d.i.c.k sprang up in the bed.

"Did she?" he cried out, clapping his hands. "Oh--Mike, tell me, are they Holland guns?"

I nodded.

d.i.c.k jumped off the bed and began to caper about the room.

"Have you got them here?" he exclaimed at last, as his excitement began to subside.

"They are in the next room. You shall see them after breakfast."

I had difficulty in calming d.i.c.k's excitement and inducing him to eat his breakfast, and directly breakfast was over I took him into the next room, produced the gun-case, pulled out the two pairs of barrels, and together we examined the numbers stamped upon them. d.i.c.k wrote the numbers down in the little notebook he always carried in his trousers pocket, and a little later we drove down to Fleet Street to look up the file of the newspaper in which d.i.c.k had, he declared, read the report of the robbery at Thatched Court, near Bridport.

I confess that I had not placed much faith in d.i.c.k's theory about the numbers. I had taken him down to Fleet Street chiefly because he had so earnestly entreated me to. When, therefore, after turning up the report, d.i.c.k discovered, with a shout of triumph, that the numbers on my guns were actually identical with the numbers mentioned in the newspaper as those of the stolen guns, I was not merely greatly astonished, but also considerably perturbed.

"d.i.c.k," I said thoughtfully, when I had to some extent recovered from my surprise, "I really think we shall have to make a private detective of you. Would you like me to take you now to one of the most famous detectives in London--a man who was connected with Scotland Yard for twenty years, who is helping Mr. Osborne to try to discover who the thieves are who robbed Holt Manor, and who it was who killed poor Churchill?"

"Do you mean Mr. Preston?" the boy asked quickly, peering up at me out of his intelligent brown eyes.

"Yes. I suppose you have heard Mr. Osborne and me speak of him."

"Of course I have, and I should love to see him. Are you going to see him now?"

"I am going straight to him to tell him of your discovery of these numbers. He already knows all about your having deciphered the newspaper cyphers; in fact, he has the cuttings at this moment, and your translation of them. He told me the other day that he would like to meet you."

Preston was at home at his house in Warwick Street, off Recent Street.

In a few words I had explained everything to him, and at once he grew serious.

"The unfortunate part," he said at last, "is that in spite of this young man's sharpness in making this discovery, it really leaves us almost where we were, unless--"

"Unless what?" I asked, as he paused, considering.

"Well, Mr. Berrington, it's like this," he said bluntly. "You are engaged to be married to Miss Challoner, and she gives you a wedding present--a pair of new guns; at least they are to all intents new, and naturally she expects you to think they are, and might be vexed if she thought you had found out that she picked them up as a bargain. Now, it all turns on this: Have you the moral courage to tell your _fiancee_ that you believe the wedding present she has given you is part of the plunder secured in a recent robbery, indeed that you know it is, and that therefore you and she are unwittingly receivers of stolen goods? I have never myself been in love, so far as I can recollect, but if I were placed as you are I think I should hardly have the courage to disillusion the young lady."

I am bound to admit that until he put this problem to me it had not occurred to me to look at the matter in that light, and now I felt much as Preston declared he would feel if he were in my place. Dulcie might not mind my having discovered that she had picked up the guns as a bargain--indeed, why should she? But when it came to hinting--as I should have to do if I broached the matter at all--that I believed that her great friend Connie Stapleton knew, when she sold the guns to her, that they had been stolen--Connie Stapleton, who was about to become her stepmother--

No, I shouldn't have the pluck to do it. I shouldn't have the pluck to face the storm of indignation that I knew my words would stir up in her--women are logical enough, in spite of all that the ignorant and unthinking urge to the contrary, but in this particular case Dulcie would, I felt perfectly certain, "round" upon me, and, in the face of evidence, no matter how d.a.m.ning, declare that I was, to say the least, mistaken. She would go at once to Connie Stapleton and tell her everything, and immediately Connie Stapleton would invent some plausible story which would entirely clear her of all responsibility, and from that moment onward I should probably be her bitterest enemy. No, I thought; better, far better, say nothing--perhaps some day circ.u.mstances might arise which would of themselves lead to Mrs. Stapleton's, so to speak, "giving herself away." Indeed, in face of the discovery, I now decided not to make certain statements to Sir Roland that I had fully intended to make. After all, he was old enough to be my father, and if a man old enough to be my father could be so foolish as to fall in love with an adventuress, let him take the consequences. I should not so much have minded incurring Sir Roland's wrath, but, knowing him as well as I did, I felt positive that anything I might say would only strengthen his trust in and attachment to this woman he had decided to wed. He might even turn upon me and tell me to my face that I was striving to oppose his marriage because his marrying must, of course, affect my pecuniary position--an old man who falls in love becomes for the time, I have always maintained, mentally deranged.

