"I'll not go!" she exclaimed, "you can do what you like but I'll stay where I am! Murderers..."

"Oh," said Strangwise wearily, "bring her along, Bellward!"

Bellward and the woman seized the girl one by each arm and dragged her to the car. Strangwise had the door open and between them they thrust her in. Bellward and the woman mounted after her while Strangwise, after starting the engine, sprang into the driving-seat outside. With a low hum the big car glided forth into the cold, starry night.

From the upper floor of the d.y.k.e Inn came the sound of a woman's terrified sobs. Below there reigned the silence of death.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE TWO DESERTERS

Desmond drove to Wentfield Station in an angry and defiant mood.

He was incensed against Francis, incensed against the Chief, yet, if the truth were told, most of all incensed against himself.

Not that he admitted it for a moment. He told himself that he was very hardly used. He had undergone considerable danger in the course of discharging a mission which was none of his seeking, and he had met with nothing but taunts from his brother and abuse from the Chief.

"I wash my hands of the whole thing," Desmond declared, as he paced the platform at Wentfield waiting for his train. "As Francis is so precious c.o.c.ksure about it all, let him carry on in my place! He's welcome to the Chief's wiggings! The Chief won't get me to do his dirty work again in a hurry! That's flat!"

Yet all the while the little gimlet that men call conscience was patiently drilling its way through the wall of obduracy behind which Desmond's wounded pride had taken cover. Rail as he would against his hard treatment at the hands of the Chief, he knew perfectly well that he could never wash his hands of his mission until Barbara Mackwayte had been brought back into safety. This thought kept thrusting itself forward into the foreground of his mind; and he had to focus his attention steadfastly on his grievances to push it back again.

But we puny mortals are all puppets in the hands of Fate. Even as the train was bearing Desmond, thus rebellious, Londonwards, Destiny was already pulling the strings which was to force the "quitter" back into the path he had forsaken. For this purpose Fate had donned the disguise of a dirty-faced man in a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief in lieu of collar... but of him presently.

On arriving at Liverpool Street, Desmond, painfully conscious of his unkempt appearance, took a taxi to a Turkish bath in the West End. There his first care was to submit himself to the hands of the barber who, after a glance at his client's bandaged head, muddy clothes and s.h.a.ggy beard, coughed ominously and relapsed into a most unbarber-like reserve.

Desmond heard the cough and caught the look of commiseration on the man's face.

"I rather think I want a shave!" he said, weakly. "I rather think you do, sir!" replied the man, busy with his lather.

"... Had a nasty accident," murmured Desmond, "I fell down and cut my head..."

"We're used to that here, sir," answered the barber, "but the bath'll make you as right as, rain. W'y we 'ad a genel'man in 'ere, only lars' week it was, as 'adn't been 'ome for five days and nights and the coat mos tore off 'is back along with a bit of turn-up 'e'd 'at one o' them night clubs. And drunk I... w'y 'e went to bite the rubber, so they wos tellin' me! But, bless you, 'e 'ad a nice shave and a couple of hours in the bath and a bit of a nap; we got him his clothes as was tore mended up fine for 'im and 'e went 'ome as sober as a judge and as fresh as a daisy!"

Desmond had it in his mind to protest against this material interpretation of his disreputable state; but the sight in the mirror of his ignominiously scrubby and battered appearance silenced him. The barber's explanation was as good as any, seeing that he himself could give no satisfactory account of the circ.u.mstances which had reduced him to his sorry pa.s.s. So Desmond held his peace though he felt constrained to reject the barber's offer of a pick-me-up.

From the shaving saloon, Desmond sent a messenger out for some clothes, and for the next three hours amused himself by exhausting the resources of the Turkish bath. Finally, about the hour of noon, he found himself, considerably refreshed, swathed in towel, reposing on a couch, a cup of coffee at his elbow and that morning's Daily Telegraph spread out before him.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts, so the experts say, are printed on the front and back of newspapers in order to catch the eye of the indolent, on the chance that having exhausted the news, they may glance idly over the front and back of the paper before laying it aside. So Desmond, before he even troubled to open his paper, let his gaze wander down the second column of the front page whence issue daily those anguishing appeals, mysterious messages, heart-rending entreaties and barefaced begging advertis.e.m.e.nts which give this column its characteristic name.

