"D for Dermott," said Miss Darle reflectively.
It was a dull evening and that room faces north, as all libraries should; in the dim light I hadn't noticed her sitting in a deep chair before the fire. She couldn't have been reading because it was too dark; if I had thought about it at all, I had assumed that she was in the drawing-room. Now that's a queer thing. Looking back upon those days now, it seems very strange that I shouldn't have known that she was with me in the room. But I didn't.
I glanced towards her chair. "Exactly," I replied. "I always have to do this, I'm afraid. I'm not sufficiently acquainted with the
beau monde
."
[Pg 63]
I turned the pages to the Ds.
"His name's John Hilary Dermott," she said quietly, without stirring from where she sat. "He went to school at Uppingham. And then he went to Sandhurst. And then he went into the Shropshires, and then he got transferred to the balloon service of the Sappers, before they made it into the Flying Corps."
I had found the place by now. She was quite right, except that he was attached and not transferred. He had served with the flying branch of the Army from 1912 till it became the Royal Air Force, and so had attained the rank of Wing-Commander (Int.) at the age of thirty-eight.
"What does Int. after his name mean?" she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders casually. "I don't know," I replied. But I did. It meant Intelligence, and the sight of it gave me a nasty turn.
I stood there blankly for a minute, wondering if I ought to get Lenden out of the place before he came.
Sheila Darle got up from beside the fire and came over towards that writing-table by the window. I was still staring at that brief account.
"Mr. Moran," she said gently.
I raised my head to meet her eyes.
"Is this bloke coming on any sticky business?"
There was no point in beating about the bush. She knew too much already.
"I don't know," I muttered. "I hope to God he's not. I don't see how he could possibly be. But . . . I don't know."
She stood there eyeing me for a moment, silent. And then at the last she said:
"Can I do anything? Anything at all?"
I turned to face her. "I don't think there's anything you could do," I replied. "It's just that he's got himself into the dickens of a mess. And I suppose I'm in it too. It's a rotten business to be mixed up in, and I'd rather that you kept out of it."
"It's with Russia?" she inquired.
[Pg 64]
I nodded. "Yes."
She thought about it for a minute. "I'm so frightfully sorry," she said quietly. "If I can do anything at all to help, you must let me know."
And went.
I put that book back in its place between Whitaker and Bradshaw, left the library, and went over to my own house. Lenden was still in bed, but sitting up and reading a novel; he was looking very much more himself. He said that he was getting up next day. He said that it had been damn good of me to let him lie up like that.
I cut him short, and went and sat on the end of his bed. "D'you know anything about a fellow called Dermott?" I inquired. "Wing-Commander Dermott?"
He wrinkled his brows, and shook his head slowly. "No. I've heard the name somewhere."
"Well," I said, "he's coming down here tonight. Lord Arner's bringing him down to spend the week-end." I paused. "The only thing I know about him is that he's in the R.A.F. Intelligence."
There was a little silence, and then Lenden smiled. "I thought this was too good to be true," he said quietly. "I'd better get along out of it."
I shook my head. "I wouldn't do that. He may not be coming about you at all. I don't see how he can be. And anyway, you can't cut off now. Everyone knows you're here. You'll have to stay and bluff it out."
He stared at me wonderingly. "I don't see how they could know I'm here," he said. "Unless they've found the Breguet."
I thought that over for a minute. It was certainly a possibility. "I haven't seen it since yesterday morning," I said. "But I should have heard if it had been found. I hear everything that goes on here."
"Does this chap come down here often?" asked Lenden.
I laughed shortly. "No," I said, "he doesn't. We've not had an R.A.F. officer in the place since the war."
There was a little silence at that. "I'd better go," he said.
[Pg 65]
"It's been damn good of you to put me up like this, and I don't want to get you into trouble."
"Frankly," I replied. "I think you're more likely to get me into trouble if you go than if you stay."
"Do you think so?"