Preston conversed at considerable length with d.i.c.k Challoner, and, by the time I rose to leave--for I had to call at Willow Street for Dulcie at noon--the two appeared to have become great friends.

"I shall take you with me to call for Dulcie," I said to d.i.c.k as we went out. "Then we shall drive you to Paddington, put you in the train for Windsor, and leave you to your own devices."

"I wish I hadn't lost my suit-case," d.i.c.k observed ruefully. "I bet anything it's in that house in c.u.mberland Place where the taxi stopped--unless the woman who met me at Paddington intentionally left it in the taxi when she found I had jumped out and run away. We ought to inquire at Scotland Yard, oughtn't we?"

We arrived at Willow Road, Hampstead, at ten minutes to twelve. Telling d.i.c.k to remain in the taxi, I got out and rang the bell. The door was opened by a maid I had not seen before, and when I inquired for Miss Challoner she stared at me blankly--indeed, as I thought, suspiciously.

"n.o.body of that name lives here," she said curtly. Quickly I glanced up at the number on the door. No, I had not mistaken the house.

"She is staying here," I said, "staying with Mrs. Stapleton."

"With Mrs. who?"

"Mrs. Stapleton."

"You have mistaken the house. There's n.o.body of that name here."

"Well, Mr. Gastrell, then," I said irritably. "Ask Mr. Gastrell if I can see him."

"I tell you, sir, you've come to the wrong house," the maid said sharply.

"Then who does live here?" I exclaimed, beginning to lose my temper.

The maid looked me up and down.

"I'm not going to tell you," she answered; and, before I could speak again, she had shut the door in my face.

CHAPTER XX

PRESTON AGAIN

I had seen d.i.c.k off at Paddington, after asking the guard to keep an eye on him as far as Windsor, and was walking thoughtfully through the park towards Albert Gate, when a man, meeting me where the paths cross, asked if he might speak to me. Almost instantly I recognized him. It was the man who had followed Preston, Jack, and myself on the previous night, and been pointed out to us by Preston.

"I trust," he said, when I had asked him rather abruptly what he wanted to speak to me about, "that you will pardon my addressing you, sir, but there is something rather important I should like to say to you if you have a few minutes to spare."

"Who are you?" I inquired. "What's your name?"

"I would rather not tell you my name," he answered, "and for the moment it is inadvisable that you should know it. Shall we sit here?" he added, as we came to a wooden bench.

I am rather inquisitive, otherwise I should not have consented to his proposal. It flashed across me, however, that whereas there could be no harm in my listening to what he wished to say, he might possibly have something really of interest to tell me.

"You are probably not aware," he said, when we were seated, "that I followed you last night from a house in Warwick Street, Regent Street, to a restaurant in Gerrard Street, Soho; thence to Willow Road, near Hampstead Station; and thence to South Molton Street Mansions. Two gentlemen were with you."

"And may I ask why you did that?" I said carelessly, as I lit a cigarette.

"That is my affair," he replied. "You have lately been a.s.sociating with several men and women who, though you may not know it, belong to a gang of exceedingly clever criminals. These people, while mixing in Society, prey upon it. Until last night I was myself a member of this gang; for a reason that I need not at present mention I have now disa.s.sociated myself from it for ever. To-day my late accomplices will discover that I have turned traitor, as they will term it, and at once they will set to work to encompa.s.s my death," he added. "I want you, Mr. Berrington, to save me from them."

I stared at him in surprise.

"But how can I do that, and why should I do it?" I said shortly. "I don't know who you are, and if you choose to aid and abet criminals you have only yourself to thank when they turn upon you."

"Naturally," he answered, with what looked very like a sneer; "I don't ask you to do anything in return for nothing, Mr. Berrington. But if you will help in this crisis, I can, and will, help you. At this moment you are at a loss to know why, when you called at Willow Road an hour or so ago, the woman who opened the door a.s.sured you that you had come to the wrong house. You inquired first for Miss Challoner, then for Mrs.

Stapleton, and then for Hugesson Gastrell--am I not right?"

"Well, you are," I said, astonished at his knowledge.