Then I hunted up Archie Roylance, whom I found on the very top of his form. He had seen Hansen, and discovered that on the island of Flacksholm, just off the mouth of the Merdalfjord, there was good landing. It was a big flattish island with a loch in the centre, and entirely uninhabited except for a farm at the south end. Archie had got a machine, a Sopwith, which he said he could trust, and I arranged with him to be at Flacksholm not later than the 27th, and to camp there as best he could. He was to keep watch by day for a motor-boat from the Merdalfjord, and at night if he saw a green light he was to make for it. I told him to take ample supplies, and he replied that he wasn’t such a fool as to neglect the commissariat. He said he had been to Fortnum & Mason and was going to load up with liqueurs and delicatessen. ‘Take all the clothes you’ve got, Dick,’ he added.—‘It will be perishing cold in those parts at this time of year.’ He arranged, too, to cable through Hansen for a motor-launch to be ready at Stavanger for a Mr Brand who was due by the Hull steamer on the morning of the 23rd. If I had to change my plans I was to wire him at once.
That evening I went down to Fosse a little easier in my mind. It was a blessed relief to get out of London and smell clean air, and to reflect that for a week at any rate I should be engaged in a more congenial job than loafing about town. I found Peter John in the best of health and the Manor garden a glory of spring flowers.
I told Mary that I was ordered by my doctor to go to bed for a week and take a rest cure.
‘Dick,’ she asked anxiously, ‘you’re not ill, are you?’
‘Not a bit, only a trifle stale. But officially I’m to be in bed for a week and not a blessed soul is to be allowed to come near me. Tell the servants, please, and get the cook on to invalid dishes. I’ll take Paddock into my confidence, and he’ll keep up a show of waiting on me.’
‘A show?’
‘Yes, for you see I’m going to put in a week in Norway that is, unless Sandy has anything to say against it.’
‘But I thought Colonel Arbuthnot was still abroad?’
‘So he is—officially. But I’m going to breakfast with him the day after tomorrow at The Silent Woman—you remember, the inn we used to have supper at last summer when I was fishing the Colne.’
‘Dick,’ she said solemnly, ‘isn’t it time you told me a little more about what you’re doing?’
‘I think it is,’ I agreed, and that night after dinner I told her everything.
She asked a great many questions, searching questions, for Mary’s brain was about twice as good as mine. Then she sat pondering for a long time with her chin on her hand.
‘I wish I had met Mr Medina,’ she said at last. ‘Aunt Claire and Aunt Doria know him… I am afraid of him, terribly afraid, and I think I should be less afraid if I could just see him once. It is horrible, Dick, and you are fighting with such strange weapons. Your only advantage is that you’re such a gnarled piece of oak. I wish I could help. It’s dreadful to have to wait here and be tortured by anxiety for you, and to be thinking all the time of those poor people. I can’t get the little boy out of my head I often wake in a terror, and have to go up to the night-nursery to hug Peter John. Nanny must think I’m mad… I suppose you’re right to go to Norway?’
‘I see no other way. We have a clue to the whereabouts of one of the hostages—I haven’t a notion which. I must act on that, and besides, if I find one it may give me a line on the others.’
‘There will still be two lost,’ she said, ‘and the time grows fearfully short. You are only one man. Can you not get helpers? Mr Macgillivray.’
‘No. He has his own job, and to let him into mine would wreck both.’
‘Well, Colonel Arbuthnot? What is he doing?’
‘Oh, Sandy’s busy enough,. and, thank God! he’s back in England. I’ll know more about his game when I see him, but you may be sure it’s a deep one. While I’m away Sandy will be working all the time.’
‘Do you know, I have never met him. Couldn’t I see him some time when you’re away? It would be a great comfort to me. And, Dick, can’t I help somehow? We’ve always shared everything, even before we were married, and you know I’m dependable.’
‘Indeed I do, my darling,’ I said. ‘But I can’t see how you can help—yet. If I could, I would inspan you straight off, for I would rather have you with me than a regiment.’
‘It’s the poor little boy. I could endure the rest, but the thought of him makes me crazy. Have you seen Sir Arthur?’
‘No, I have avoided him. I can stand the sight of Victor and the Duke, but I swear I shall never look Sir Arthur in the face unless I can hand him over his son.’
Then Mary got up and stood over me like a delivering angel. ‘It is going to be done,’ she cried. ‘Dick, you must never give up. I believe in my heart we shall win. We must win or I shall never be able to kiss Peter John again with a quiet mind. Oh, I wish—I wish I could do something.’
I don’t think Mary slept that night, and next morning she was rather pale and her eyes had that funny long-sighted look that they had when I said good-bye to her at Amiens in March ‘18, before going up to the line.
I spent a blissful day with her and Peter John wandering round our little estate. it was one of those April days which seem to have been borrowed from late May when you have the warmth of summer joined with the austerity and fresh colouring of spring. The riot of daffodils under the trees was something to thank God for, the banks of the little lake were one cascade of grape hyacinths, blue and white, and every dell in the woods was bright with primroses; We occupied the morning deepening the pools in a tiny stream which was to be one of the spawning-grounds for the new trout in the lake, and Peter John showed conspicuous talent as a hydraulic engineer. His nurse who was a middle-aged Scotswoman from the Cheviots, finally carried him off for his morning rest, and when he had gone, Mary desisted from her watery excavations and sat down on a bank of periwinkles.
‘What do you really think of Nanny?’ she asked.
‘About as good as they make,’ I replied.
‘That’s what I think too. You know, Dick, I feel I’m far to fussy about Peter John. I give hours of my time to him, and it’s quite unnecessary. Nanny can do everything better than I can.
I scarcely dare let him out of my sight, and yet I’m certain that I could safely leave him for weeks with Nanny and Paddock and Dr Greenslade within call.’
‘Of course you could,’ I agreed, ‘but you’d miss him, as I do, for he’s jolly good company.’
‘Yes, he’s jolly good company, the dear fellow,’ she said.
In the afternoon we went for a canter on the downs, and I came back feeling as fit as a race-horse and keyed up for any-thing. But that evening, as we walked in the garden before dinner, I had another fit of longing to be free of the business and to return to my quiet life. I realised that I had buried my heart in my pleasant acres, and the thought of how much I loved them made me almost timid. I think Mary understood what I was feeling, for she insisted on talking about David Warcliff, and before I went to bed had worked me into that honest indignation which is the best stiffener of resolution. She went over my plans with me very carefully. On the 28th, if I could manage it, I was to come home, but if I was short of time I was to send her a wire and go straight to London. The pretence of my being in bed was to be religiously kept up. For safety’s sake I was to sign every wire with the name of Cornelius.
Very early next morning, long before anyone was stirring, I started the big Vauxhall with Paddock’s assistance, and, accompanied by a very modest kit, crept down the avenue. Paddock, who could drive a car, was to return to the house about ten o’clock, and explain to my chauffeur that by my orders he had taken the Vauxhall over to Oxford as a loan for a week to a friend of mine. I drove fast out of the silent hill roads and on to the great Roman way which lay like a strap across