'
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 BY 
 
 E. M. KEATE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A GARDEN OF THE GODS," AND JOINT AUTHOR OF 
 " ROYAL PALACES OF ENGLAND." 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ALSTON RIVERS, LTD. 
 18 YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C.2
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 at the BURLEIGH PRESS, Lewin's Mead, BRISTOL.
 
 TO 
 
 FOREST FARM 
 
 AND MY FIRST KIND CRITICS
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 All the circumstances of the story are purely 
 imaginary, including the part about the Arcos 
 Company, except the mention of the police raid 
 on their premises, which is a matter of common 
 knowledge. 
 
 2137158
 
 It is Fear, oh little Hunter, it is Fear \ " 
 
 Rudyard Kipling.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 KATE PARKER came tripping down the front stairs 
 of Greystones House, in the little village of 
 Greystones, in Dorsetshire, feeling light-hearted, 
 although it was only six o'clock, and a cold morning 
 in March. 
 
 Kate was not allowed to go down the front stairs 
 at this unhallowed hour. In fact, as under- 
 housemaid, she was never allowed to go down them 
 at all for her own convenience, she was only allowed 
 to sweep and polish them for the upper housemaid's 
 convenience. She and Elsie, the kitchenmaid, 
 took turns to be the first of the household up in 
 the morning, to open the back door in good time, 
 because the cook, Mrs. Crutcher and her husband, 
 the under-gardener, slept in a cottage, on the other 
 side of the stable-yard, and woe betide the luckless 
 wight who had not opened the door before Mrs. 
 Crutcher arrived ! Life was not worth living for 
 several days afterwards, because Mrs. Crutcher, 
 though usually a most comfortable woman, when 
 roused, had a sharp tongue and a still sharper eye 
 for minor delinquencies. 
 
 The proper routine was to gather up the boots 
 and shoes left on the table at the top of the back 
 stairs, drop them in the boot-boy's lair at the bottom 
 
 9
 
 io A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 of the stairs, open the back door and the shutters 
 in the kitchen. If it were Elsie's turn she would 
 light the kitchen fire before she went into the hall 
 to open the shutters there, unbolt the front door, 
 and then continue to open shutters everywhere 
 millions of shutters as Kate and Elsie thought 
 crossly, when they had overslept themselves. 
 
 But on this particular morning, it was Kate's turn, 
 and it was not her job to light the kitchen fire. 
 She was feeling light-hearted because it had been 
 her afternoon out the day before, employed in 
 rehearsing for a concert to be given by the Women's 
 Institute. She had been complimented on her 
 singing by the choirmaster, and on her general 
 attractiveness by Joe Buggins, at least she sup- 
 posed it was meant for a compliment when he took 
 her arm on the way home. She felt that she had 
 achieved a social success, and as such was entitled 
 to use the front stairs. So she came peacocking 
 down, humming a tune and twinkling at her own 
 reflection in the framed glasses of a myriad of beau- 
 tiful prints that covered the staircase wall on her 
 left side. The skylight made these stairs much 
 lighter than the back stairs before she opened the 
 shutters, and besides she could shirk the boot and 
 shoe business. 
 
 As she came down something rustled a little 
 under the stairs oh, Camp (short for Campbell) 
 she supposed, Miss Joan's dog, who ought not to be 
 sleeping in the house, but she forgot about him 
 in the strong smell of burnt-out lamps that greeted 
 her. It was so old-fashioned a house that, in spite
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME n 
 
 of its modern sons and daughters, only oil-lamps 
 illuminated its darkness. Kate concluded that Miss 
 Eleanor Wentworth, who was staying with her 
 uncle, Mr. Robert Preston, the owner of the house, 
 had forgotten to put out the lamps when she went 
 to bed. 
 
 Kate sniffed with distaste. How beastly the 
 lamps would be to do this morning ! Miss Eleanor 
 was not quite young, she was always writing or 
 reading, and though she was friendly and gentle 
 with the servants and gave very little trouble, she 
 was certainly absent-minded, as if her thoughts were 
 often somewhere else. She never talked and chat- 
 tered incessantly, like most ladies, Kate thought. 
 She was, socially, rather silent, but sometimes she 
 said things that made them all laugh. 
 
 At the same time, Kate felt that Miss Eleanor 
 might have remembered the lamps. The little 
 housemaid could not recollect that they had ever 
 been forgotten before. Mr. Preston was very 
 particular about them. He would be vexed. 
 Kate smiled a little to herself, as she returned to 
 the hall after unbolting the back door; he would 
 make no bones about letting Miss Eleanor know 
 that he was vexed. He was rather an irritable old 
 gentleman, with a nervous temperament Kate 
 thought of it as " peppery " but he was a dear 
 all the same, his household were very fond of him, 
 even devoted to him. Kate wondered what it was 
 that made you fond of some people, so that you 
 always wanted to please them. Her mind wan- 
 dered, irrelevantly, to Joe Buggins, rather a one,
 
 12 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 he was, that boy, taking her arm like that, and saying 
 that the lane was dark. . . . 
 
 She unlocked the front door, put back the hall 
 shutters, and opened the windows, and then, 
 whistling quite softly one of the tunes they had 
 practised the night before, she went into the library, 
 where Mr. Preston and Miss Eleanor had been 
 sitting in the evening, and the smell of smouldered 
 wick was perfectly dreadful, because of the two large 
 lamps that had burnt themselves out. There was 
 a wide bow-window in the room, with blue curtains 
 of some soft silky stuff, which she had to draw 
 before she went to work on " them damned 
 shutters." 
 
 Kate was proud of the swear-word, that she had 
 often heard the young ladies use, though her father 
 had given her the strap for it once, when she 
 said it at home. He had used some language 
 himself on the occasion, which Kate thought 
 unfair. 
 
 She opened the window, and somehow it occurred 
 to her that the room was very cold and silent. 
 She took a step back, and then she saw why the lamps 
 had been forgotten. On the floor, in a sort of heap, 
 " all crumpled-up like," as Kate described her 
 attitude afterwards, lay Miss Eleanor. 
 
 Kate was of the modern world, and a country 
 girl, not easily frightened, but there was a look of 
 terror and horror in that white face on the floor 
 before her, that made her blood run cold. So she 
 said to Elsie, later, but she kept enough presence 
 of mind to touch Miss Eleanor's hand, and then
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 13 
 
 she knew. Country children, who live in small 
 cottages, are not sheltered from the sight and 
 knowledge of death. Kate knew that Miss Eleanor, 
 studious, gentle, quiet Miss Eleanor, was dead. 
 
 That was why she had forgotten the lamps. . . . 
 
 Kate drew a long breath and began to cry, then 
 she rushed out of the room, to find Mrs. Crutcher, 
 or Wilkins, the chauffeur. They would know 
 what to do. Why was she dead ? Who could 
 have killed her? Miss Eleanor oh Miss 
 Eleanor ! 
 
 Mrs. Crutcher had arrived, and so had Wilkins, 
 who was also Mr. Preston's body-servant, and took 
 tea up to his master early, because Mr. Preston 
 did not sleep well. Wilkins and his wife had a 
 cottage a little way up the road, beyond the garden. 
 He was rather a delicate man, and as he said, it 
 gave him " quite a turn," when Kate rushed into 
 the kitchen crying and vociferating that Miss 
 Eleanor oh Miss Eleanor was dead in the 
 library ! 
 
 Wilkins at first thought that the girl was hysteri- 
 cal, and he gave her a sharp shake with his hand 
 on her shoulder. Elsie was raking out the kitchen 
 fire and stopped, with her mouth wide open, he was 
 afraid that she was going to join in this extraordinary 
 and deplorable outcry. 
 
 Mrs. Crutcher was boiling the kettle for every- 
 body's early tea over a little oil stove. She looked 
 comfortable and competent in her print dress and 
 big apron. " What do you mean, Kate ? What 
 are you saying about Miss Eleanor ? There !
 
 i 4 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Stop crying, girl, and tell us quiet-like. No one's 
 going to hurt you." Kate had shrunk away from 
 Wilkins' grip of her shoulder, and she looked 
 frightened terrified it made Mrs. Crutcher catch 
 her breath a little Kate was not easily frightened. 
 What ailed the girl ? 
 
 " Miss Eleanor is dead in the library on 
 the floor. Oh do come ! Do come ! Someone 
 has killed her." 
 
 Then Mrs. Crutcher and Wilkins realised that 
 something had really happened. He put down the 
 tray that he had taken up, she took the kettle off 
 the stove, and they followed Kate to the library. 
 Elsie, with the hearth-brush in her hand, crept after 
 them. If someone had killed Miss Eleanor, she 
 wanted to see. She had seen murders at " the 
 picshurs," but she did not know that they took 
 place in real life among the gentry. It occurred 
 to her she was only fifteen that they had had a 
 very fine wedding in the house last year, before she 
 came, when Miss Joan was married, and this year 
 a murder ! It seemed rather an exciting place foi 
 a girl to be in after all, though she always told her 
 mother that it was so countrified and dull. 
 
 Kate cried and sobbed, and Mrs. Crutcher began 
 to cry, too, directly she saw that pathetic figure on 
 the floor, Miss Eleanor, whom she had known and 
 liked for so many years. Miss Eleanor, who 
 always came to have a chat in the kitchen, and made 
 fun about Mrs. Crutcher's " extravagance at 
 Wool worth's." It all flashed through Mrs. 
 Crutcher's mind as she saw the crumpled helpless
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 15 
 
 figure on the floor, in the mauve velvet frock that 
 they had all admired. . . . 
 
