Part 25 (1/2)

”Oh! no we're not,” protested Dorothy. ”I never know until I get home on Sat.u.r.day where I'm going to take you. Now if I had a husband, a good and honourable husband, he would begin about Thursday saying that on Sat.u.r.day afternoon we would go to Hampstead, or to Richmond, or to--oh! anywhere. Then when Sat.u.r.day came I should hate the very name of the place he had chosen. Then on Sunday we should go to church in the morning, for a walk in the afternoon, pay a call or two, then church or a cinema in the evening. That's good and honourable married life,” she concluded with decision.

Mrs. West looked down with a puzzled expression on her face.

”Wait a minute, mother,” said Dorothy. ”Now we'll imagine the real me married to a good and honourable man. At twelve-thirty on the Sat.u.r.day that he has arranged to lose himself and me at the maze at Hampton Court, I telephone to say that we're going to Brighton, and that he's to meet me at Victoria at half-past one, and I'll bring his things.

Now what do you think he'd do?” With head on one side she gazed challengingly at her mother.

”I--I don't know,” faltered Mrs. West.

”I do,” said Dorothy with conviction. ”He'd have a fit. Then if I wanted him to come for a 'bus ride just as he was going to bed,” went on Dorothy, ”he'd have another fit; and if one fine morning, just as he was off to the office, I were to ask him not to go, but to take me to Richmond instead, he'd have a third fit, and then I should be a widow.”

”A widow!” questioned Mrs. West. ”What are you talking about?”

”Third fits are always fatal, mother,” she said wisely. Then with a laugh she added, ”Oh, there's a great time in store for the man who marries Dorothy West. He will have to have a strong heart, a robust const.i.tution and above all any amount of stamina,” and she gave a mischievous little chuckle of joy. Then a moment after, looking gravely at her mother she said, ”You must have been very wicked, lovie, or you'd never have had such a daughter to plague you. I'm your cross;” but Mrs. West merely smiled.

CHAPTER IX

DEPARTMENT Z. AT WORK

”Naylor isn't satisfied then.” Colonel Walton glanced across at Malcolm Sage, who was gazing appreciatively at his long, lender fingers.

”He's the shyest bird I've ever come across,” said Sage without looking up. ”He gave Finlay a rare wigging for that call. Now he's having him watched.”

”I expected that,” said Colonel Walton, engrossed in cutting the end of a cigar.

”I think it's jealousy,” continued Sage. ”He's afraid of the special agent getting all the kudos--and the plunder,” he added. ”It was a happy chance getting that Bergen chap.”

”I'm rather concerned about Finlay,” said Colonel Walton.

”Good man, Finlay.” There was a note of admiration in Sage's voice.

”He's quite cut adrift from us. He's nothing if not thorough. I can't get in touch with him.”

”Of course he knows?”

”That he's being watched? Yes.”

”Who's looking after him?”

”Hoyle.” Sage drew his pipe from his pocket and proceeded to charge it from a chamois-leather tobacco-pouch. ”I've had to call Thompson off, I think they linked him up with us.”

”That's a pity,” said Colonel Walton, gazing at the end of his cigar.

”He's a better man than Hoyle.”

”It's that little chap they've got,” continued Sage, ”lives at Wimbledon, retired commercial-traveller, clever devil.” Malcolm Sage never grudged praise to an opponent.

”How about John Dene?”

”He's not taking any risks,” said Sage, as he applied a match to his pipe. ”But they'll never let him go north.”