Nothing, in short, could have been more eminently satisfactory, and the fact that I regretted it is only a proof of the essential weakness of my character.
XII
I
In those grey days there was one thought, of the many that occupied my mind, which brought with it a certain measure of consolation. It was the reflection that this state of affairs could not last forever. The school term was drawing to a close. Soon I should be free from the propinquity which paralysed my efforts to fight. I was resolved that the last day of term should end forever my connection with Sanstead House and all that was in it. Mrs. Ford must find some other minion. If her happiness depended on the recovery of the Little Nugget, she must learn to do without happiness, like the rest of the inhabitants of this horrible world.
Meanwhile, however, I held myself to be still on duty. By what tortuous processes of thought I had arrived at the conclusion I do not know, but I considered myself responsible to Audrey for the safeguarding of the Little Nugget, and no altered relations between us could affect my position. Perhaps mixed up with this attitude of mind, was the less altruistic wish to foil Smooth Sam. His continued presence at the school was a challenge to me.
Sam’s behaviour puzzled me. I do not know exactly what I expected him to do, but I certainly did not expect him to do nothing. Yet day followed day, and still he made no move. He was the very model of a butler. But our dealings with one another in London had left me vigilant, and his inaction did not disarm me. It sprang from patience, not from any weakening of purpose or despair of success. Sooner or later I knew he would act, swiftly and suddenly, with a plan perfected in every detail.
But when he made his attack it was the very simplicity of his methods that tricked me, and only pure chance defeated him.
I have said that it was the custom of the staff of masters at Sanstead House School—in other words, of every male adult in the house except Mr. Fisher himself—to assemble in Mr. Abney’s study after dinner of an evening to drink coffee. It was a ceremony, like most of the ceremonies at an establishment such as a school, where things are run on a schedule, which knew of no variation. Sometimes Mr. Abney would leave us immediately after the ceremony, but he never omitted to take his part in it first.
On this particular evening, for the first time since the beginning of the term, I was seized with a prejudice against coffee. I had been sleeping badly for several nights, and I decided that abstention from coffee might remedy this.
I waited, for form’s sake, till Glossop and Mr. Abney had filled their cups, then went to my room, where I lay down in the dark to wrestle with a more than usually pronounced fit of depression which had descended upon me. Solitude and darkness struck me as the suitable setting for my thoughts.
At this moment Smooth Sam Fisher had no place in my meditations. My mind was not occupied with him at all. When, therefore, the door, which had been ajar, began to open slowly, I did not become instantly on the alert. Perhaps it was some sound, barely audible, that aroused me from my torpor and set my blood tingling with anticipation. Perhaps it was the way the door was opening. An honest draught does not move a door furtively, in jerks.
I sat up noiseless, tense, and alert. And then, very quietly, somebody entered the room.
There was only one person in Sanstead House who would enter a room like that. I was amused. The impudence of the thing tickled me. It seemed so foreign to Mr. Fisher’s usual cautious methods. This strolling in and helping oneself was certainly kidnapping de luxe. In the small hours I could have understood it; but at nine o’clock at night, with Glossop, Mr. Abney and myself awake and liable to be met at any moment on the stairs, it was absurd. I marvelled at Smooth Sam’s effrontery.
I lay still. I imagined that, being in, he would switch on the electric light. He did, and I greeted him pleasantly.
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Fisher?”
For a man who had learned to control himself in difficult situations he took the shock badly. He uttered a startled exclamation and spun round, open-mouthed.
I could not help admiring the quickness with which he recovered himself. Almost immediately he was the suave, chatty Sam Fisher who had unbosomed his theories and dreams to me in the train to London.
“I quit,” he said pleasantly. “The episode is closed. I am a man of peace, and I take it that you would not keep on lying quietly on that bed while I went into the other room and abstracted our young friend? Unless you have changed your mind again, would a fifty-fifty offer tempt you?”
“Not an inch.”
“Just so. I merely asked.”
“And how about Mr. Abney, in any case? Suppose we met him on the stairs?”
“We should not meet him on the stairs,” said Sam confidently. “You did not take coffee tonight, I gather?”
“I didn’t—no. Why?”
He jerked his head resignedly.
“Can you beat it! I ask you, young man, could I have foreseen that, after drinking coffee every night regularly for two months, you would pass it up tonight of all nights? You certainly are my jinx, sonny. You have hung the Indian sign on me all right.”
His words had brought light to me.
“Did you drug the coffee?”
“Did I! I fixed it