 Wilkins was of a sternly practical cast of mind. 
 It was a shock to him to see Miss Eleanor there, 
 but he had learnt a few things during the war, 
 and he knelt down to feel her pulse, and listen for 
 her breathing. Like Kate, he knew death when 
 he saw it. He also saw that Eleanor's forehead, 
 the left temple, was bruised and gashed; it had 
 been bleeding pretty freely she had been knocked 
 on the head . . . who . . . who could have 
 done such a thing ? He noticed, as Kate had 
 noticed, the look of fright and horror in the 
 dead face. What was the last thing those eyes had 
 seen ? 
 
 Wilkins got up, feeling a little sick, but he spoke 
 sharply to the two weeping women, holding each 
 other's hands. 
 
 " I must telephone for the doctor, and for Pratt. 
 Don't you move a thing. Perhaps you had better 
 stay here, Mrs. Crutcher, till the doctor comes. 
 Kate can go and get the tea. Nobody must tell 
 Mr. Preston. Dr. Calgarrie will tell him." 
 
 Quite self-possessed, Wilkins went to the door, 
 and did not know why he felt obliged to rub his 
 sleeve across his eyes. It was a shock anyhow, and 
 he did not know how his master would take it. 
 Sooner, or later, in Wilkins' mind, everything 
 revolved round his master. Then he saw Mrs. 
 Crutcher stooping over Miss Eleanor, taking her 
 poor limp hand. ..." No," he said, " you must 
 not touch her. I think you'd better come and I'll
 
 1 6 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 lock the door. Shut the window too, Kate, will 
 you ? " 
 
 It was not for nothing that Wilkins had driven 
 his master into Calverstoke to sit on the Bench 
 weekly for a good many years. He had picked up 
 various scraps of pseudo-legal knowledge from 
 Mr. Preston himself and from different people, 
 including the Calverstoke police and Pratt, the 
 local constable, and of one thing he felt sure, if 
 anyone died in any unexpected fashion, they ought 
 not to be moved except in the presence of the 
 doctor and the police. The blood on Miss 
 Eleanor's forehead was proof enough that she had 
 not come by her death in any natural or accidental 
 manner. 
 
 He drove out Mrs. Crutcher and Kate, who by 
 that time wanted to stay and exclaim and wonder, 
 and Mrs. Crutcher earnestly wished to make that 
 poor dead body " comfortable." " She'll be as 
 stiff as stiff," she said indignantly to Wilkins. 
 
 " I can't help it. We don't want to get into 
 trouble with the police, do we ? They might say 
 we were hiding evidence. Might say we had done 
 it ourselves, Mrs. Crutcher." 
 
 Mrs. Crutcher returned to the kitchen murmur- 
 ing, and still crying, to get what solace she could 
 out of the head housemaid, Dawson, who by that 
 time had made her leisurely appearance, had sent 
 Elsie back to the scullery with " a flea in her ear," 
 and in a dignified manner was anxious to hear what 
 had happened. It was a trying moment for her, 
 because West, the parlourmaid, was away, and Daw-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 17 
 
 son had or thought she had a great deal to get 
 through. 
 
 Wilkins rang up the doctor and Pratt, the police- 
 man, and put through a trunk call to Mr. Anthony, 
 Mr. Preston's eldest son, who was a don at Oxford. 
 Anthony said that he would start at once to come to 
 his father. He was greatly shocked and distressed 
 to hear of the death of his cousin, for whom he had 
 a real affection, also he was angry and perturbed 
 on his father's account. " Don't let him know, 
 Wilkins, if you can help it, until I come, or at all 
 events until you have the doctor. Shocks are bad 
 for him." 
 
 At that moment Mr. Preston's bell rang im- 
 patiently. Wilkins was very late with his master's 
 tea. He promised Anthony to do what he could, 
 and fled to the kitchen, where Mrs. Crutcher had 
 had the presence of mind to boil the kettle. 
 
 Dr. Calgarrie and Pratt arrived practically 
 together. They knew each other very well. In their 
 respective official capacities they had gone through 
 many things together. Among the nervous ser- 
 vants they inspired the confidence that the man of 
 experience and knowledge always does inspire among 
 those more ignorant. A sort of peace, still excited 
 but less alarmed, settled down on the kitchen. 
 They even ate some breakfast, because although 
 the younger ones were afraid that it was heartless 
 and possibly improper, Mrs. Crutcher and Dawson, 
 with their wider outlook on life, agreed that even 
 with a murder in the house work had to be done, 
 and if one must work, one must also eat.
 
 1 8 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Kate sat in silence, and was regarded by the others 
 with commiseration and some respect, had she not 
 found " the corpse " ? She would be the first to 
 be questioned by Pratt, when the doctor had done 
 with him. Perhaps the older women would have 
 been shocked and disgusted if they had known her 
 thoughts, and still more shocked and disgusted 
 if it could have been brought home to them that 
 they themselves were the foundation and origin 
 of those thoughts. 
 
 Kate was considering how she might tell her 
 story, and make it true and convincing without re- 
 vealing the fact that she had come down the front 
 stairs. 
 
 Let him that is without fault cast the first stone. 
 Is not self-preservation the strongest instinct in 
 human nature ? Kate knew what Mrs. Crutcher 
 and Dawson were like when anyone broke the rules 
 of the house. The fact that to her, Kate's, mind 
 the rules were insensate, and that anyhow a girl 
 who had been complimented on her singing and 
 her looks she knew what attracted Joe Buggins, 
 it was not her voice had a right to do what she 
 liked. 
 
 Dawson was evidently in one of her worst moods, 
 she had certainly got out on the wrong side of 
 her bed, so much had been conveyed to Kate by 
 Elsie's covert grimaces. Murders had no softening 
 effect on Dawson. Quite the contrary; you could 
 not look for tears or a chance to gossip from Dawson. 
 She would harry and hurry you through your work 
 all the morning as a relief for her feelings if she
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 19 
 
 had any, thought Kate vindictively, and if she knew 
 about " those stairs "... Kate's really ruffled 
 conscience and her cowardly imagination strove 
 together. After all, it would make no difference 
 to Miss Eleanor. 
 
 She asked suddenly, " Where is Camp ? " 
 
 The others were a little startled, they were talking, 
 in hushed voices, as was meet, of the tragedy in 
 their midst, and had no time to spare for a dog. 
 
 " Really " began Dawson. 
 
 " He might have barked," said Kate, hastily. 
 
 They looked at her with slightly increased respect. 
 None of them had thought of that. 
 
 " He was not in the house," said Mrs. Crutcher, 
 " Wilkins took him home, because Camp was to 
 go to the vet to-day." 
 
 It was Kate who looked startled this time. If it 
 were not Camp who rustled ? 
 
 " I want him to sleep in the house," said Mrs. 
 Crutcher. ' There's rats about, I reel sure. I 
 think there's some holes under the front stairs." 
 
 " I have not seen any," said Dawson, frostily. 
 Under the front stairs was her province. Kate 
 felt relieved. Any explanation was better than none, 
 though like Dawson she had not seen any holes 
 under the front stairs, and up to that moment had 
 not believed in Mrs. Crutcher's mythical rats. 
 But she had remembered with uneasiness that 
 Camp generally made a great fuss to be let out 
 directly he heard anyone moving in the morning. 
 She would have told Pratt about the rustle, she said 
 to herself, though not that she heard it from the
 
 20 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 stairs, but now she would not mention it. It was 
 rats, of course. 
 
 Pratt's enquiries elicited nothing more from 
 Kate. She had come down as usual, with the keys 
 of the two doors, which were kept upstairs at night, 
 and opened the back door, unbolted the front door, 
 opened the shutters, hall first, then library. Elsie 
 had opened the shutters in the kitchen and servants' 
 hall. Pratt discovered that the usual routine had 
 been dropped after that point. None of the other 
 shutters downstairs had been opened. He was 
 glad because it gave him a chance to look at them. 
 They were all safely barred. In the old days, in 
 fact until within the last ten or fifteen years, a bell 
 had been hung on each shutter. But that had 
 been discontinued, chiefly under pressure from 
 housemaids, who found the process irksome. The 
 windows of the kitchen offices, except the kitchen 
 itself and the servants' hall, were too high up and 
 too narrow to be a means of ingress or egress for 
 anybody. The house was old, long and low, only 
 two storied, and as rambling as country houses 
 often are which have been altered and enlarged 
 from time to time to suit the fancy or convenience 
 of the owner of the moment, and not as part of an 
 architect's design. 
 
 Kate declared that she had seen nothing out of 
 the ordinary that morning before she went into the 
 library, except that the lamps had burnt out and 
 expired, making a smell " that stank to heaven." 
 She did not put it in those words, but quite as 
 graphically. That had startled her, directly she
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 21 
 
 came downstairs no (hastily) directly she came 
 into the hall. 
 
 No, the shutters and bolts were all right, they 
 were just the same as usual; no signs of their 
 having been opened. She had heard nothing, no 
 one moving about the house well, she had not, 
 a rustle under the stairs among the garden chairs 
 and the tennis things that were kept there, was not 
 " someone moving about " so Kate reasoned 
 with herself. 
 
 Pratt did not bother her as much as she had 
 expected. She had had a vision of him as she had 
 once seen him cross-examining a very dirty, weeping 
 little boy, who had stolen a rabbit from the fish- 
 monger in the village, but vowed he had taken it 
 from a snare in his father's garden. Pratt had 
 held him firmly by the ear, while the wretched 
 child struggled and kicked and prevaricated in vain. 
 
