The remaining time before dinner, which was early so that the children could come down, was spent by Bobby and Héloïse rushing about the house in a state of wild excitement. Paul suspected, and rightly as it turned out, that this excess of high spirits boded no good to somebody. It was quite obvious to the student of youthful psychology that some practical joke was on hand. He wondered rather nervously where the blow would fall.
It fell during dinner. Captain Chadlington was in the middle of telling Lady Bobbin what the P.M. had said to him about pig-breeding in the West of England when a loud whirring noise was heard under his chair. He looked down, rather startled, turned white to the lips at what he saw, sprang to his feet and said, in a voice of unnatural calm: ‘Will the women and children please leave the room immediately. There is an infernal machine under my chair.’ A moment of panic ensued. Bobby and Héloïse, almost too swift to apprehend his meaning, rushed to the door shrieking, ‘A bomb, a bomb, we shall all be blown up,’ while everyone else stood transfixed with horror, looking at the small black box under Captain Chadlington’s chair as though uncertain of what they should do next. Paul alone remained perfectly calm. With great presence of mind he advanced towards the box, picked it up and conveyed it to the pantry sink, where he left it with the cold water tap running over it. This golden deed made him, jointly with Captain Chadlington, the hero of the hour. Lady Bobbin shook hands with him and said he was a very plucky young fellow and had saved all their lives, and he was overwhelmed with thanks and praise on every side. Captain Chadlington, too, was supposed to have shown wonderful fortitude in requesting the women and children to leave the room before mentioning his own danger. Only Bobby and Héloïse received no praise from anybody for their behaviour and were, indeed, more or less, sent to Coventry for the rest of the evening.
Captain Chadlington, secretly delighted to think that he was now of such importance politically that attempts were made on his life (he never doubted for a moment that this was the doing of Bolshevik agents) went off to telephone to the police. Bobby and Héloïse, listening round the corner, heard him say: ‘Hullo, Woodford police? It is Captain Chadlington, M.P., speaking from Compton Bobbin. Look here, officer, there has just been an attempt to assassinate me. The Bolsheviks, I suppose. An infernal machine under my chair at dinner. Would you send somebody along to examine it at once, please, and inform Scotland Yard of what has happened?’
Lady Brenda said: ‘I have always been afraid of something like this ever since Charlie made that speech against Bolshevism at Moreton-in-Marsh. Anyhow, we must be thankful that it was no worse.’
Lady Bobbin said that perhaps now the Government would do something about the Bolsheviks at last.
Lord Leamington Spa said that he didn’t like it at all, which was quite true, he didn’t, because on Christmas night after dinner he always sang ‘The Mistletoe Bough’ with great feeling and now it looked as though the others would be too busy talking about the bomb to listen to him.
Michael Lewes and Squibby Almanack dared to wonder whether it was really an infernal machine at all, but they only imparted this scepticism to each other.
The duchess said that of course it would be very good publicity for Charlie Chadlington, and she wondered – but added that perhaps, on the whole, he was too stupid to think of such a thing.
Captain Chadlington said that public men must expect this sort of thing and that he didn’t mind for himself, but that it was just like those cowardly dagoes to attempt to blow up a parcel of women and children as well.
Everybody agreed that the tutor had behaved admirably.
‘Where did you get it from?’ Paul asked Bobby, whom he presently found giggling in the schoolroom with the inevitable Héloïse.
‘A boy in my house made it for me last half; he says nobody will be able to tell that it’s not a genuine bomb. In fact, it is a genuine one, practically, that’s the beauty of it. Poor old Charlie Chad., he’s most awfully pleased about the whole thing, isn’t he, fussing about with those policemen like any old turkey cock. Oh! It all went off too, too beautifully, egI cegouldn’t thegink egit fegunnegier, cegould yegou?’
‘I think you’re an odious child,’ said Paul, ‘and I’ve a very good mind to tell your mother about you.’
‘That would rather take the gilt off your heroic action, though, wouldn’t it, old boy?’ said Bobby comfortably.
The local police, as Bobby’s friend had truly predicted, were unable to make up their minds as to whether the machine was or was not an infernal one. Until this pretty point should be settled Captain Chadlington was allotted two human bulldogs who were instructed by Scotland Yard that they must guard his life with their own. A camp bed was immediately made up for one of these trusty fellows in the passage, across the captain’s bedroom door, and the other was left to prowl about the house and garden all night, armed to the teeth.
‘Darling,’ said the duchess to Bobby, as they went upstairs to bed after this exhausting day, ‘have you seen the lovely man who’s sleeping
