Malcolm Sage, Detective
CHAPTER I SIR JOHN DENE RECEIVES HIS ORDERS
I
"John!"
"Yeh!"
"Don't say 'yeh,' say 'yes,' Dorothy dear."
"Yes, Dorothy de – "
Sir John Dene was interrupted in his apology by a napkin-ringwhizzing past his left ear.
"What's wrong?" he enquired, laying aside his paper and picking upthe napkin-ring.
"I'm trying to attract your attention," replied Lady Dene, slippingfrom her place at the breakfast-table and perching herself upon thearm of her husband's chair. She ran her fingers lightly through hishair. "Are you listening?"
"Sure!"
"Well, what are you going to do for Mr. Sage?"
In his surprise at the question, Sir John Dene jerked up his head tolook at her, and Dorothy's forefinger managed to find the corner ofhis eye.
He blinked vigorously, whilst she, crooning apologies into his ear, dabbed his eye with her handkerchief.
"Now," she said, when the damage had been repaired, "I'll go and sitdown like a proper, respectable wife of a D.S.O.," and she returnedto her seat. "Well?" she demanded, as he did not speak. "Yes, dear."
"What are you going to do for Mr. Sage, now that Department Z isbeing demobbed? You know you like him, because you didn't want toginger him up, and you mustn't forget that he saved your life," sheadded.
"Sure!"
"Don't say 'sure,' John," she cried. "You're a British baronet, andBritish baronets don't say 'sure,' 'shucks' or vamoose.' Do youunderstand?"
He nodded thoughtfully;
"I like Mr. Sage," announced Dorothy. Then a moment later she added,"He always reminds me of the superintendent of a Sunday-school, withhis conical bald head and gold spectacles. He's not a bit like adetective, is he?"
"Sure!"
"If you say it again, John, I shall scream," she cried.
For some seconds there was silence, broken at length by Dorothy.
"I like his wonderful hands, too," she continued. "I'm sure he'sproud of them, because he can never keep them still. If you say'sure,' I'll divorce you," she added hastily.
He smiled, that sudden, sunny smile she had learned to look for andlove.
"Then again I like him because he's always courteous and kind. AtDepartment Z they'd have had their appendixes out if Mr. Sage wantedthem. Now have you made up your mind?"
"Made it up to what?" he asked, lighting a cigar.
"That you're going to set him up as a private detective," she saidcoolly. "I don't want him to come here and not find everythingplanned out."
"He won't do that," said Sir John Dene with conviction. "He's nolap-dog."
"I wrote and asked him to call at ten to-day," she said coolly.
"Snakes, you did!" he cried, sitting up in his chair.
"Alligators, I did!" she mocked.
"You're sure some wife;" he looked at her admiringly.
"I sure am," she laughed lightly, "but I'm only just beginning, Johndear. By the way, I asked Sir James Walton to come too," she addedcasually.
"You – " he began, when the door opened and a little, silver-hairedlady entered. Sir John Dene jumped to his feet.
"Behold the mother of the bride," cried Dorothy gaily.
"Good morning, John," said Mrs. West as he bent and kissed her cheek.
She always breakfasted in her room; she abounded in tact.
"Now we'll get away from the eggs and bacon," cried Dorothy. "In thelanguage of the woolly West, we'll vamoose," and she led the way outof the dining-room along the corridor to Sir John Dene's den.
"Come along, mother-mine," she cried over her shoulder. "We've got alot to discuss before ten o'clock."
Sir John Dene's "den" was a room of untidiness and comfort. AsDorothy said, he was responsible for the untidiness and she thecomfort.
"Heigh-ho!" she sighed, as she sank down into a comfortable chair."I wonder what Whitehall would have done without Mr. Sage;" shesmiled reminiscently. "He was the source of half its gossip."
"He was very kind to you, Dorothy, when John was – was lost," saidMrs. West gently, referring to the time when Sir John Dene haddisappeared and a reward of 20,000 pounds had been offered for newsof him.
"Sure!" Sir John Dene acquiesced. "He's a white man, clean to thebone."
"It was very wonderful that an accountant should become such aclever detective," said Mrs. West. "It shows – " she paused.
"You see, he wasn't a success as an accountant," said Dorothy. "Hewas always finding out little wangles that he wasn't supposed to see.So when they wouldn't have him in the army, he went to the Ministryof Supply and found out a great, big wangle, and Mr. Llewellyn Johnwas very pleased. You get me, Honest John?" she demanded, turning toher husband.
Sir John Dene nodded and blew clouds of cigar smoke from his lips.He liked nothing better than to sit listening to his wife'sreminiscences of Whitehall, despite the fact that he had heard mostof them before.
"Poor Mr. Sage," continued Dorothy, "nobody liked him, and he's gotsuch lovely down on his head, just like a baby," she added, with afar-away look in her eyes.
"Perhaps no one understood him," suggested Mrs. West, withinstinctive charity for the Ishmaels of the world.
"Isn't that like her," cried Dorothy, "but this time she's right,"she smiled across at her mother. "When a few thousand tons of copperwent astray, or someone ordered millions of shells the wrong size,Mr. Sage got the wind up, and tried to find out all about it, and inWhitehall such things weren't done."
"They tried to put it up on me," grumbled Sir John Dene, twirlinghis cigar with his lips, "but I soon stopped their funny work."
"Everybody was too busy winning the war to bother about trifles,"Dorothy continued. "The poor dears who looked after such thingsfound life quite difficult enough, with only two hours for lunch andpretty secretaries to be – "
"Dorothy!" cried Mrs. West reproachfully.
"Well, it's true, mother," she protested.
It was true, as Malcolm Sage had discovered. "Let us concentrate onwhat we know we have got," one of his chiefs had once gravely saidto him. "Something is sure to be swallowed up in the fog of war," hehad added. Pleased with the phrase, which he conceived to beoriginal, he had used it as some men do a titled relative, with theresult that Whitehall had clutched at it gratefully.
"The fog of war," General Conyers Bardulph had muttered when, forthe life of him, he could not find a division that was due upon theWestern Front and which it was his duty to see was sent out.
"The fog of war," murmured spiteful Anita McGowan, when the prettylittle widow, Mrs. Sleyton, was being interrogated as to thewhereabouts of her husband.
"The fog of war," laughed the girls in Department J.P.Q., when athalf-past four one afternoon neither its chief nor his dark-eyedsecretary had returned from lunch.
"But when he went to Department Z he was wonderful," said Mrs. West, still clinging tenderly to her Ishmael.
"He was," said Sir John Dene. "He was the plumb best man at his job
I ever came across."
"Yes, John dear, that's all very well," said Dorothy, her eyesdancing, "but suppose you had been the War Cabinet and you had sentfor Mr. Sage;" she paused.
"Well?" he demanded.
"And he had come in a cap and a red tie," she proceeded, "and hadresigned within five minutes, saying that you were talking of thingsyou didn't know anything about." She laughed at the recollection.
"He