 This time he was very polite, and only asked each 
 servant in turn where they had been at the hour when 
 Kate had found " the body," and whether they had 
 heard unusual sounds of any kind during the night. 
 He seemed satisfied with their answers. No one 
 had been disturbed during the night. Patch, the 
 yard dog, had not barked. 
 
 Then he turned to Dr. Calgarrie. " Can you 
 tell Mr. Preston, sir ; I ought to see if anything has 
 been stolen. I can't go to his safe or the pantry 
 cupboards without his leave. He has the key of 
 the safe." 
 
 Calgarrie was one of the not very numerous 
 tribe of doctors who would almost prefer to let a
 
 22 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 patient die than tell him a disagreeable truth. 
 " I should like to wait for Mr. Anthony," he 
 said. 
 
 " I ought not to wait, sir," said Pratt, his honest, 
 sunburnt countenance full of official importance. 
 14 I shall have to let the inspector know, and the 
 coroner, as soon as I can." 
 
 Calgarrie grunted. He was not at all sure how 
 Robert Preston would be affected by this news, in 
 two ways, his strong temper and his weak heart. 
 The one had an adverse effect on the other. At all 
 events, if Anthony were there he would bear the 
 brunt. 
 
 Pratt followed the doctor upstairs. " One 
 moment, sir." He looked down to see if anyone 
 else were coming. " I don't doubt but it is a bur- 
 glary, and the fellow hopped it after seeing Miss 
 Wentworth did her in, in self-defence, I take it. 
 Mr. Preston was the last of the household to see 
 her alive. ... I'd like to know exactly what time 
 he went to bed, and that ... I need not see him, 
 sir, if you'll ask him. I mean if you think he'd 
 be upset at seeing me." 
 
 Calgarrie looked at the man thoughtfully, his 
 experience of Pratt did not lead him to expect much 
 delicacy of feeling from the policeman. He was 
 rather surprised. There was certainly something 
 about old Bob Preston that called out a curious 
 personal devotion from the people about him. 
 After all Pratt was a fellow churchwarden at the 
 little church of Greystones, a member of the cricket 
 club which Preston helped to support, and of the
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 23 
 
 Horticultural Society of which Preston was Presi- 
 dent. The policeman evidently wanted to show his 
 respect, admiration and sympathy for a man whom 
 he considered great. 
 
 ' Wait outside, then, will you ? " said Calgarrie, 
 " I'll call you if I want you. You've told Mrs. 
 Crutcher what to do about Miss Wentworth. 
 Does she want help ? " 
 
 " It is all right, sir, Mrs. Wilkins will help." 
 
 Calgarrie wished that someone could help him. 
 He told Pratt to fetch Wilkins, and to have some 
 brandy ready. If the old fellow fainted it might 
 be hard to bring him round. 
 
 Robert Preston was one of the fortunate people 
 who belong to a happier and more simple age than 
 the present day. He was the son of a bishop who 
 had been famous for his great intellect and learning, 
 and Robert himself had been blessed with no mean 
 intellectual capacity and a memory that might have 
 rivalled Macaulay's own. His impatient, nervous 
 temperament had probably been the only reason 
 why he had not achieved greater pre-eminence 
 in his profession ; " dependable but difficult," as 
 someone had described him, but as someone else had 
 described the Landors of Staffordshire, he came of 
 a race that was polished, high-spirited and long- 
 lived, and he had had a sufficiently distinguished 
 career at Eton and Oxford, and afterwards at the 
 Parliamentary Bar. 
 
 He had retired from his profession some twenty 
 years before the date of Eleanor Wentworth's 
 death, when he came to live at Greystones, the
 
 24 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 family house left to him by his grandfather. His 
 marriage had been very happy, because his wife had 
 been a woman not only of great personal charm, 
 but of a remarkably fine and unusual character, 
 whose loss not many years before had left him heart- 
 broken. Nothing in this world has yet been dis- 
 covered that tends to the formation of upright and 
 honourable character like the type of happy atmos- 
 phere and dependable background that the Robert 
 Prestons had given to their children. 
 
 Two of their sons had distinguished themselves 
 before they were killed in the war, and two sur- 
 vived; Anthony, who was a lecturer in history at 
 Oxford, and a Fellow of his College, was married, 
 and had three children ; and Oliver, still unmarried, 
 who was a Commander in the Navy, and at that time 
 held an appointment at the submarine depot at 
 Plymouth. Both Robert's daughters had married 
 well and happily. It seemed that his lot had been 
 cast in pleasant places, though he had had his share 
 of loss and sorrow. 
 
 Anything like the sordid and ugly publicity of 
 the ordeal now before him had never previously 
 touched him, so thought his doctor, because a murder 
 in your house, and there could be no doubt that it 
 was a murder, leads always to a most unwelcome 
 notoriety. The cheap press adores sensation, and 
 a murder is obviously sensational. Calgarrie was 
 fond of his old friend, and would have given much 
 to save him from this unexpected trial. 
 
 Pratt and Wilkins were coming up the back- 
 stairs, and Calgarrie hardened his heart, knocked
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 25 
 
 at the familiar bedroom door, and opened it. 
 Robert was sitting up in bed, reading, and on any 
 other occasion his face of sheer astonishment as 
 the doctor walked in, would have made Calgarrie 
 laugh. 
 
 " Hullo, Calgarrie ! What brings you here so 
 early ? I did not send for you; never felt better in 
 my life." 
 
 " No, it is not you," said the doctor obscurely. 
 " I am glad you are feeling well. Look here, 
 it is no good beating about the bush. I was sent 
 for to see Miss Eleanor " 
 
 " Eleanor ! She was perfectly well last night. I 
 did think that she ate rather a lot of that beastly 
 ginger for dessert. She has a way of eating 
 sometimes as if she had forgotten what she was 
 doing." 
 
 ' Just so," said Calgarrie, " but it was not her 
 digestion. Let me feel your pulse." 
 
 " Are you trying to break something to me ? 
 Oh, damn it, man, you have a face a yard long. 
 Get it out in God's name ! What is the matter 
 with Eleanor ? " 
 
 Calgarrie's little round button of a face puckered 
 up comically. Really he did not know how to 
 begin. It seemed like a nightmare. Here was 
 Robert Preston, aged eighty, well-preserved, not 
 very tall, but a good figure of a man, if a bit thicker 
 than he used to be, with his marvellous fresh com- 
 plexion that a girl might have envied, his white hair 
 what there was of it his neat moustache and 
 mutton-chop whiskers that belonged to Victorian
 
 26 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 days, and were so completely typical and character- 
 istic. For years his children had laughed at his 
 entire disregard of modern fashion, but no one 
 could possibly imagine Robert Preston without his 
 whiskers. How was Calgarrie to tell this man, so 
 posed and set in his life and habits, honourable and 
 dignified, although with certain eccentricities that 
 made him human and lovable, how could anyone 
 even his doctor and old friend tell him that a mur- 
 der had been committed in his own house ? 
 
 Calgarrie found himself wondering inconse- 
 quently if any man with mutton-chop whiskers, 
 blatantly and unashamedly Victorian, had ever been 
 told such a thing ? 
 
 Meanwhile Robert Preston regarded his doctor 
 with his very blue eyes, wishing that the fellow would 
 not be such a confounded ass. He was very fond 
 of his niece, Eleanor, but he was quite able to bear 
 it if he heard that she had collywobbles, or measles, 
 or whatever it was. 
 
 " Don't stand there goggling at me," he almost 
 shouted ; " if it is anything catching, we must 
 take precautions." 
 
 " God forbid ! " said poor Calgarrie, " an epi- 
 demic of murder would be indeed a calamity ! " 
 
 He had spoken his thought, and it was out the 
 murder was out. Robert looked at the doctor's 
 familiar face, and his jaw dropped a little in spite of 
 himself. After all, he was an old man. He pulled 
 himself together, and sat very upright against his 
 pillows. " Now Calgarrie, what the devil are you 
 saying ? I'll go bail that Eleanor has not murdered
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 27 
 
 anyone. What are you driving at ? I don't want 
 figures of speech at this hour in the morning." 
 
 " It is no figure of speech," Calgarrie said sadly; 
 "it is no joke to have to tell you, Preston, that 
 Miss Eleanor has been found dead murdered 
 here in your house, in the library. Presumably 
 it happened last night, after you went to bed." 
 
 He took Robert's hand and felt his pulse again, 
 as if mechanically. Robert seemed stunned. He 
 sat staring at Calgarrie. 
 
 " Eleanor," he said at last, " Eleanor ? But why 
 should anyone want to murder Eleanor ? Why 
 should anyone think it worth while to murder 
 Eleanor, in my house, Calgarrie, in my house ? " 
 
 His voice shook, there were tears in his eyes. 
 " Good God, Calgarrie, who has done this thing ? 
 You are sure about it certain that she is dead ? 
 It is impossible ! 
 
 " I can't understand it," he said after a moment, 
 and he fixed his eyes again on the doctor, through 
 the tears in them they were still remarkably blue 
 and piercing. " I must get up ... a murder in my 
 house . . . have you sent for the police ? " 
 
 " You need not get up," said Calgarrie, "it is 
 not necessary, not a bit. I have seen to everything. 
 But there are some formalities. Pratt is here, 
 and I am afraid that he ought to see you, because " 
 
 " Upon my word," Robert Preston turned round 
 angrily, " who is doing all these things ? Who sent 
 for you and for Pratt without asking me ? It 
 is my house, as you said." 
 
 " The servants found her," Calgarrie answered,
 
 28 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 1 Wilkins telephoned to me and to Pratt, also 
 to Anthony, I believe." 
 