There his eye fell on an advertis.e.m.e.nt couched in the following terms:

"If Gunner Martin Barling, 1820th Battery, R.F.C., will communicate with Messrs. Mills & Cheyne, solicitors 130 Bedford Row, W. C., he will hear of something to his advantage.

Difficulties with the military can be arranged."

Desmond read this advertis.e.m.e.nt over once and then, starting at the beginning, read it over again. Gunner Barling... the name conjured up a picture of a jolly, sun-burned man, always very spick and span, talking the strange lingo of our professional army gleaned from India, Aden, Malta and the Rock, the type of British soldier that put the Retreat from Mons into the history books for all time.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts like this; Desmond reflected dreamily, meant legacies as a rule; he was glad of it, for the sake of Barling whom he hadn't seen since the far-away days of Aldershot before the war.

"Buzzer" Barling was the brother of one Private Henry Barling who had been Desmond's soldier-servant. He derived the nickname of "Buzzer" from the fact that he was a signaller. As the vicissitudes of service had separated the two brothers for many years, they had profited by the accident of finding themselves at the same station to see as much of one another as possible, and Desmond had frequently come across the gunner at his quarters in barracks. Henry Barling had gone out to France with Desmond but a sniper in the wood at Villers Cotterets had deprived Desmond of the best servant and the truest friend he had ever had. Now here was Henry's brother cropping up again. Desmond hoped that "Buzzer" Barling would see the advertis.e.m.e.nt, and half asleep, formed a mental resolve to cut out the notice and send it to the gunner who, he felt glad to think, was still alive. The rather curiously worded reference to difficulties with the military must mean, Desmond thought, that leave could be obtained for Martin Barling to come home and collect his legacy.

At this point the Daily Telegraph fell to the ground and Desmond went off to sleep. When he awoke, the afternoon hush had fallen upon the bath. He seemed to be the only occupant of the cubicles.

His clothes which had arrived from the shop during his slumbers, were very neatly laid out on a couch opposite him.

He dressed himself leisurely. The barber was quite right. The bath had made a new man of him. Save for a large b.u.mp on the back of his head he was none the worse for Strangwise's savage blow.

The attendant having packed Bellward's apparel in the suit-case in which Desmond's clothes had come from the club, Desmond left the suit-case in the man's charge and strolled out into the soft air of a perfect afternoon. He had discarded his bandage and in his well fitting blue suit and brown boots he was not recognizable as the scrubby wretch who had entered the bath six hours before.

Desmond strolled idly along the crowded streets in the sunshine.

He was rather at a loss as to what his next move should be. Now that his mental freshness was somewhat restored, his thoughts began to busy themselves again with the disappearance of Barbara Mackwayte. He was conscious of a guilty feeling towards Barbara.

It was not so much the blame he laid upon himself for not being at the Mill House to meet her when she came as the sense that he had been unfaithful to the cause of her murdered father.

Now that he was away from Nur-el-Din with her pleading eyes and pretty gestures, Desmond's thoughts turned again to Barbara Mackwayte. As he walked along Piccadilly, he found himself contrasting the two women as he had contrasted them that night he had met them in Nur-el-Din's dressing room at the Palaceum. And, with a sense of shame; he became aware of how much he had succ.u.mbed to the dancer's purely sensual influence; for away from her he found he could regain his independence of thought and action.

The thought of Barbara in the hands of that woman with the cruel eyes or a victim to the ruthlessness of Strangwise made Desmond cold with apprehension. If they believed the girl knew where the jewel had disappeared to, they would stop at nothing to force a confession from her; Desmond was convinced of that. But what had become of the trio?

In vain he cast about him for a clue. As far as he knew, the only London address that Strangwise had was the Nineveh; and he was as little likely to return there as Bellward was to make his way to his little hotel in Jermyn Street. There remained Mrs. Malplaquet who, he remembered, had told him of her house at Campden Hill.

For the moment, Desmond decided, he must put both Strangwise and Bellward out of his calculations. The only direction in which he could start his inquiries after Barbara Mackwayte pointed towards Campden Hill and Mrs. Malplaquet.