"I do. If this bloke's really after you and he gets to hear that you've shot off the minute you heard he was coming, I don't see how he could help putting two and two together. Even if he is in the Intelligence."
He considered the position for a bit.
"I suppose you're right," he said uncertainly. "I'd better stay—for tonight, anyway." He paused, gloomily. "I've got those photographs to get rid of—somehow. . . ."
He flared up suddenly. "I wish to hell I'd never touched the ruddy job," he said irritably.
I left him soon after that, and went into my room to dress for dinner. It was early, but I was tired and worried, and I wanted a bath. I stayed in it for a considerable time that evening, I remember. I was wondering what was going to happen to me. I had about a couple of hundred a year of my own at that time, and I was wondering how far that would go if I had to find another job over this business. I was wondering what I could turn my hand to if I had to leave Under. I was wondering why I had been such a fool as to take in Lenden, and why I didn't give him up. I had only to ring up the police, and the thing would be done. I was wondering whether it would be much of a blow to Arner when he found out the game that I'd been playing in his house. I was wondering how the next agent would run the estate when he took over from me, and if he'd grow to care about it all as I had done. I was wondering if the game was worth the candle.
I got out of my bath as it began to cool off, and dressed very slowly for dinner. In the end I was ready, and I went into the sitting-room to my piano.
It was dark in there. I lit the reading-lamp by the fireplace, sat down absently, and began polishing the second period of my play. That is the part where the Princess goes to live with the
[Pg 66]
Woodman in his hut; from that point I begin upon the change in values under the harsher conditions of the rustic life that in the end turn the Peasant into a Prince within the hut, and the Princess to a Peasant girl. Those are effects that one can work up rather subtly upon the screen, but it's a difficult bit of music. I became immersed in the thing, and sat there in the half-light before dinner for the better part of an hour, polishing those passages. Till in the end, by the time I got up from the piano, I was ready for what I could see was going to be rather a trying evening.
At about half-past seven I went over to the house.
There was nobody about downstairs. I passed the open door of the dining-room on my way through the hall, and paused for a minute. The table was laid for five. That room would seat fifty without inconvenience, I suppose; the house is Georgian. But Arner entertained very little; in all the years that I had been at Under I don't suppose that I had seen that table laid for more than ten people. It was his fancy always to dine by candle-light; I remember that the white and silver table in the shaded light from the candelabra made a little gleaming oasis in the darkness of that great room.
Sanders was there, wandering reverently around the table. Now and again he would pause to shift a salt-cellar an inch or two, or to pick up a spoon, breathe on it, and polish it. He told me that Commander Dermott had arrived. He was dressing.
I passed on to the deserted drawing-room. There was a bright fire in the grate; I switched on a light and went and stood before it. I had had great kindness from the Arners during the seven years that I had been at Under. One of my uncles married a second-cousin of Lady Arner. They had chosen to regard that as a close tie, and had treated me more as a member of the family than as a salaried official of the estate. I remember thinking about those things as I stood there before the fire that evening, waiting for the family to come down. I was wondering what sort of a show I was going to put up.
That quarter of an hour came to an end before I had decided in the least what I was going to do. Lady Arner came down
[Pg 67]
first, followed by Sheila Darle in a little green filmy dress that made her look a child. Lady Arner was frankly curious about this Wing-Commander that her husband had brought down. She wanted to know what he had come for; I wanted to know that, too, but with the best will in the world I couldn't tell her. She said that Arner had had a very heavy day in Town, from which I inferred that things were none too bright at the Foreign Office.
And then, till the others came, we talked about her garden—the one subject of which she never tired. She was a great gardener. She used to spend all the summer grubbing about in an old skirt, and an old straw hat, and a pair of gloves, with Watson, our head gardener, in attendance. I can remember winter evenings when she would sit from half-past eight till eleven before the fire in the drawing-room, pencil in hand, with catalogues from Carter, Sutton, and Bunyard on her knee. Dreaming and, as often as not, falling asleep. She didn't go to London much.
