“By Jove! Archie is rather a pal of mine. Comes out yachting sometimes. A good sort.”
“I’ve never met him, but I used to chum with Flo. Congratulations, Mr. Cheyne.”
Cheyne stared at her and she smiled gaily across.
“You haven’t said that the world is very small after all,” she explained.
Cheyne laughed.
“I didn’t think of it or I should,” he admitted. “But I hope you will come down to the Beresfords. I’d love to take you out in my yacht—that is, if you like yachting.”
“That’s a promise,” the girl declared. “If I come I shall hold you to it.”
When tea was removed and cigarettes were alight she returned to the subject of his adventure.
“Yes,” Cheyne answered, “I should like to tell you the whole story if it really wouldn’t bore you. But,” he hesitated for a second, “you won’t mind my saying that it is simply desperately private. No hint of it must get out.”
Her face clouded.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I don’t want to hear it if it’s a secret. It doesn’t concern me anyway.”
“Oh, but it does—now,” Cheyne protested. “If I don’t tell you now you will think that I am a criminal with something to hide, and I think I couldn’t bear that.”
“No,” she contradicted, “you think that you are in my debt and bound to tell me.”
He laughed.
“Not at all,” he retorted, “since contradiction is the order of the day. If that was it I could easily have put you off with the yarn I told the doctor. I want to tell you because I think you’d be interested, and because it really would be such a relief to discuss the thing with some rational being.”
She looked at him keenly as she demanded: “Honor bright?”
“Honor bright,” he repeated, meeting her eyes.
“Then you may,” she decided. “You may also smoke a pipe if you like.”
“The story opens about six weeks ago with a visit to Plymouth,” he began, and he told her of his adventure in the Edgecombe Hotel, of the message about the burglary, of his ride home and what he found there, and of the despondent detective and his failure to discover the criminals. Then he described what took place on the launch Enid, his search of the coast towns and discovery of the trail of the men, his following them to London and to the Hopefield Avenue house, his adventure therein, the blow on his head, his coming to himself to find the tracing gone, his crawl to the fence and his relief at the sound of her footsteps approaching.
She listened with an ever-increasing eagerness, which rose to positive excitement as he reached the climax of the story.
“My word!” she cried with shining eyes when he had finished. “To think of such things happening here in sober old London in the twentieth century! Why, it’s like the Arabian Nights! Who would believe such a story if they read it in a book? What fun! And you have no idea what the tracing was?”
“No more than you have, Miss Merrill.”
“It was a cipher,” she declared breathlessly. “A cipher telling where there was buried treasure! Isn’t that all that is wanted to make it complete?”
“Now you’re laughing at me,” he complained. “Don’t you really believe my story?”
“Believe it?” she retorted. “Of course I believe it. How can you suggest such a thing? I think it’s perfectly splendid! I can’t say how splendid I think it. It was brave of you to go into that house in the way you did. I can’t think how you had the nerve. But now what are you going to do? What is the next step?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought and thought while I was in that blessed hospital and I don’t see the next move. What would you advise?”
“I? Oh, Mr. Cheyne, I couldn’t advise you. I’m thrilled more than I can say, but I don’t know enough for that.”
“Would you give up and go to the police?”
“Never.” Her eyes flashed. “I’d go on and fight the gang. You’ll win yet, Mr. Cheyne. Something tells me.”
A wild idea shot into Cheyne’s mind and he sat for a moment motionless. Then swayed by a sudden impulse, he turned to the girl and said excitedly:
“Miss Merrill, let’s join forces. You help me.” He paused, then went on quickly: “Not in the actual thing, I mean, of course. I couldn’t allow you to get mixed up in what might turn out to be dangerous. But let me come and discuss the thing with you. It would be such a help.”
“No!” she said, her eyes shining. “I’ll join in if you like—I’d love it! But only if I share the fun. I’m either in altogether or out altogether.”
He stood up and faced her.
“Do you mean it?” he asked seriously.
“Of course I mean it,” she answered as she got up also.
“Then shake hands on it!”
Solemnly they shook hands, and so the firm of Cheyne and Merrill came into being.
VIII
A Council of War
Cheyne returned to his hotel that afternoon in a jubilant frame of mind. He had been depressed from his illness and his failure at the house in Hopefield Avenue and had come to believe he was wasting his time on a wild-goose chase. But now all his former enthusiasm had returned. Once again he was out to pit his wits against this mysterious gang of scoundrels, and he was all eagerness to be once more in the thick of the fray.
Miss Merrill had told him something about herself before he had left. It appeared that she was the daughter of a doctor in Gloucester who had died some years previously. Her mother had died while she was a small child, and she was now alone in the world save for a sister who was married and living in Edinburgh. Her father had left her enough to live on fairly comfortably,
