Lieutenant Topham depressed him greatly. There seemed such an extraordinary lack of intelligent interest about the fellow. How differently Nelson would have replied!
“Well, there’s one thing I absolutely insist upon getting at the bottom of,” he said resolutely. “I am accused of sending a long telegram to Mr. Burnett about a Mr. Taylor. Now I want to know the meaning of that!”
Lieutenant Topham smiled, but his smile, instead of soothing, merely provoked the indignant householder.
“Neither you nor Mr. Burnett are accused of sending telegrams. We only know that you received them.”
“Then who sent them, I’d like to know?”
“That, no doubt, will appear in time. I must get back now, Mr. Drummond; but I must first ask you not to mention a word to anyone of this—in the meantime anyhow.”
The householder looked considerably taken aback. He had anticipated making a very pleasant sensation among his friends.
“I—er—of course shall use great discretion—” he began.
Lieutenant Topham shook his head.
“I am directed to ask you to tell nobody.”
“Of course Mrs. Drummond—”
“Not even Mrs. Drummond.”
“But this is really very high-handed, sir! Mr. Burnett is a very old friend of mine—”
The Lieutenant came a step nearer to him, and said very earnestly and persuasively—
“You have an opportunity, Mr. Drummond, of doing a service to your country by keeping absolute silence. We can trust you to do that for England, surely?”
“For Great Britain,” corrected Mr. Drummond, who was a member of a society for propagating bagpipe music and of another for commemorating Bannockburn—“well, yes, if you put it like that—Oh, certainly, certainly. Yes, you can trust me, Mr. Topham. But—er—what am I to say to Mrs. Drummond about your visit?”
“Say that I was sent to ask you to keep your lights obscured,” suggested the lieutenant with a smile.
“Capital!” said the householder. “I’ve warned her several times about the pantry window. That will kill two birds with one stone!”
“Good morning, sir. Thank you very much,” said the lieutenant.
Mr. Drummond was left in a very divided state of mind regarding the Navy’s competence, Mr. Burnett’s sanity, and his own judgment.
V
On the Mail Boat
A procession came down the long slope at the head of the bay. Each vehicle but one rumbled behind a pair of leisurely horses. That one, a car with a passenger and his luggage, hooted from tail to head of the procession, and vanished in the dust towards the pier. The sea stretched like a sheet of brilliant glass right out across the bay and the firth beyond to the great blue island hills, calm as far as the eye could search it; on the green treeless shores, with their dusty roads and their dykes of flagstones set on edge, there was scarcely enough breeze to stir the grasses. “We shall have a fine crossing,” said the passengers in the coaches to one another.
They bent round the corner of the bay and passed the little row of houses, pressed close beneath the high grassy bank, and rumbled on to the pier. The sentries and the naval guard eyed the passengers with professional suspicion as they gathered in a cue to show their passports, and then gradually straggled towards the mail boat. But there was one passenger who was particularly eyed; though if all the glances toward her were prompted by suspicion, it was well concealed. She was a girl of anything from twenty-two to twenty-five, lithe, dressed to a miracle, dark-haired, and more than merely pretty. Her dark eyebrows nearly meeting, her bright and singularly intelligent eyes, her firm mouth and resolute chin, the mixture of thoughtfulness in her expression and decision in her movements, were not the usual ingredients of prettiness. Yet her features were so fine and her complexion so clear, and there was so much charm as well as thought in her expression, that the whole effect of her was delightful. Undoubtedly she was beautiful.
She was clearly travelling alone, and evidently a stranger to those parts. No one on the pier or steamer touched a hat or greeted her, and from her quick looks of interest it was plain that everything was fresh to her. The string of passengers was blocked for a moment on the narrow deck, and just where she paused stood a tall man who had come aboard a minute or two before. He took his eyes discreetly off her face, and they fell upon her bag. There on the label he could plainly read, “Miss Eileen Holland.” Then she passed on, and the tall man kept looking after her.
Having piled her lighter luggage on a seat in a very brisk and businesslike fashion, Miss Holland strolled across the deck and leaned with her back against the railings and her hands in the pockets of her loose tweed coat, studying with a shrewd glance her fellow-passengers. They included a number of soldiers in khaki, on leave apparently; several nondescript and uninteresting people, mostly female; and the tall man. At him she glanced several times. He was very obviously a clergyman of some sort, in the conventional black felt hat and a long dark overcoat; and yet though his face was not at all unclerical, it seemed to her that he was not exactly the usual type. Then she saw his eyes turn on her again, and she gazed for some minutes at the pier just above their heads.
The cable was cast off and the little steamer backed through the foam of her own wake, and wheeling, set forth for the Isles. For a while Miss Holland watched the green semicircle slowly receding astern and the
