Having got that clear in my head, I tore the cable into small pieces and flung them into the waste-paper basket.
“Well, are you going?” Medina asked.
“Not I. I’m off salmon-fishing for the present.” I took a cable form from the table and wrote: “Sorry, must cancel Leardal plan,” signed it “Hannay,” addressed it to “Andersen, Grand Hotel, Christiania,” and gave it to the porter to send off. I wonder what happened to that telegram. It is probably still stuck up on the hotel-board, awaiting the arrival of the mythical Andersen.
On our way back to Hill Street Medina put his arm in mine, and was very friendly. “I hope to get a holiday,” he said, “perhaps just after the beginning of June. Only a day or two off now. I may go abroad for a little. I would like you to come with me.”
That puzzled me a lot. Medina could not possibly leave town before the great liquidation, and there could be no motive in his trying to mislead me on such a point, seeing that I was living in his house. I wondered if something had happened to make him change the date. It was of the first importance that I should find this out, and I did my best to draw him about his plans. But I could get nothing out of him except that he hoped for an early holiday, and “early” might apply to the middle of June as well as to the beginning, for it was now the 27th of May.
Next afternoon at teatime to my surprise Odell appeared in the smoking-room, followed by the long lean figure of Tom Greenslade. I never saw anybody with greater pleasure, but I didn’t dare to talk to him alone. “Is your master upstairs?” I asked the butler. “Will you tell him that Dr. Greenslade is here? He is an old friend of his.”
We had rather less than two minutes before Medina appeared. “I come from your wife,” Greenslade whispered. “She has told me all about the business, and she thought this was the safest plan. I was to tell you that she has news of Miss Victor and the Marquis. They are safe enough. Any word of the little boy?”
He raised his voice as Medina entered. “My dear fellow, this is a great pleasure. I had to be in London for a consultation, and I thought I would look up Hannay. I hardly hoped to have the luck to catch a busy man like you.”
Medina was very gracious—no, that is not the word, for there was nothing patronising in his manner. He asked in the most friendly way about Greenslade’s practice, and how he liked English country life after his many wanderings. He spoke with an air of regret of the great valleys of loess and the windy Central Asian tablelands where they had first foregathered. Odell brought in tea, and we made as pleasant a trio of friends as you could find in London. I asked a few casual questions about Fosse, and then I mentioned Peter John. Here Greenslade had an inspiration; he told me afterwards that he thought it might be a good thing to open a channel for further communications.
“I think he’s all right,” he said slowly. “He’s been having occasional stomachaches, but I expect that is only the result of hot weather and the first asparagus. Lady Hannay is a little anxious—you know what she is, and all mothers today keep thinking about appendicitis. So I’m keeping my eye on the little man. You needn’t worry, Dick.”
I take credit to myself for having divined the doctor’s intention. I behaved as if I scarcely heard him, and as if Fosse Manor and my family were things infinitely remote. Indeed I switched off the conversation to where Medina had last left it, and I behaved towards Tom Greenslade as if his presence rather bored me, and I had very little to say to him. When he got up to go, it was Medina who accompanied him to the front door. All this was a heavy strain upon my self-command, for I would have given anything for a long talk with him—though I had the sense not to believe his news about Peter John.
“Not a bad fellow, that doctor of yours,” Medina observed on his return.
“No,” I said carelessly. “Rather a dull dog all the same, with his country gossip. But I wish him well, for it is to him that I owe your friendship.”
I must count that episode one of my lucky moments, for it seemed to give Medina some special satisfaction. “Why do you make this your only sitting-room?” he asked. “The library is at your disposal, and it is pleasanter in summer than any other part of the house.”
“I thought I might be disturbing your work,” I said humbly.
“Not a bit of it. Besides, I’ve nearly finished my work. After tonight I can slack off, and presently I’ll be an idle man.”
“And then the holiday?”
“Then the holiday.” He smiled in a pleasant boyish way, which was one of his prettiest tricks.
“How soon will that be?”
“If all goes well, very soon. Probably after the second of June. By the way, the Thursday Club dines on the first. I want you to be my guest again.”
Here was more food for thought. The conviction grew upon me that he and his friends had put forward the date of liquidation; they must have suspected something—probably from Sandy’s presence in England—and were taking no risks. I smoked that evening till my tongue was sore and went to bed in a fever
