Mr Abney greeted the information with a prodigious sneeze.

'What do you bead?' he demanded, when the paroxysm was over. He turned to me. 'Bister Burds, I understood you to--ah--say that the scou'drels took their departure without the boy Ford.'

'They certainly did. I watched them go.'

'I have searched the house thoroughly,' said Glossop, 'and there are no signs of him. And not only that, the Boy Beckford cannot be found.'

Mr Abney clasped his head in his hands. Poor man, he was in no condition to bear up with easy fort.i.tude against this succession of shocks. He was like one who, having survived an earthquake, is. .h.i.t by an automobile. He had partly adjusted his mind to the quiet contemplation of Mr MacGinnis and friends when he was called upon to face this fresh disaster. And he had a cold in the head, which unmans the stoutest. Napoleon would have won Waterloo if Wellington had had a cold in the head.

'Augustus Beckford caddot be fou'd?' he echoed feebly.

'They must have run away together,' said Glossop.

Mr Abney sat up, galvanized.

'Such a thing has never happened id the school before!' he cried.

'It has aldways beed my--ah--codstant endeavour to make my boys look upod Sadstead House as a happy hobe. I have systebatically edcouraged a spirit of cheerful codtedment. I caddot seriously credit the fact that Augustus Beckford, one of the bost charbig boys it has ever beed by good fortude to have id by charge, has deliberately rud away.'

'He must have been persuaded by that boy Ford,' said Glossop, 'who,' he added morosely, 'I believe, is the devil in disguise.'

Mr Abney did not rebuke the strength of his language. Probably the theory struck him as eminently sound. To me there certainly seemed something in it.

'Subbthig bust be done at once!' Mr Abney exclaimed. 'It is--ah--ibperative that we take ibbediate steps. They bust have gone to Londod. Bister Burds, you bust go to Londod by the next traid. I caddot go byself with this cold.'

It was the irony of fate that, on the one occasion when duty really summoned that champion popper-up-to-London to the Metropolis, he should be unable to answer the call.

'Very well,' I said. 'I'll go and look out a train.'

'Bister Glossop, you will be in charge of the school. Perhaps you had better go back to the boys dow.'

White was in the hall when I got there.

'White,' I said, 'do you know anything about the trains to London?'

'Are you going to London?' he asked, in his more conversational manner. I thought he looked at me curiously as he spoke.

'Yes. Ogden Ford and Lord Beckford cannot be found. Mr Abney thinks they must have run away to London.'

'I shouldn't wonder,' said White dryly, it seemed to me. There was something distinctly odd in his manner. 'And you're going after them.'

'Yes. I must look up a train.'

'There is a fast train in an hour. You will have plenty of time.'

'Will you tell Mr Abney that, while I go and pack my bag? And telephone for a cab.'

'Sure,' said White, nodding.

I went up to my room and began to put a few things together in a suit-case. I felt happy, for several reasons. A visit to London, after my arduous weeks at Sanstead, was in the nature of an unexpected treat. My tastes are metropolitan, and the vision of an hour at a music-hall--I should be too late for the theatres--with supper to follow in some restaurant where there was an orchestra, appealed to me.

When I returned to the hall, carrying my bag, I found Audrey there.

'I'm being sent to London,' I announced.

'I know. White told me. Peter, bring him back.'

'That's why I'm being sent.'

'It means everything to me.'

I looked at her in surprise. There was a strained, anxious expression on her face, for which I could not account. I declined to believe that anybody could care what happened to the Little Nugget purely for that amiable youth's own sake. Besides, as he had gone to London willingly, the a.s.sumption was that he was enjoying himself.

'I don't understand,' I said. 'What do you mean?'

'I'll tell you. Mr Ford sent me here to be near Ogden, to guard him. He knew that there was always a danger of attempts being made to kidnap him, even though he was brought over to England very quietly. That is how I come to be here. I go wherever Ogden goes.

I am responsible for him. And I have failed. If Ogden is not brought back, Mr Ford will have nothing more to do with me. He never forgives failures. It will mean going back to the old work again--the dressmaking, or the waiting, or whatever I can manage to find.' She gave a little shiver. 'Peter, I can't. All the pluck has gone out of me. I'm afraid. I couldn't face all that again.

Bring him back. You must. You will. Say you will.'

I did not answer. I could find nothing to say; for it was I who was responsible for all her trouble. I had planned everything. I had given Ogden Ford the money that had taken him to London. And soon, unless I could reach London before it happened, and prevent him, he, with my valet Smith, would be in the Dover boat-train on his way to Monaco.

Chapter 9

I

It was only after many hours of thought that it had flashed upon me that the simplest and safest way of removing the Little Nugget was to induce him to remove himself. Once the idea had come, the rest was simple. The negotiations which had taken place that morning in the stable-yard had been brief. I suppose a boy in Ogden's position, with his record of narrow escapes from the kidnapper, comes to take things as a matter of course which would startle the ordinary boy. He a.s.sumed, I imagine, that I was the accredited agent of his mother, and that the money which I gave him for travelling expenses came from her. Perhaps he had been expecting something of the sort. At any rate, he grasped the essential points of the scheme with amazing prompt.i.tude. His little hand was extended to receive the cash almost before I had finished speaking.

The main outline of my plan was that he should slip away to London, during the afternoon, go to my rooms, where he would find Smith, and with Smith travel to his mother at Monaco. I had written to Smith, bidding him be in readiness for the expedition.

There was no flaw in the scheme as I had mapped it out, and though Ogden had complicated it a little by gratuitously luring away Augustus Beckford to bear him company, he had not endangered its success.

But now an utterly unforeseen complication had arisen. My one desire now was to undo everything for which I had been plotting.

I stood there, looking at her dumbly, hating myself for being the cause of the anxiety in her eyes. If I had struck her, I could not have felt more despicable. In my misery I cursed Cynthia for leading me into this tangle.

I heard my name spoken, and turned to find White at my elbow.

'Mr Abney would like to see you, sir.'

I went upstairs, glad to escape. The tension of the situation had begun to tear at my nerves.

'Cub id, Bister Burds,' said my employer, swallowing a lozenge.

His aspect was more dazed than ever. 'White has just bade an--ah--extraordinary cobbudicatiod to me. It seebs he is in reality a detective, an employee of Pidkertod's Agedcy, of which you have, of course--ah--heard.'

So White had revealed himself. On the whole, I was not surprised.

Certainly his motive for concealment, the fear of making Mr Abney nervous, was removed. An inrush of Red Indians with tomahawks could hardly have added greatly to Mr Abney's nervousness at the present juncture.