 " Has Pratt found anything incriminating ? Has 
 he questioned the servants ? Are there signs that 
 anyone broke into the house last night ? " 
 
 He had begun to ask questions in a normal 
 manner. The justice of the peace was coming to 
 the fore. 
 
 ' You had better send Pratt up to me," his hand 
 shook as he smoothed his moustache, but Calgarrie 
 was reassured. The old fellow was standing the 
 shock very well. 
 
 Pratt came in and stood near the door, he had 
 taken off his helmet, and was fiddling with a note- 
 book in his hand. 
 
 14 I'm very sorry, sir," he began, " very sorry 
 for you, sir, and Miss Wentworth you have my 
 sympathy, sir." 
 
 4 Thank you, Pratt. I'm sure you are sorry. 
 Tell me what you have found out, so far." 
 
 Robert's voice shook, in spite of his iron self- 
 control, his determined reserve, so pre-eminently 
 British and Victorian. Calgarrie knew that his 
 patient's stiff lip was costing him a good deal, but 
 he admired the old man's courage and ready 
 
 assumption of authority. 4 Tell me " The 
 
 master of the house was not going to wait for Pratt 
 to question him. 
 
 14 Not much, sir, no signs that the house had been 
 broke into no broken windows or locks, nothing 
 stolen, so far." 
 
 44 Have you looked in the pantry ? Oh, and there's
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 29 
 
 the safe in the study. You'll want the key for 
 that ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, that's what I wanted to ask you. 
 Also if you could tell me one or two things, sir, 
 what time did you go to bed when you left Miss 
 Wentworth in the library ? " 
 
 " Time ? Oh, I go to bed early, about ten o'clock. 
 She said she had some writing to do, and that she 
 would put out the lamps." 
 
 " I suppose, sir, you have never known her faint, 
 or turn giddy or anything ? " 
 
 " Not to my knowledge. She don't look par- 
 ticularly strong, but I should say she was wiry, 
 gets through a lot, one way and another. Why do 
 you think she might faint ? " 
 
 " There's just a chance she might have knocked 
 her head on the table if she fell down in a faint." 
 
 " Knocked her head ? Good God, man, you don't 
 mean that she was killed by a knock on the head ? " 
 
 " That's true," said Calgarrie, " as far as I can 
 tell at present, without further examination but 
 we measured carefully. I don't think it can have 
 been the table. Also she bled a bit, you'd have 
 seen signs on the table." 
 
 " Good God ! " said Robert Preston again ; the 
 horror was coming home to him. " My poor 
 Eleanor, she must have been terribly frightened ! 
 What a foul brute the scoundrel must have been 
 to give her a blow on the head Eleanor ! In 
 the library and we all slept calmly through it 
 never heard a sound, not a blessed sound." 
 
 " He mayn't have meant to kill her those
 
 30 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 chaps," Pratt observed, twisting his notebook with 
 some agitation, as if he had been accused himself, 
 " they're rough, they knock their own wives about, 
 it don't seem to hurt the women much, but Miss 
 Eleanor of course a lady " 
 
 Calgarrie thought of the look of unutterable 
 terror in her face when they found her, poor thing, 
 poor woman ! There had been some charm and 
 a sort of distinction about Eleanor Wentworth, he 
 considered, with her well-shaped head, her grey 
 shingled hair, her still slight figure, and the brown 
 eyes that had been her best feature, though now- 
 adays she would disfigure herself with those great 
 tortoiseshell spectacles. By the bye, he had not 
 seen her spectacles, what had happened to them ? 
 She could not have been writing without them ? 
 
 " Is that all you want to know, Pratt ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, except did you put out the lamp 
 on the stairs ? " 
 
 " Yes, I always do, I leave only a small lamp 
 alight on the chest in the hall for her." 
 
 " She's sat up before, then ? " 
 
 " Often enough, if she has been alone with me. 
 You know she has an appointment at the Foreign 
 Office research work. She often has writing to 
 do when she comes here." 
 
 " May I have the key, sir, I don't think there's 
 anything more " 
 
 " I shall have to come with you there's a list 
 somewhere I don't know myself exactly what there 
 is in the safe." 
 
 " You must have breakfast first. I insist," said
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 31 
 
 Calgarrie, " we can tell if anyone has tampered 
 with the safe." 
 
 But the list was found, and there were no signs 
 that anyone had tampered with anything. The 
 silver in the pantry, the finer silver and other 
 valuables in the safe, were all intact. The in- 
 truder had apparently taken nothing but Eleanor's 
 life. 
 
 When Anthony Preston arrived that afternoon, 
 he brought a detective from Scotland Yard with 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Coroner's Jury returned a verdict of " Murder, 
 by a person or persons unknown," but though 
 the local press was muzzled by Anthony Preston's 
 skilful manipulations, it was quite well-known in 
 the neighbourhood that the " gentleman " who was 
 staying at Greystones was Detective-Sergeant Mar- 
 getson, who was in charge of the case. The 
 " person or persons unknown " had to be found. 
 The Chief Constable and the police inspector at 
 Calverstoke both urged that it was important to let 
 him stay in the house, as it was rather isolated, 
 and the nearest inn at which he could put up was 
 some way off. 
 
 Margetson was quite obviously and palpably a 
 Jew, the handsome and refined type of Jew, tall, 
 thin as a rail, with the crafty and vivacious eyes of 
 his race, a delicate complexion, grey hair and 
 pointed beard; he looked much more like a dis- 
 tinguished civil servant, or a highly successful 
 physician with all the letters in the alphabet after 
 his name, than a detective from Scotland Yard. 
 
 Anthony, who was short, dark, quick, apt to be 
 impulsive, but shrewd and capable, not in the least 
 dreamy or unworldly, as the learned professor is 
 sometimes supposed to be, found Margetson 
 
 32
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 33 
 
 supremely interesting, but, also, sometimes supreme- 
 ly aggravating, because he declared that he worked 
 on the latest scientific lines, and insisted that his 
 first step must be to label and classify the outrage 
 that had cost Eleanor Wentworth's life. Marget- 
 son's theory was that all crime could be labelled and 
 classified, but he was not content on this occasion 
 with Pratt's simple definition of the frightened bur- 
 glar who had " done her in " as an act of self- 
 defence. 
 
 " I am pretty well satisfied, Mr. Preston," he 
 said to Anthony after a few days, " that no one 
 could have got into the house or out of it without 
 leaving some trace. The fact that part of the staff 
 sleeps out of the house, as well as the gardeners, 
 makes an extra safeguard. They would have noticed 
 anything unusual when they came in in the morning, 
 and no one could possibly have got out until Kate 
 unbolted the back door, because they could not 
 have bolted it again." 
 
 " Anyone could get in before the shutters are 
 closed. I have walked in at the drawing-room 
 window and out of the front door hundreds of times 
 without a soul in the house knowing anything 
 about it. My younger brother, Oliver, as a mid- 
 shipman arrived here unexpectedly one morning 
 very early. We all thought that his ship had sailed 
 the night before. He got under the dining-room 
 table, and no one in the house knew that he was 
 there until he put his head out, and looked at my 
 father with an impudent grin, in the middle of 
 family prayers. He said that he wanted to see if
 
 34 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 he could stop my father in the middle of a prayer, 
 but he failed. Without pause or hesitation the 
 prayer went on. In fact the whole ceremony went 
 on to the end without a pause. I don't think 
 anyone else could see Oliver. The boy was 
 bitterly disappointed. He hoped that my father 
 would at all events say, ' Good God ! ' and suppose 
 that Oliver had broken his leave." 
 
 Margetson laughed. " Crime, especially mur- 
 der," he said, " is generally to be attributed to one 
 of three motives only, fear, anger, or greed, and the 
 greatest of these is fear. Anger is more common 
 than you would suppose. It attacks the most un- 
 likely people, and it is therefore the most difficult 
 motive to trace. A fellow loses his temper and his 
 self-control and hits harder than he knows. Perhaps 
 he is a man of fine poise, who has never become 
 unbalanced before. You generally find it in the 
 very young or very old, often for some entirely 
 inadequate reason. I had a case once of a man who 
 killed his wife with no better excuse than that she 
 was unpunctual. It had been a source of irritation 
 to him very often it is to a good many men, who 
 have perhaps married late in life, when their habits 
 were formed." 
 
 ** My wife and daughters are almost punctually 
 unpunctual," laughed Anthony, " I don't see 
 myself murdering any of them for it." 
 
 Margetson looked at him. ' You married 
 young, all that is part of your life, you can't imagine 
 yourself without it. You have, as it were, grown 
 up to it. But this fellow had not. He was
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 35 
 
 devoted to his wife, who was much younger than 
 he was, and he spoilt her and taught himself to be 
 patient. But the constant effort culminated at last, 
 he was always being irritated, without showing it. 
 She let him down badly on some occasion, I forget 
 what it was, it seemed inadequate enough, though 
 important to him at the time, but he suddenly took 
 her, shook her, shouted at her and flung her away 
 from him. She knocked her head against the jamb 
 of the door, and died. That is what made me think 
 of it now. He hid what had happened for a long 
 time. It was said to be an accident, and he was 
 not known to have been in the house when she died. 
 Eventually it came out that he was there, I had 
 him arrested, and he confessed. The jury brought 
 it in as murder all right." 
 
