“Which man?” I inquired.
“Billy,” said he, and with a gasp I recognised my Emperor in this brief epithet. “It’s just astounding to me how he never learns that hot coals will burn his fingers, and water won’t run uphill! He’s always trying the silliest things.”
His eyes suddenly began to twinkle again, and he asked abruptly—
“Why’s the Kaiser like my boots?”
I gave it up at once.
“Because he’ll be sold again soon!” he chuckled. “That’s one of my latest, Mr. Wilson. I’ve little to do in these weary times but make riddles to amuse my girls and think of dodges for getting a rise out of my wife. I had her beautifully the other day! We’ve two sons at the front, you must know, and one of them’s called Bob. Well, I got a letter from him, and suddenly I looked awful grave and cried, ‘My God, Bob’s been blown up’—you should have seen Mrs. Craigie jump—‘by his Colonel!’ said I, and I tell you she was nearly as put about to find I’d been pulling her leg as if he’d really been blown to smithereens. Women are funny things.”
I fear I scarcely laughed as much as he expected at this extraordinary instance of woman’s obtuseness, but he did not seem to mind. He was already filling another pipe, and having found an audience, was evidently settling down to an afternoon’s conversation—or rather an afternoon’s monologue, for it was quite clear he was independent of any assistance from me. I was resolved, however, not to forgo this chance of learning something more about Eileen.
“You were talking about Miss Holland,” I said hurriedly, before he had time to get under way again.
“Oh, so I was. And that reminds me I’ve come here just to make some inquiries about the girl.”
Again his blue eyes twinkled furiously.
“Why’s Miss Holland like our hall clock?” he inquired. “I may mention by the way that it’s always going slow.”
Again I gave it up.
“Because you take her hand and get forward! That was one for my wife’s benefit. It made her fairly sick!”
“Do you mean,” I demanded, “that you were actually in the habit of holding Miss—er—Holland’s hand?”
“Oh, no fears. I’m past that game. But Mrs. Craigie is a great one for p’s and q’s and not being what she calls vulgar, and a joke like that is a sure draw. I get her every time with my governess riddles. Here’s a good one now—Why’s a pretty governess like a—”
In spite of the need for caution, my impatience was fast overcoming me.
“Then you have been sent by Mrs. Craigie to make inquiries about Miss Holland?” I interrupted a trifle brusquely.
Mr. Craigie seemed at least to have the merit of not taking offence readily.
“That’s the idea,” he agreed. “You see, it’s this way: my wife’s been at me ever since our governess bolted, as she calls it. Well now, what’s the good in making inquiries about a thing that’s happened and finished and come to an end? If it was a case of engaging another governess, that’s a different story. I’d take care not to have any German spies next time!”
“German spies!” I exclaimed, with I hope well-simulated horror; “you don’t mean to suspect Miss Holland of that surely!”
“Oh, ‘German Spy’ is just a kind of term nowadays for anyone you don’t know all about,” said Mr. Craigie easily. “Everyone you haven’t seen before is a German Spy. I spotted five myself in my own parish at the beginning of the war, and Mrs. Craigie wrote straight off to the Naval Authorities and reported them all.”
“And were they actually spies?” I asked a trifle uncomfortably.
“Not one of them!” laughed he. “The nearest approach was a tinker who’d had German measles! Ha, ha! It’s no good my wife reporting any more spies, and I just reminded her of that whenever she worried me, and pulled her leg a bit about me and Miss Holland being in the game together, and so it was all right till she got wind of a girl who was the image of the disappearing governess being here at the manse as Mr. Burnett’s sister, and then there was simply no quieting her till I’d taken the car and run over to see what there was in the story. Mind you, I didn’t think there was a word of truth in it myself; but when I’d got here, by Jingo, there I saw Miss Holland’s tweed coat in the hall! Now that’s a funny kettle of fish, isn’t it?”
I didn’t say so, but I had to admit that he was not so very far wrong. The audacity of the performance was quite worthy of Tiel, but its utter recklessness seemed not in the least like him. Had the vanishing governess’s employer been anyone less easygoing than Mr. Craigie, how readily our whole scheme might have been wrecked! Even as it was, I saw detection staring me straight in the face. However, I put on as cool and composed a face as I could.
“I understood that Miss Holland’s brother had written to you about it,” I said brazenly.
“Oh! he is really her brother, is he?” said he, looking at me very knowingly.
“Certainly.”
“He being Burnett and she Holland, eh?”
“You have heard of half-brothers, haven’t you?” I inquired with a condescending smile.
“Oh, I have heard of them,” winked Mr. Craigie as good-humouredly as ever; “only I never happened to have heard before of half-sisters running away from a situation they’d taken without a word of warning, just whenever their half-brothers whistled.”
“Did Mr. Burnett whistle?” I inquired, with (I hope) an air of calm and slightly superior amusement.
“Someone sent her a wire, and I presume it was Mr. Burnett,” said he. “By Jingo!”
He stopped suddenly with an air as nearly approaching excitement as was conceivable in such a gentleman.
“What’s the matter?” I asked a trifle anxiously.
“One might get a good one about how to make a governess explode, the answer being ‘Burn it!’ By Jove, I must think that out.”
Before I