Arner came down at last, with Dermott, and we went in to dinner. Dermott was a younger-looking man than I had expected; he must have been about six foot two in height, and thin. He was clean-shaven, with thin fair hair, blue eyes, and long, young face. He looked very little over thirty. I was introduced to him.
He greeted me frankly. "Good evening, Mr. Moran," he said. "I've been hearing about you from Lord Arner. He tells me that you were in the R.F.C. in the war." He had a pleasant, quiet voice.
"That's a good long time ago," I replied. "I've pretty well forgotten all about it."
He smiled, a little anxiously. "You haven't kept up with flying?"
I laughed. "Lord, no," I said. "Give me pigs." And we sat down to table.
Dinner was a constrained meal. Arner sat at the head of the table, a sombre little figure with rather untidy thin grey hair, and a monocle on the end of a black silk ribbon. This
[Pg 68]
evening he was evidently tired, and seemed in some way to have grown smaller and older. Things must have been going very badly up in Town that day. He spoke very little. There was some understanding between him and his guest; both were preoccupied, though Dermott was talking rather at random to Lady Arner. Clearly there was business to be done, and both of them were only waiting till the ladies had left the room.
That happened at last. I got up to open the door for them to pass out, and closed it softly behind them. Sanders placed the port convenient to Lord Arner, and disappeared into the gloom. I came back to the table and sat down.
Arner motioned us to the cigars, but did not take one himself immediately. Instead he leaned a little forward with his elbows on the table and put both hands to his forehead, raising his head and drawing his hands down his face till he was staring straight ahead of him again. I knew that motion.
I took a cigar. "Things bad in Town, sir?"
He dropped his hands on to the table. "Middling," he said rustically. "Middling. Remind me to order the
Studio
for Curzon Street, Moran."
I nodded. "I'll see about it to-morrow," I replied.
I knew what he meant by that. He had in the library at Under all the bound volumes of the
Studio
since the beginning. When he was worried or upset over anything he used to go in there and sit down beside the fire, and turn these volumes over slowly. When he came to a picture that he liked he would sit staring at it for a long time without moving. He liked water-colour reproductions best, I think, and especially garden sketches, water-colours of herbaceous borders, and paintings with delicate, bright colours. Sometimes he would pass the heavy volume across to me when he had found a drawing that he particularly admired.
He roused himself. "Look here, Moran," he said. "I've brought Wing-Commander Dermott down from London to have a talk with you. He's in the Intelligence Service of the Royal Air Force."
He dropped his head into his hands again. "You know the
[Pg 69]
trouble with Russia," he said wearily. "It's been going on for years now—been brewing for the last eighteen months. I had a long talk with Faulkner to-day. Well, it's come to a head at last, I think. When we must force the issue. There was a Cabinet all yesterday afternoon, and again this morning. There's been an espionage at Portsmouth. That's what Dermott's come down about. And we think it's them. . . ."
He stared at the decanter. "If that should be established, it might prove to be the deciding factor. The least thing can swing the balance now. This thing has been done by an aeroplane. Dermott will tell you about that. I was sent for this afternoon to the Air Ministry. They are of the opinion that one of the aeroplanes engaged in this espionage was brought down on Thursday night. They think it landed in this part of the country. They've named an area. In the square formed by Pithurst, Leventer, Courton Down, and Under."
"That's all our land," I said quietly.
He turned to me. "I know. That's what I want you to consult with Dermott about. This thing's too delicate to be handled by the local constable. But you know the country and the people better than I do myself. Much better than the police. You know every hedge and field on the estate, and you know the tenants. I told them at the Ministry that if an aeroplane had landed on my ground and they wanted to find out about it quietly, you were the man to see. I told them I'd bring Dermott down with me, and he could have a talk with you."
He turned to Dermott. "You'll want to go over the ground to-morrow, I suppose?"
"I shall be able to say more about that when I've had a talk with Mr. Moran, Lord Arner."