 " I should have called it justifiable homicide," 
 said Anthony. " I shall tell my wife that story 
 next time I have to take a car at great expense 
 because she has missed a train. But go on, what 
 about our friend the supposed burglar, what was 
 his motive greed ? " 
 
 " Oh no, it was fear. He thought Miss Went- 
 worth would give the alarm, probably did not know 
 how difficult it would be to give an alarm, with 
 only three other women and an old man in the house. 
 Servants always sleep like the dead, and Mr. 
 Preston is a bit deaf. The burglar if there was 
 one only wanted to silence Miss Wentworth, 
 to keep her off the bell, or the telephone, while he 
 got away, might not have known that he had killed 
 her. But I don't think there was a burglar."
 
 36 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " How about greed ? " 
 
 " In this case ? I don't see how it comes in. 
 She did not wear expensive jewellery, no pearls 
 good or bad. Lord ! the crimes that women 
 commit to get pearls, you'd never think, and they 
 are supposed to be emblems of innocence. She was 
 not the sort of woman, I take it, to be blackmailed. 
 She did not look like it, anyhow. I have been up 
 to her flat in London, and I've interviewed the 
 officials where she was working. I gather that she 
 was a clever woman, rather fastidious, conscien- 
 tious, very industrious, an unusual talent, I take 
 it, for her particular job. They seemed to be 
 a good deal put about to find a successor for 
 her." 
 
 " She has been at it for a long time, and it is not 
 only the medical ' research worker ' who must be 
 born not made." 
 
 " Can you tell me anything about her life as a 
 younger woman love affairs anything of that 
 kind ? " 
 
 Anthony was silent for a moment. ' To tell 
 you the truth " 
 
 " Don't," said Margetson, " that always precedes 
 a lie." 
 
 Anthony laughed, a little ruefully : " It is quite 
 true though that I don't know ! My mother knew, 
 I believe, all about her, but she never confided in 
 me, and naturally I have only heard hints and 
 rumours. She never talked much about herself. 
 Her work was what they call * confidential,' and 
 that headed her off from talking shop. Thank
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 37 
 
 goodness ! Most women who have any kind of 
 job can't talk of anything else." 
 
 He paused, feeling suddenly a sort of remorse, 
 because he did know so little about her, how she 
 amused herself, where she went in her " off time," 
 who were her friends. " She was very self- 
 contained," he said slowly, " and she never groused, 
 though she led a lonely sort of life. She lived with 
 her brother, who was invalided after the war, until 
 he died, some years ago. She was absolutely 
 wrapped up in him, adored him, I do know that. 
 I imagine that she never got over his loss, though 
 she did not talk much about it. Latterly she has 
 been in very good spirits. She was naturally a 
 gay sort of soul, lighthearted, easily amused, but 
 that may have been partly a mask. My mother was 
 very fond of her, and I think she was very fond 
 of us all, especially perhaps of my father and my 
 naughty children." 
 
 " Hints and rumours," said Margetson, " she 
 had affairs then ? " 
 
 Anthony frowned at him, what a ghoul the man 
 was ! But it was advisable to tell him something 
 to divert his imagination from more highly coloured 
 affairs. " Years ago. She was engaged to some 
 fellow when she was very young, and broke it off, 
 I don't know why. There was talk of a married 
 man, who got in the way somehow. He had a 
 jealous wife, I believe. I imagine that Eleanor 
 had rather a thin time of it. She was perhaps a bit 
 of a flirt, but not the sort to throw her cap over the 
 mill for anyone; too conscientious and too fond of
 
 38 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 her own people. They belonged to a generation 
 that would have thought it an indelible dis- 
 grace." 
 
 " But there was a jealous wife ? " Margetson 
 looked very hopeful. Anthony wanted to punch 
 his head. These beasts of detectives, they throve 
 on scandal ! 
 
 " A long time ago. The man has been dead for 
 years. I do know that. You need not imagine 
 that the wife has murdered Eleanor ! I daresay 
 she is dead, too. How does jealousy ' cruel as 
 the grave,' come into your category of motives ?" 
 
 " A mixture of fear and greed some anger in 
 it as well. It is one of the strongest and most 
 deadly motives for every kind of crime. You are 
 quite right there." 
 
 " How do you bring in the crime passionel that 
 we hear so much about in France, like that fellow 
 Landru, wasn't it, who murdered quite a collection 
 of women, and burned them in his stove, if I re- 
 member right ? " 
 
 " Greed lust what is lust but greed ? I think 
 Landru wanted the women's money, too." 
 
 Anthony sighed. " Beastly sordid," he said. 
 " But you talk like a doctor trying to prove that 
 there are only three causes of disease. I don't 
 believe in a common causative factor, if that is the 
 right term, for crime or disease either." 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Margetson. " Science 
 simplifies things very much, when you get down to 
 bed-rock. Heredity, drink, dirt, there you have 
 the three common causes of disease."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 39 
 
 " How about climate, contagion, sex, sanitation, 
 senility ? Oh, I could go on ad infinitum" 
 
 " Senility is not a disease, just human nature, 
 so is sex. In your sense it is only a literary concep- 
 tion of a gruesome nature, invented by Freud. 
 The others are sins against heredity. Climate 
 does not hurt the native-born. Dirt accounts for 
 contagion. Sanitation is only required when we 
 give up the life for which we were intended. Man 
 was not born to live in crowds. Most things in 
 nature go in threes, like father, mother, child ; 
 root, branch and fruit." 
 
 " Then you think that the Christian doctrine of 
 the Trinity has a scientific basis ? " 
 
 " I should not be surprised," said Margetson, 
 and Anthony wondered if he were a practising Jew. 
 
 " Mr. Preston is a bit hot-tempered, isn't he ? " 
 asked the detective, as if he wanted to change the 
 subject. 
 
 " Nervous temperament, slightly irritable under 
 contradiction, likes his own way and does not suffer 
 fools gladly. Perhaps my mother, dear thing, 
 spoilt him. He has certainly what you might 
 call a reserve of pugnacity." 
 
 " Miss Went worth," Margetson continued, " was 
 interested in archives, records, family history and 
 so on, wasn't she ? I gathered that that had been 
 her line before she joined the learned professors 
 who edit Foreign Office papers for publication." 
 
 " Yes, she worked on county histories, and such- 
 like." 
 
 " Mr. Preston mentioned your family papers
 
 40 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 yesterday ; said he did not know who would deal 
 with them now. I suppose he meant since Miss 
 Wentworth's death ? " 
 
 " Yes. There is a clause in his will by which 
 certain papers were left to her, for publication or 
 not, at her discretion. She has written a good deal, 
 novels, memoirs, and so on. My father wished her 
 to have our papers. They go back a long way." 
 
 " Was she completely in agreement with him 
 about the proposed publication ? He said some- 
 thing rather fretful, I thought about it yester- 
 day." 
 
 Anthony looked astonished. Why was Marget- 
 son showing so much interest in the family archives ? 
 " Did he ? They used to talk about it at one time, 
 not so much lately. I think the subject really 
 rather bored my father. Eleanor worked at the 
 papers, and read contemporary histories and 
 memoirs. I don't think my father has ever taken 
 any very great interest in them." 
 
 " I am not so sure," said Margetson, " the 
 servants say that lately he and Miss Wentworth had 
 several heated discussions and arguments about the 
 family papers. Dawson, the housemaid, heard 
 your father's voice, speaking angrily, in the library, 
 on the night that Miss Wentworth died." 
 
 " Dawson does not think, by any chance, that 
 my father knocked Eleanor on the head, does she ? " 
 laughed Anthony. 
 
 " It may surprise you, but Dawson is not the 
 only person who has that suspicion." 
 
 Anthony stared at the detective for a moment
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 41 
 
 as if he thought the man must have taken leave of 
 his senses, and then roared with laughter. " Oh, 
 look here," he said, " this is most awfully funny ! 
 Don't be offended, but it is such a mare's nest ! 
 My father ! My father, who hates wasps like the 
 devil, but has never been known to kill one of them 
 in his life ! He could not hurt a fly, much less 
 Eleanor. You don't understand my father. He may 
 be a bit autocratic and impatient he can't stand 
 Dawson by the way ; I think it is her voice, she is 
 under notice to go but he is the most tender- 
 hearted soul alive. I daresay he did argue with 
 Eleanor, and she could be obstinate determined, 
 if you like that word better but he would not 
 touch her in anger. Good Lord ! You don't 
 know how completely unthinkable it is." Anthony 
 began to laugh again. " Don't look so solemn, 
 man," he said to Margetson, whose face could 
 assume the impassiveness of a stone image. 
 " Really, I can't take it seriously. I feel very 
 deeply that my poor cousin's death is a tragedy, 
 and a mystery, but this idea of yours is simply 
 comic. If you knew my father, you would know 
 how comic it is." 
 
 Margetson smiled, rather perfunctorily. " Per- 
 haps it is," he said. " I can understand that you might 
 think so. Some murders are comic, if you look 
 at them that way like choking a cat with cream. 
 Do you know why they should disagree about the 
 papers ? Wilkins seems to have realized, as well 
 as Dawson, that his master was distinctly vexed 
 about something or other. Perhaps you would
 
 42 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 rather not tell me ? I don't want to probe into your 
 family secrets, if you have any, but it might help me 
 to get to the bottom of this affair. That cousin 
 of yours, the clergyman, Mr. Evan Day, who was 
 here for the funeral, said something, and Miss 
 Wentworth's will referred to notes on the family 
 history that she had made." 
 
 " Evan Day ? Oh, he is a portentous prig, 
 always poking his nose into matters that don't 
 concern him. He has written a bit, too, mostly 
 tosh about his travels, but I think he was rather 
 jealous because Eleanor was to have the handling 
 of the papers. There is nothing in them of the 
 slightest interest to anyone outside the family." 
 
