lynhaven express for another half-mile up the road. He it was who found the switches, unlocked them, telegraphed to the next station to hold up traffic, and he it was--Bones insisted upon this--who brought the "Mary Louisa" along the switch to the down line.

The position was as follows: The "Mary Louisa" was on the down line.

Two coaches were between the down and the up line, and the guard's van was exactly on the up line, when the "Mary Louisa" refused to work any further.

Neither the experienced engine-driver, nor Bones, nor the stoker of the special, nor Mr. Chenney, nor the ancient guard, could coax the "Mary Louisa" to move another yard. The Lynhaven express stretched across both lines and made all further progress for traffic impossible.

Three hours later a breakdown gang arrived and towed the "Mary Louisa"

and her appendages back to Bayham Junction.

Bones and the girl went back to London by the last train, and Bones was very thoughtful and silent.

But Bones was ever an optimist. The next morning he saw on a newspaper placard: "Birthday Honours. Twenty-two New Knights." And he actually stopped his car, bought a paper, and searched the lists for his name.

It was not there.

CHAPTER XI

A STUDENT OF MEN

Mr. Jackson Hyane was one of those oldish-looking young men to whom the description of "man about town" most naturally applied. He was always well-dressed and correctly dressed. You saw him at first nights. He was to be seen in the paddock at Ascot--it was a shock to discover that he had not the Royal Enclosure badge on the lapel of his coat--and he was to be met with at most of the social functions, attendance at which did not necessarily imply an intimate acquaintance with the leaders of Society, yet left the impression that the attendant was, at any rate, in the swim, and might very well be one of the princ.i.p.al swimmers.

He lived off Albemarle Street in a tiny flat, and did no work of any kind whatever. His friends, especially his new friends, thought he "had a little money," and knew, since he told them, that he had expectations. He did not tell them that his expectations were largely bound up in their credulity and faith in his integrity. Some of them discovered that later, but the majority drifted out of his circle poorer without being wiser, for Mr. Hyane played a wonderful game of piquet, and seemed to be no more than abnormally lucky.

His mother had been a Miss Whitland, his father was the notorious Colonel Hyane, who boasted that his library was papered with High Court writs, and who had had the distinction of being escorted from Monte Carlo by the police of the Princ.i.p.ality.

Mr. Jackson Hyane was a student of men and affairs. Very little escaped his keen observation, and he had a trick of pigeon-holing possibilities of profit, and forgetting them until the moment seemed ripe for their exploitation. He was tall and handsome, with a smile which was worth at least five thousand pounds a year to him, for it advertised his boyish innocence and enthusiasm--he who had never been either a boy or enthusiastic.

One grey October day he put away his pa.s.s-book into a drawer and locked it, and took from a mental pigeon-hole the materials of an immature scheme. He dressed himself soberly and well, strolled down into Piccadilly, and calling a cab, drove to the block of City buildings which housed the flourishing business of Tibbetts and Hamilton, Limited.

The preliminaries to this invasion had been very carefully settled. He had met Miss Marguerite Whitland by "accident" a week before, had called at her lodgings with an old photograph of her father, which he had providentially discovered, and had secured from her a somewhat reluctant acceptance of an invitation to lunch.

Bones looked up from his desk as the debonair young man strolled in.

"You don't know me, Mr. Tibbetts," said Jackson Hyane, flashing his famous smile. "My name is Hyane."

It was his first meeting with Bones, but by no means the first time that Jackson had seen him.

"My dear old Hyane, sit down," said Bones cheerfully. "What can we do for you?"

Mr. Hyane laughed.

"There's nothing you can do for me, except to spare your secretary for an hour longer than she usually takes."

"My secretary?" said Bones quickly, and shot a suspicious glance at the visitor.

"I mean Miss Whitland," said Hyane easily. "She is my cousin, you know. My mother's brother was her father."

"Oh, yes," said Bones a little stiffly.

He felt a sense of the strongest resentment against the late Professor Whitland. He felt that Marguerite's father had played rather a low trick on him in having a sister at all, and Mr. Hyane was too keen a student to overlook Bones's obvious annoyance.

"Yes," he went on carelessly, "we are quite old friends, Marguerite and I, and you can't imagine how pleased I am that she has such an excellent job as this."

"Oh, yes," said Bones, clearing his throat. "Very nice old--very good typewriter indeed, Mr. Hyane ... very nice person ... ahem!"

Marguerite, dressed for the street, came in from her office at that moment, and greeted her cousin with a little nod, which, to the distorted vision of Bones, conveyed the impression of a lifelong friendship.

"I have just been asking Mr. Tibbetts," said Hyane, "if he could spare you for an extra hour."

"I am afraid that can't----" the girl began.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Bones, raising his voice as he invariably did when he was agitated. "Certainly, my dear old--er--my dear young--er--certainly, Miss Marguerite, by all means, take your cousin to the Zoo ... I mean show him the sights."

He was patently agitated, and watched the door close on the two young people with so ferocious a countenance that Hamilton, a silent observer of the scene, could have laughed.

Bones walked slowly back to his desk as Hamilton reached for his hat.

"Come on, Bones," he said briskly. "It's lunch time. I had no idea it was so late."

But Bones shook his head.

"No, thank you, dear old thing," he said sadly. "I'd rather not, if you don't mind."

"Aren't you coming to lunch?" asked Hamilton, astonished.

Bones shook his head.

"No, dear old boy," he said hollowly. "Ask the girl to send me up a stiff gla.s.s of soda-water and a biscuit--I don't suppose I shall eat the biscuit."

"Nonsense!" said Hamilton. "Half an hour ago you were telling me you could eat a cart-horse."

"Not now, old Ham," said Bones. "If you've ordered it, send it back.

I hate cart-horses, anyway."

"Come along," wheedled Hamilton, dropping his hand on the other's shoulder. "Come and eat. Who was the beautiful boy?"