The delightful weather suggested to his mind the idea of walking out to Campden Hill to pursue his investigations on the spot. So he made his way across the Park into Kensington Gardens heading for the pleasant glades of Notting Hill. In the Bayswater Road he turned into a postoffice and consulted the London Directory. He very quickly convinced himself that among the hundreds of thousands of names compiled by Mr. Kelly's indefatigable industry Mrs. Malplaquet's was not to be found. Neither did the street directory show her as the tenant of any of the houses on Campden Hill.

I don't know that there is a more pleasant residential quarter of London than the quiet streets and gardens that straggle over this airy height. The very steepness of the slopes leading up from the Kensington High Street on the one side and from Holland Park Avenue on the other effectually preserves the atmosphere of old-world languor which envelops this retired spot. The hill, with its approaches so steep as to suggest to the imaginative the pathway winding up some rock-bound fastness of the Highlands, successfully defies organ-grinders and motor-buses and other aspirants to the membership in the great society for the propagation of street noises. As you near the summit, the quiet becomes more p.r.o.nounced until you might fancy yourself a thousand leagues, instead of as many yards, removed from the busy commerce of Kensington or the rather strident activity of Notting Hill.

So various in size and condition are the houses that it is as though they had broken away from the heterogeneous rabble of bricks and mortar that makes up the Royal Borough of Kensington, and run up in a crowd to the summit of the hill to look down contemptuously upon their less fortunate brethren in the plain.

On Campden Hill there are houses to suit all purses and all tastes from the vulgar mansion with its private garden to the little one-story stable that Art (which flourishes in these parts) and ten shillings worth of paint has converted into a cottage.

For half an hour Desmond wandered in a desultory fashion along the quiet roads of natty houses with brightly painted doors and shining bra.s.s knockers. He had no definite objective; but he hoped rather vaguely to pick up some clue that might lead him to Mrs. Malplaquet's. He walked slowly along surveying the houses and scrutinizing the faces of the pa.s.sers-by who were few and far between, yet without coming any nearer the end of his search.

It was now growing dusk. Enthroned on the summit of the hill the water-tower stood out hard and clear against the evening sky.

Desmond, who had lost his bearings somewhat in the course of his wanderings, came to a full stop irresolutely, where two streets crossed, thinking that he would retrace his footsteps to the main-road on the chance of picking up a taxi to take him back to town. He chose one of the streets at random; but it proved to be a crescent and brought him back practically to the spot he had started from. Thereupon, he took the other and followed it up, ignoring various side-turnings which he feared might be pitfalls like the last: But the second road was as bad as the first. It was a cul de sac and brought Desmond face to face with a blank wall.

He turned and looked about him for somebody of whom to ask the way. But the street was entirely deserted. He seemed to be on the very summit of the hill; for all the roads were a-tilt. Though the evening was falling fast, no light appeared in any of the houses and the street lamps were yet unlit. Save for the distant bourdon of the traffic which rose to his ears like the beating of the surf, the breeze rustling the bushes in the gardens was the only sound.

Desmond started to walk back slowly the way he had come.

Presently, his eyes caught the gleam of a light from above a front door. When he drew level with it, he saw that a gas-jet was burning in the fanlight over the entrance to a neat little two-story house which stood by itself in a diminutive garden. As by this time he was thoroughly sick of wandering aimlessly about, he went up to the neat little house and rang the bell.

A maid-servant in a cap and ap.r.o.n who seemed to be drawn to the scale of the house, such an insignificant little person she was, opened the door.

"Oh, sir," she exclaimed when she saw him, "was it about the rooms?"

And she pointed up at the fan-light where, for the first time, Desmond noticed a printed card with the inscription-:

"Furnished Rooms to Let."

The servant's unexpected question put an idea into Desmond's head. He could not return to the club, he reflected, since he was supposed to be killed in action. Why not take a room in this house in the heart of the enemy's country and spend some days on the watch for Mrs. Malplaquet or for any clue that might lead him to her?

So Desmond answered, yes, it was about the rooms he had come.

Promising that she would tell "the missus," the little servant showed him into a tiny sitting-room, very clean and bright, with blue cretonne curtains and a blue carpet and an engraving of "King Cophetua and The Beggar Maid" over the mantelpiece.

Directly you came into the room, everything in it got up and shouted "Tottenham Court Road."