 " No skeletons in your cupboards ? Most people 
 who can trace back a few generations have some 
 bones rattling somewhere." 
 
 " I should say we had all been dully prosperous 
 and unadventurously successful. One or two of my 
 ancestors reached a more or less outstanding emin- 
 ence, and some of my collaterals too got to the top 
 of the tree in their particular professions. Most of 
 them were blameless folk, sufficiently successful, 
 not very exciting. They married respectably, and 
 so on. We can't brag about our grand and noble 
 skeletons like the man in Hardy's Tess." 
 
 " Not much to quarrel about ? Who was your 
 very beautiful great-grandmother, whose picture 
 is in the dining-room, and I think some miniatures 
 of her family in the drawing-room ? " 
 
 " No scandals about her, except that Bliicher 
 kissed her when he met her in England, after
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 43 
 
 Waterloo. She lived in Germany in her youth, 
 and he presumed on the fact that he had known 
 her as a child. Unpleasant for her, I should think, 
 to be embraced by a snuffy, beery German. Oh, 
 by the bye, there is a legend that her father was a 
 descendant by the left hand of that vagabond, 
 Charles Edward, the Pretender." 
 
 " You don't call that a scandal ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! There are so many similar legends. 
 To be even a left-handed scion of royalty is quite 
 respectable, rather aristocratic and honourable, 
 if the story is old enough. Look at the Fitz- 
 Clarences, to go no further back than that ! " 
 
 " How about your great-aunt Jane ? " asked 
 Margetson, unexpectedly. 
 
 " How do you know that I had a great-aunt 
 Jane ? " Anthony riposted quickly, but he paused 
 the fraction of a moment before he spoke, and 
 Margetson knew it. 
 
 1 Dawson and Wilkins back-stair chit-chat. 
 They both seem to be aware that you have, or had, 
 a great-aunt Jane." 
 
 " Brutes ! " said Anthony, " but why shouldn't 
 I ? My great-aunt Jane married a clergyman, 
 Peter Colquhoun. They led admirable and blame- 
 less lives, at his living in Somersetshire." 
 
 Margetson raised his eyebrows. " Mr. Preston 
 would not be concerned to defend their fair fame ? " 
 
 " I can't imagine why anyone should attack it. 
 I will ask my father, if you like, whether he had 
 a heated discussion of any kind with Eleanor. 
 My father is rather emphatic, you know, but
 
 44 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Eleanor was quite accustomed to that. Dawson, 
 whose line I take it is vinegar not violence, might 
 be misled. When did she hear this argument ? ' 
 
 " I understand that she and Wilkins, in the 
 absence of the parlourmaid, waited at dinner on 
 the night of the tragedy. The argument began 
 at dinner, and was continued afterwards. Wilkins 
 took coffee into the library, and noticed that his 
 master appeared to be vexed, and that Miss 
 Wentworth did not seem to agree with him. He 
 was standing before the fire, and " laying down the 
 law rather fierce," according to Wilkins. I should 
 have described it as a clash of wills, not violent 
 perhaps, but a clash ! " 
 
 " Mere sound and fury signifying nothing," said 
 Anthony, grinning ; " haven't I known it from 
 my earliest years ? He starts like that, but he 
 generally comes round in the end it takes time 
 though," he added, significantly, remembering 
 many things. " I must own, all the same, that on 
 a great many subjects, especially if they are not 
 personal matters, my father has the soundest 
 judgment of anyone I know. I will ask him 
 and tell you what he says about any disagree- 
 ment that he had with Eleanor. I can assure you 
 beforehand that it won't be ' as deep as a well, 
 or as wide as a church-door.' ' 
 
 Margetson consented, and that evening, after 
 dinner, when Wilkins took away the coffee cups, 
 he said that he had business letters to write, and 
 followed the man out of the room. 
 
 It must be explained that the drawing-room at
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 45 
 
 Greystones had two doors, a big bow window at 
 one end, and a very large window in the wall 
 opposite the fireplace. The doors were on each 
 side of the fireplace, one of them opened into the 
 hall, the other into the library where Eleanor had 
 met her fate. The entrance to the library for some 
 reason was double, there were two doors with a 
 small recess, probably once a cupboard, between 
 them. A detective has no scruples about his 
 methods of obtaining information. Something in 
 Anthony's manner, added to the information he 
 already held, had convinced Margetson that there 
 was more to be said about " Great-aunt Jane " 
 than the record of a smug and blameless life in 
 Somersetshire or any other shire. He therefore 
 decided to insinuate himself into the space between 
 those two doors, in order to hear the conversation 
 between Anthony and his father. If anyone came 
 into the library he could just walk on into the 
 drawing-room with some excuse for returning ; 
 if Anthony suddenly went into the library there 
 would be time to escape. But the library had 
 remained shut up since that tragic evening. Before 
 dinner Margetson had taken the precaution to 
 open the drawing-room door, a bare crack, but 
 enough to make it possible for voices to be heard. 
 
 He was in his hiding-place in time for Anthony's 
 opening gambit, as he would probably have called it 
 himself. " What are you going to do about the 
 family archives, Father, now " 
 
 " Don't hurry me, my dear fellow, don't hurry 
 me. I must think it over."
 
 46 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " Of course; but I have heard from Mordaunt, 
 Eleanor's solicitor, who is also the executor of her 
 will. It seems that she left some notes about the 
 family locked up in a despatch box, and said that 
 they were to be given to whoever you settled was 
 to have the original papers. Naturally, Mordaunt 
 wants to know what he is to do with the box. She 
 left all her own manuscripts and things to a Mrs. 
 Danvers, a literary friend of her own. Mordaunt 
 supposes that you won't want this particular box 
 to go to the Danvers." 
 
 " Certainly not. I consider that was a very 
 proper provision in Eleanor's will, though I did 
 not know that she had made any notes." 
 
 There was a pause, then Anthony went on, 
 " For goodness' sake, don't let Evan Day have them. 
 He will be off at a tangent over the Colquhoun- 
 Harper business." 
 
 ("Ah ! " thought Margetson, " you did not 
 deceive me, my friend. There is a * Colquhoun 
 business.' ") 
 
 " Evan Day, that blundering ass ? Good God, 
 no ! Why should he have anything to do with 
 it ? " 
 
 " Well, Father, there's the fund, that Julius 
 Colquhoun left for you to administer. Isn't Evan 
 one of the trustees ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. His father was, originally, but 
 not Evan, Providence be praised ! " 
 
 " What will happen to that fund, eventu- 
 ally ? " 
 
 *' There are provisions. The trust will continue
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 47 
 
 as long as there are Harpers of the same family 
 to profit by it." 
 
 (" Sir Julius Colquhoun ! " thought the detec- 
 tive, " he was very well-known at the criminal 
 bar. I thought the name was familiar. Oh, yes, 
 I remember the story in some legal memoirs, there 
 was a cause celebre about a fellow called Harper; 
 some fraud. Colquhoun was counsel for the 
 defence and lost the case. Why should he have 
 made any provision for the Harper family ? ") 
 
 " Did Eleanor know about all that ? " Anthony 
 asked. 
 
 * To tell you the truth, I was very much annoyed 
 with Eleanor about it. It is a matter of the most 
 poignant regret to me now, that I was seriously 
 angry with her. She thought that she had dis- 
 covered something extraordinary, and really im- 
 possible, about the matter ; said it was in those 
 papers that Aunt Jane left to me. I own ah 
 hum I own that I have never gone through them 
 very carefully, but Eleanor's ideas were perfectly 
 absurd, preposterous and ridiculous. The fact is 
 that she seems to have made the acquaintance of 
 young Harper, that fellow's grandson, and took an 
 interest in him. She had discovered a regular 
 mare's nest about Julius, which I don't believe for 
 a moment, and wanted my consent to publish the 
 whole story in order to clear Harper's memory. 
 Preposterous, I tell you, just like a woman, though 
 I thought better of Eleanor. Generally speaking 
 she was no fool." 
 
 " What did she think she had found out ? "
 
 48 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 ' Upon my word, Anthony, I don't know why 
 I should tell you. It is no concern of yours." 
 
 " It may be, if you leave the archives to me, and 
 that is about the best thing you can do." 
 
 ' I shall burn them," said Robert Preston de- 
 cidedly. 
 
 " You can't burn Eleanor's notes." 
 
 (" That fellow is no fool either," thought the 
 detective.) 
 
 " Confound Eleanor's notes ! No, I am not 
 going to say that of the dead. De mortuis . . ." 
 
 " Don't ! " said Anthony, " go on confounding 
 Eleanor's notes. Did you say that to her ? If 
 anyone quotes that beastly tag about me when I 
 am dead, I I'll haunt them." 
 
 " I was angrier than I have been for years 
 not since you, Anthony, made such a fool of yourself 
 in 1910." 
 
 " My dear sir, what a memory you have ! I 
 seem to have dim recollections of some- annoyance 
 very capably and ably expressed by you, even 
 with eloquence at a later date than that. But 
 I want to know what Eleanor found out. I shall 
 tell Mordaunt that I am going to be your residuary 
 legatee, and that he can send her box to me." 
 
 " I shall cut you out of my will altogether," said 
 his father complacently. 
 
