THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
of the ordinary, isn't it?"
"He may have relapsed afterwards," I said.
Tim rose and stretched himself. "Perhaps: who knows? Let's go round to your club and have a Turkish bath. Much talking has made me weary."
It was fairly empty when we got there: two or three men were sitting about in the outside room, and one with his back towards us and a towel round his waist was leaning over the paper table. I didn't see who it was, but as I passed him I noticed casually that he had tattooed between his shoulder-blades a really beautiful design of a ship in full sail. And at that moment he turned: it was Finlay.
"The very man," he said with a smile. "I know you can do a few good conjuring tricks, and I want you to come down one day next week and help me amuse some of my youngsters in Hoxton." I told him I would if I could, and looked at Tim. "I suppose your friend hasn't any parlour tricks," he remarked tentatively.
"None, I fear," said Tim slowly. "Are all the causes you work for such deserving ones?"
"I try to do my bit," answered the other, looking a little surprised.
We moved away, and the next remark Tim made was as we entered the hot room. "So he didn't relapse afterwards, Bill. I'd forgotten myself until five minutes ago that the man who called himself Jones had the picture of a ship in full sail tattooed between his shoulder-blades. I saw it that night when his shirt was ripped off. And what I'm trying to decide is whether to tell the police or to give him a fiver for his boys' home."
V. — THE TAMING OF SYDNEY MARSHAM
TO say that Sydney Marsham was wild would be to err on thelenient side. She was the maddest, most harum-scarum child that ever donned a skirt. In fact, she frequently didn't, until her mother and father combined in issuing an order that the said garment was indispensable for a young lady of seventeen, and that riding breeches, except on special occasions, would not do instead.
The more crack-brained the escapade, the more certain it was to attract her irresistibly. And it was useless trying to check her. Her mother had made one or two feeble attempts, but after a while she gave it up as hopeless. "She's you all over again, my dear—only she's a girl."
Thus to her husband, and he nodded and grinned. "Give the child her head; she'll be all right. Look at me—how I've settled down."
At the age of twenty Sydney Marsham had become a singularly lovely girl. It had always been obvious that she would be pretty, but maturity had more than fulfilled the early promise. And Mrs. Marsham, looking sometimes at the slim, lithe figure, and the perfect head set so proudly on a pair of boyish shoulders, grew a little anxious as she thought of the future. Who was the man going to be?
She was so impulsive—just like her father; so apt to let her heart run away with her judgment. But with a girl of Sydney's type the wrong man would be worse than a tragedy; it would be hell on earth.
So far she had had no serious cause for worry. There had been, of course, a few boy and girl affairs, but they had made no impression— certainly no lasting impression—on Sydney. One, with a Sandhurst cadet, had lasted nearly six months, but that had died naturally with his departure to join his regiment in India. True, he had written twice, but Jack—the terrier—had consumed the second effusion before it had been answered, and Sydney had forgotten the address. So that had finished that.
And it therefore came as a little shock to Mrs. Marsham when Sydney announced one morning at breakfast that she'd met a new he-man. No trace of her feelings, however, showed in her face as she asked placidly:
"Where, my darling?"
"In the sea," answered Sydney, her mouth full of buttered egg. "I raced him to the sunken rock, and he won!"
"But, my dear," reproved her mother mildly, "was he a complete stranger?"
"Well, darling," said Sydney. "I really don't know. It's a point. I must buy a book on etiquette. Surely if two people undress on the beach with only a rock between them, that should constitute an introduction."
Mr. Marsham chuckled behind his paper, and then tried to frown. "Look here, old thing," he grunted, "you really must be careful."
"Male parent's cue," laughed his daughter. "I am the soul of care, my beloved."
"I know, Sydney," he answered, "but, honest Injun, Kid, there are so many cads about these days. Who is this man? Did you find out?"
"He's taken the Manor House, Daddy. And he's really rather a pet."
"I heard it had been let to a Major Dacres," said her mother. "Bill, you'd better go up and call on him."
"All right, my dear—I will." He broke off suddenly. "Sydney, what on earth is the matter with Jack? He's behaving in the most extraordinary way."
She looked at the terrier with a puzzled frown.
"I don't know what's the matter with him," she answered. "He's been very strange the last few days. Jacko!"
The terrier, which was lying in a corner of the room motionless, with its head buried under its forepaws, rose a little unwillingly and came to her. For a time it wandered restlessly round her chair; then, sitting down, it began to lick her hand.
"Don't, Sydney—don't," cried her mother. "I hate to see a dog doing that."
"Jacko's different. Aren't you, my pet?"
"Still, I'd take him to Rogers if I were you," said her father. "He's not a bad vet. And I don't think the dog is fit." He pushed back his chair, and lit a cigarette. "What was it I heard about this fellow Dacres?" he went on thoughtfully. "I know, he's spent most of his life in the tropics."
"I was told he was a retired Army doctor," said Mrs. Marsham. "And a very brilliant man. And that he had come here to have a quiet place in which to carry on some research work."
"Listen to her. Daddy," laughed the girl. "I bet she knows the colour of his eyes better than I do. You darling—how is it you always find out everything? But what is far more to the point—what is the size of his bank balance?"
"Well, he can't be a pauper." said her father. "When I was down yesterday asking Dobbs when the deuce he proposed starting work on that petrol filling station, he said that all his men had been busy making alterations up at the Manor House. And with building what it is these days, you can't have that done for nothing."
"I will go up and investigate this morning," announced Sydney.
"Dear, you must wait till your father calls," protested her mother.
"Bless you, my pet," said the girl. "I'll be terribly proper. And there really was a rock between us, even if it was rather small. Come on, Jacko."
She strolled through the open windows into the garden, and after a moment's hesitation the terrier got up and followed her. He paused by his bowl of water and drank greedily—drank till the last drop was finished; then he gave a sudden odd little run forward and snapped at the air.
"There's something very funny about that dog," said Mr. Marsham uneasily. "Sydney, take Jack to the vet. this morning."
"All right, Daddy, I will. Come on, old man. And we'll call on the mystery man on the way," she finished mischievously.
No one would have been more surprised than Reggie Dacres at being called a mystery man. True, he was not of a talkative disposition; fifteen years of burial in impossible Backs of Beyond do not make for unnecessary conversation. But apart from that, a more direct individual seldom lived. The least curious of men himself, it never occurred to him that the arrival of a stranger in a quiet English place would arouse any interest whatever.
As Mrs. Marsham had said, he had come there to be undisturbed. The unexpected death of an aunt had provided him with enough money to chuck the Army and to devote his life to the only thing he cared about—original research work. What that