One o’clock in the morning. The village of Chalford was sleeping soundly when a flickering light appeared in the sky and presently became a steady crimson glow. A reflection of it shone into Jasper’s room, so he got up, very sleepy, and went out on to the green, looking to see where it could come from. In doing so he ran into Mr Leader, who was walking quickly towards Rackenbridge.
‘Oh, hullo!’ said Jasper, ‘what is it, a house or a haystack?’
Mr Leader merely gave him a nasty look and hurried away.
Jasper, turning a corner of the village street, saw that Eugenia’s Social Unionist head-quarters were a mass of flames. He felt sorry for Eugenia, he knew that she would be very much upset by this disaster. As it was a pretty sight, and he now felt fairly wide awake, he stayed to watch it blaze. Presently the others appeared, having been woken up by the smell of burning.
‘Jolly little bonfire, isn’t it?’ said Jasper, putting his arm round Poppy’s waist. ‘Nothing we can do would be of any use, luckily. Hullo! here are the Comrades, rotten luck for them I must say.’
The Comrades marched up in formation, but seeing that no human effort would avail to extinguish that furnace, they indulged in a little community singing to keep up their spirits in the face of this setback to their cause.
Lady Marjorie, by the light of the flames, observed Mr Wilkins and with a little cry of excitement she streaked off in his direction.
‘Wonderful, what love will do for a girl,’ observed Jasper. ‘I can’t think when she finds time to grease her face nowadays; I suppose it will seize up soon, like a motor car. Hullo! here come the Laces to see the fun – good-bye, Noel. What did I say? This village is a perfect hotbed of romance, isn’t it, darling Miss Smith?’ He kissed her ear. ‘Oh, God! there are the detectives again; come on, let’s bunk shall we? I’m sick of the sight of them.’
‘Yes, in a way,’ said Poppy. ‘The only thing is, if they are still here it must mean that they haven’t got any evidence on us.’
‘I can’t imagine why you don’t hand out the dope and let the old boy divorce you if he wants to. It would save a lot of trouble.’
‘Feminine caution, I suppose,’ said Poppy. She was a good deal in love with Jasper, but not sure that she wanted to marry him. Certain aspects of his nature seemed far from satisfactory.
‘He is such a fearful pickpocket, you know,’ she said, in a burst of confidence to Marjorie. ‘I can’t leave my bag lying about for a moment.’
‘Goodness knows how much he’s had out of mine,’ said Marjorie.
‘Funny how customs have changed,’ said Poppy. ‘I’m sure in our mothers’ day ladies didn’t fall in love with thieves.’
Early next morning, Eugenia, on Vivian Jackson, came thundering down to the village at a hard gallop. Having inspected the still smouldering ruins of her head-quarters, she went round to the Jolly Roger, where she found Jasper and Noel eating breakfast in their pyjamas.
‘It is a nuisance,’ was all she said, but Jasper thought she had been crying. He plied her with sausages and she became more cheerful.
‘Of course, it must be the work of Pacifists,’ she said, with her mouth full, ‘and you may be quite sure that I am going to sift this affair thoroughly. Wait until I have run them to earth, the brutal yellows financed by Jews too, no doubt.’
‘Talking of Pacifists,’ said Jasper, suddenly, ‘whom do you think I saw last night hurrying away from your head-quarters just after the fire must have started? Dear little Mr Leader. He was behaving in a highly suspicious manner, I thought.’
Eugenia made that gesture which usually accompanies a snapping of the fingers. It was one she was very fond of, but as her hands were soft and babyish she seldom achieved a satisfactory crack. On this occasion it was completely absent.
‘Mr Leader,’ she cried, ‘how mad of me, I had forgotten all about him. Of course, when we have a nest of filthy yellows in our midst, we need look no further afield. Very well, I shall act immediately.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I will send the Comrades to fetch him along,’ said Eugenia. ‘Terrible shall be the fate of the enemies of Social Unionism. In fact, I think I will arrange for the Comrades to seize him this very afternoon, while he is working in his studio.’ (She pronounced the word with infinite contempt.) ‘He is probably laughing up his sleeve by now, thinking that nobody will ever find out who is the author of that foul crime. They can bind and gag him, and bring him to a quiet place I know of in Chalford Park, where I will court-martial him at the drumhead.’
‘And if he is found guilty?’
‘If,’ cried Eugenia, tossing her head, ‘there is no “if”. He shall be found guilty and Oh, boy! will I have him beaten up? Terrible shall be the fate –’
Jasper, however, with some difficulty restrained her from putting such extreme proposals into practice. He explained that the time was not yet ripe for a blood-bath in Chalford, that such a proceeding would do infinite harm to her cause and that if she carried it out she would get herself into serious trouble with the Comrades at the London head-quarters. Those men of iron, he hinted, might easily degrade her from her position of patrol leader and remove her little emblem if she drew down upon them the unwelcome publicity that would follow such a step. It was this last argument which persuaded Eugenia to leave