 " All right. I shall have read the notes long 
 before you have made up your mind to send for 
 Blakeney to alter your testamentary dispositions 
 and I shall tell him to go on making silly little 
 legal objections to everything you say. By that
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 49 
 
 time we shall have consented together again 
 probably to burn the whole caboodle. You know 
 you are dying to tell me." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. It is all pure flapdoodle, 
 mere surmise. Do you remember the Harper case ? 
 Why should you years before you were born. 
 Joseph Harper was a clerk in a solicitor's office 
 in Gray's Inn Square, Edwards & Matthews, 
 very good old firm. Julius had a great many 
 briefs from them. Well, Harper absconded with 
 a deed box, which contained not only the Irchester 
 papers, but the Irchester pearls. It was Lady 
 Irchester's particular box, and when she sent for it 
 on some occasion, it was sealed up, and being 
 unusually valuable, Harper, who was what you call 
 a confidential clerk, was told to take it to her in a 
 hansom and get a receipt. He did not turn up 
 again that day, and meanwhile Irchester himself 
 arrived at Gray's Inn, full of fire and fury, mur- 
 muring threats against all and sundry. There was 
 a court ball or something that night, and he wanted 
 his wife to wear the pearls, and some diamonds and 
 things that were in the box. Harper did not appear, 
 which looked bad, but he was eventually caught, 
 some months later, on his way back from Paris." 
 
 " Had he really taken the box ? " 
 
 " Irchester prosecuted, and Julius was briefed 
 by the firm to defend Harper. Harper's defence 
 was very shaky, he said he had left the box at the 
 Irchesters' saw Lady Irchester herself, and she gave 
 him a receipt. On his way back to Gray's Inn he 
 was knocked down by a hansom, so he said, and
 
 50 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 carried off to Guy's Hospital, where he remained 
 for weeks, knowing nothing. No receipt or other 
 papers was found on him ; he said that he had 
 lost his memory, and was eventually taken to Paris 
 by one of the Guy's doctors, to consult a brain 
 specialist, who treated him, and he eventually 
 recovered his memory and came home, but was 
 arrested at Dover. By that time the pearl necklace 
 had been discovered at a jeweller's in Paris. The 
 diamonds were never found broken up, I con- 
 clude." 
 
 " How about the doctor's evidence ? " 
 " It seemed very vague. Eleanor said that 
 Harper's luck was out. They did not know his 
 name at Guy's because he could not tell them when 
 he was there, and the doctor who took him over to 
 Paris died suddenly. They had the French 
 doctor's evidence taken on commission; but could 
 not prove Harper's identity. Julius made a great 
 speech in Harper's defence, one of his best, it was 
 always remembered in the legal world, but he lost 
 the case. Harper went to prison and died there. 
 When Julius died it was found that for years he had 
 been supporting the Harper family, and he left a 
 very considerable sum in trust for them. Of 
 course there was considerable scandal, young 
 Harper was said to be Julius' son, and all that kind 
 of thing. Julius' mother, my aunt Jane, could not 
 bear you to mention Harper's name." 
 
 ' That is all very well. I have heard as much as 
 that before, and so has Evan Day, but what did 
 Eleanor discover ? "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 51 
 
 " A perfect mare's nest, I am convinced, but a 
 pretty scandal if true. Her story was that Lady 
 Irchester had the jewels, sold them, and also re- 
 ceived the insurance money for them. They were 
 highly insured, which was unusual in those days.. 
 Eleanor declared that Lady Irchester's receipt was 
 among the papers." 
 
 ' Then Julius knew, and lost the case on 
 purpose ! " Anthony whistled. 
 
 " You are as bad as Eleanor ! There was a lot 
 more, according to her. Julius was apparently the 
 woman's lover. . . ." 
 
 ' The woman Lady Irchester ? " 
 " Yes. That was the bottom of it. Eleanor was 
 almost eloquent. I had never before heard her use 
 such language. She had no words bad enough for 
 either of them. For a woman of small means Eleanor 
 had a remarkable contempt for money. She could 
 not realize the temptation for some people. She 
 said that Harper was knocked down on purpose, 
 and the receipt stolen from his pocket. She did 
 not say that Julius was an accessory before the fact, 
 but that he certainly knew all about it afterwards. 
 She thought that Julius had some sort of a con- 
 science and did his best to save Harper, but could 
 not do it without incriminating her ladyship, and 
 would not do that. After all he was a great lawyer 
 and old Peter Colquhoun's son and he made 
 this provision for the Harper family as a sop to his 
 own conscience, I suppose." 
 
 ' Why on earth did Julius keep the papers ? " 
 " God knows or perhaps the devil a bit of
 
 53 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 sentiment ; there were all the Irchester woman's 
 letters to him and his to her apparently. Julius 
 died rather suddenly, you know, and his mother 
 took over all his papers, as residuary legatee. I 
 don't suppose she ever looked at them. They came 
 to me in a tin deed-box, which looked as if it had 
 never been unlocked." 
 
 ' What did Eleanor want you to do ? " 
 
 " Publish the story. She said that everyone 
 who could be hurt by it was dead, the Irchesters 
 and the Colquhouns. Julius himself never married, 
 as you know, and the Irchester title died out, they 
 had no children. The one person to be benefited 
 is this young Patrick Harper, the grandson. It 
 seems that the scandal lives, in his sort of coterie. 
 He wanted to marry some girl and her father 
 refused to allow it because he was the grandson 
 of a convict." 
 
 " I should like to meet that father, and ask him 
 how he does it," said Anthony. " Do you flatter 
 yourself that I shall be able to prevent Molly and 
 Eve from marrying convicts if they have a taste that 
 way, let alone the grandsons of convicts ? " 
 
 " Pish ! " said the grandfather of Molly and Eve, 
 " I have no patience with such nonsense." 
 
 " It seems to me that it would be a pity to rake up 
 so sad and bad a story, though I feel for 
 Harper." 
 
 " That is just what Eleanor would not see. 
 She was full of abstract ideas about justice and 
 honour and the man's good name all that sort of 
 thing. The family honour and Julius' good name
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 53 
 
 did not affect her at all she said, if I remember 
 right, that|she would not touch Julius with a pair 
 of tongs simply because she knew this Harper 
 boy and liked him." 
 
 " It would be jolly hard to prove, unless the papers 
 are very damning." 
 
 " I told her so," said Robert, wearily. " I told 
 her so, more than once. In fact I said that nothing 
 would induce me to consent to publication of any 
 kind." 
 
 " How long have you had the papers ? " 
 
 " Since Aunt Jane's death, about forty years ago, 
 I suppose. She survived Julius only by a year or 
 two." 
 
 " Suppose this Harper boy dies ' without 
 issue,' as they say in genealogies, who gets the 
 money ? " 
 
 " It comes back to the family. I get it, or you 
 get it. Harper is quite young, probably your 
 children would get it." 
 
 Anthony whistled again. " It would be rather a 
 bad show-up for you, to publish now.' 1 
 
 " I told Eleanor so, I told her so. It would make 
 no difference about the money. But she would not 
 listen, she said I could prove that I had never looked 
 at the blessed papers." 
 
 " And that would be hard to prove, too," Anthony 
 observed. " I am beginning to think that we had 
 better burn the lot, without looking at them. I 
 say, isn't it time to go to bed ? " 
 
 Margetson escaped, wondering, ' What will 
 that good son tell me to-morrow ? I wish I
 
 54 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 were as sure of salvation as I am that the old 
 chap knew all about those papers forty years 
 ago all the same, why didn't he burn them then ? " 
 
 The door into the hall from the library opened at 
 right angles to a glass door which led into the garden, 
 and was always shuttered up at night as carefully 
 as the windows, but it was yet too early for the 
 shutters, and as Margetson came out, he was met 
 by a blast of cold air, a small figure in a leather 
 coat, a crash to awaken the dead, and a clattering of 
 apparently innumerable heavy ironshod weapons on 
 his feet. 
 
 Margetson was not easily rattled, but his 
 feet were hurt, and he seized the leather-clad 
 intruder with no gentle hand. " Now then," 
 he said, " hands up ! What are you doing here ? ' 
 
 His captive stood still and giggled joyfully. 
 " Oh," she said it was a girl, without a hat and 
 her hair was cut like a boy's, but still there was 
 no doubt about it a girl. "Oh, who are you ? 
 You did frighten me. I was trying to show 
 them how a burglar might get in without anyone 
 hearing " 
 
 ' Without anyone hearing " Anthony's 
 
 voice broke in impatiently. " Row enough to 
 waken the seven sleepers ! Really, Molly ! What 
 are you doing with my golf-clubs all over the place 
 at this time of night ? ... It is all right, Wilkins, 
 only Miss Molly, go and tell Mr. Preston, will 
 you ? " 
 
 A sound of scampering feet and smothered 
 laughter followed, as the younger servants, who were
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 55 
 
 just behind Wilkins, went back to their own 
 quarters. The noise had filled them with hope 
 for more excitement, but it was " only Miss Molly." 
 
 Anthony began to pick up his scattered clubs, 
 grumbling all the time. " Why what the who 
 really Molly, this time of night ? Who came 
 with you ? " 
 
 " No one, Daddy dear. Why should they ? 
 I had lunch at Salisbury with the Dean, and supper 
 with Aunt Peggy, and came on here. I left the 
 car by the gate, because I wanted to show you that 
 I could get into the house without anyone hearing 
 me." 
 
 " Without anyone hearing you ? My poor 
 deluded child ! " 
 
 " It was my fault for not leaving your clubs in 
 the car. I thought if it rained they would get rusty, 
 and you'd want me to clean them. I did not expect 
 to find anyone near this door. We have not been 
 introduced to each other, but I never thought 
 anyone would say " hands up " to me. Isn't it 
 glorious ? " 
 
 " Mr. Margetson my daughter," said Anthony. 
 ' With your usual acumen you have probably 
 guessed the relationship." 
 
 ' With my usual acumen," said Margetson, 
 " I heard a car stop near the gate, and came down 
 to see who was arriving. It is not so easy to get 
 into the house unheard, Miss Preston, when 
 people are on the watch." 
 
 Molly sighed. " I never thought of that. 
 Where is Grandpapa ? "
 
 56 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " Just going to bed." Mr. Preston was lighting 
 his candle, which stood on the oak chest in the hall 
 behind them. " I suppose the maids know 
 what you want, Molly ? " He seemed to be com- 
 pletely unmoved by this tumultuous arrival. 
 
 Molly flung her arms round his neck. "Don't 
 fash yourself, darling. I can sleep, with one eye 
 open, anywhere. It struck me that you might want 
 someone else to sympathize with you now. Daddy 
 is quite a good comforter for a bit, but you may be 
 glad of a little feminine intuition by this time ? " 
 
 Her grandfather returned her hug. ' You are 
 quite right. Bless you, Molly, good-night, child." 
 
 He went slowly upstairs with his candle. 
 
 " Feminine intuition, upon my word ! " Anthony 
 was now sitting on the floor, examining his scattered 
 clubs. ' Your feminine intuition has broken my 
 best brassy." 
 
 " But, Daddy," Molly said to him, as they went 
 out a few minutes later, to garage her car, and she put 
 her hand through his arm, " I don't believe that your 
 old detective heard me arrive from upstairs. I am 
 perfectly certain he came out of the library, 
 shutting that door when I opened the other." 
 Anthony looked startled. " Naturally, the library 
 is suspect after what happened there." 
 
 " Oh, Daddy, you are Victorian sometimes 1 
 Why can't you say ' after Eleanor was killed 
 there ' ? " 
 
 ' Yes, ducky," said her father, " and why can't 
 you say that feminine curiosity brought you here, 
 not feminine intuition ? "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 NTHONY produced a very fair and only slightly 
 bowdlerized version of the " Colquhoun business " 
 for Margetson's information. But Margetson was 
 quite aware of the points that were bowdlerized. 
 He knew perfectly well that the weak part of the 
 story was the length of time that those papers, 
 proving the innocence of a man who had been 
 wrongfully sentenced, had been in Robert Preston's 
 hands without being examined. 
 
 As usual, to a man of his profession, such weakness 
 was a sign of guilt, not or innocence, and he won- 
 dered " how much of the fund stuck to the old 
 gentleman's fingers in passing through them." 
 
 All the same, he asked Anthony only one appar- 
 ently casual question. " Then Miss Wentworth 
 did make him angry that night ? " 
 
 " He said that he was angry, more so than he had 
 been for years. I begged leave to differ from him 
 there. We have all suffered from his ' reasonable 
 annoyance,' as he calls it, quite frequently." 
 Anthony laughed again. 
 
 " Did he ever thrash you or your brothers as 
 boys ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think so. I can't remember that 
 he ever did. He may have spanked us when young, 
 
 57
 
 58 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 not half enough, probably. You may think that 
 I have inherited a weakness about the proper 
 discipline of my children. But we should have 
 heard a great deal more about it if we had landed 
 his clubs and broken two of them as Molly did with 
 mine last night. My remembrance is that he only 
 lashed us with his tongue, but that drove us to 
 bed, weeping. I can't drive my children to bed 
 weeping, they are much more likely to have that 
 effect on me. 
 
 Margetson smiled. " I have an idea, all the 
 same, that you might be an unpleasant customer at 
 close quarters if you lost your temper. I have no 
 doubt now that Mr. Preston did lose his temper 
 that night with Miss Wentworth." 
 
 " He could not be half so unpleasant as I shall 
 be if you harp too much on that string. It is 
 really too ridiculous. You are probably losing 
 sight of important clues in other directions." 
 
 Margetson smiled enigmatically, with his best air 
 of Buddha-like abstraction and withdrawal, but 
 asked shortly afterwards if he could be driven into 
 Calverstoke, the nearest town, that afternoon. 
 Unfortunately he could not drive himself, because 
 he had had his right wrist wounded in the war, 
 and it was still stiff. 
 
 Anthony said that probably Molly could drive 
 him, and went to look for his daughter. He 
 found her, as he expected, sampling the remaining 
 apples in the fruit room in the orchard. 
 
 ' Walk up the road with me, Molly, I want some 
 feminine intuition out of earshot."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 59 
 
 Molly did not ask whose earshot; she followed 
 him, the pockets of her frieze coat bulging slightly. 
 Anthony took an apple out of one of them in an 
 absent-minded way and ate it as they walked. 
 
 " You must drive friend Margetson into Calver- 
 stoke this afternoon. He is going to see the Chief 
 Constable about his intention to arrest your innocent 
 grandparent on a charge of murder. ' 
 
 " Lawk ! " said Molly, " these pockets don't 
 hold much. You need not eat all my apples 
 what am I to do ? Upset Mr. Margetson in a 
 ditch and leave him there ? " 
 
 " No," said her father, " though the vision is 
 tempting, we don't want to have two of the family 
 hanged for murder. We must think of something 
 better than that. I must get the old boy out of the 
 way." 
 
 " I bet you a thousand to one against, dead 
 cert." 
 
 " I wish you would give up talking like a school- 
 boy. You will be nineteen next month, if we all live 
 long enough, and you are getting too old for it. 
 I am sure you will never marry if you talk like that. 
 Do show a little of the feminine intuition that you 
 mentioned last night. What shall I do with 
 him ? " 
 
 " Do with who ? Grandpa, or Mr. the detective ? 
 You don't suppose that anyone cares how I talk, do 
 you ? " 
 
 ' Your grandfather. Think, Molly, while you 
 are driving Margetson to Calverstoke I can't 
 hope that he will care how you talk, though t
 
 60 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 detective son-in-law would be a variety in the 
 family I must persuade my father to flee from 
 justice. Whither shall he go ? " 
 
 " Could Wilkins drive him up to Oxford ? I 
 don't want to marry a detective, thank you, even 
 to save Grandpa ! " 
 
 " What is the good of Oxford ? You can't 
 disguise him as an undergraduate." 
 
 " I am sure we ought not to be funny. Mummy 
 would think us awful, with poor dear Gran about 
 to be arrested on a capital charge oh don't 
 laugh a major charge then Daddy ! Don't be 
 a beast ! " 
 
 Anthony came to earth again, and took his girl's 
 arm. "It is really serious," he said, " I can't 
 allow my father to be arrested and taken before the 
 Bench at Calverstoke. We might laugh and they 
 might laugh, but on the evidence before them, they'd 
 have to commit him for trial. Margetson is a most 
 consummate ass, but it is because he has had all 
 his experience among wrong 'uns. He is like 
 Napoleon, always on the look-out for the base motive. 
 He can't believe that anyone is ever, even somehow, 
 good. He has never met commonplace, ordinary, 
 God-fearing people like us. He thinks because 
 Grandpa was angry and grumbled at Eleanor that 
 he then naturally bashed her on the head. Marget- 
 son can't see how idiotically inconceivable it is. 
 The only people he knows do that kind of thing." 
 
 " But is that all ? No one saw Grandpa bashing 
 poor Eleanor ? I mean, no one imagined they saw 
 it, did they ? "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 61 
 
 " No, but unluckily, Margetson talked to that 
 acid spinster, Dawson, and she seems to have 
 drawn on her imagination to the extent of hearing 
 my father speak in an excited way to Eleanor, and 
 then Dawson says she heard something fall with a 
 bit of a crash, and then silence. That was when 
 she was shutting the garden door. Wilkins told 
 me all this, and also that he himself had owned, 
 out of sheer lack of imagination, just as you or I 
 might have owned, from the impossibility to us of 
 a wrong construction, that ' Mr. Preston was 
 laying down the law something fierce,' when he 
 took in the coffee after dinner. His evidence will 
 back up Dawson. Everyone knows that he wor- 
 ships my father, and would not give evidence 
 against him if he could help it. Margetson has 
 got hold of a cock-and-bull story, but he has also, 
 or thinks he has, two witnesses. I heard him say 
 something on the telephone. First, he asked for 
 a man to be sent on duty while he is out this after- 
 noon, and then he went on in code, a very easy 
 code, I learnt it during the war . . ." 
 
 " In code 1 Oh, the darling ! It is just like a 
 cinema. First he said ' hands up ! ' to me, and 
 then he telephoned in code ! It is like a John 
 Buchan. I am thrilled to the marrow ! Will he 
 take a revolver in the car this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Don't be such a cuckoo, Molly, you talk like 
 a boy scout. Can't you help me a little ? " 
 
 " Do you really want help ? " Molly disengaged 
 her arm and put it round her father's neck. " Shall 
 I contrive a puncture, or miss the way, and get to
 
 62 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Calverstoke too late for the warrant or whatever 
 it is to be given to him ? Is there a close time for 
 warrants, like marriage licences ? " 
 
 " Humph ! What do you know about marriage 
 licences ? Take your arm away, Molly, the baker's 
 cart is coming round the corner, he'll think you are 
 Kate with her young man, and there will be a 
 scandal in the village." 
 
 " Has Kate a young man ? How exciting for the 
 village ! It may distract their attention from 
 Grandpapa I'll show them ! " 
 
 Molly's affection took a somewhat strangulating 
 form, against which her father protested in vain. 
 " Oh," she said at last, " don't let us play the fool ! 
 This is a matter of life and death. Let's sit on the 
 gate and talk seriously." 
 
 " That is my desire," said Anthony piously. 
 " It does not so much matter what you do with 
 Margetson; the question is, what am I to do 
 with your grandfather and Margetson's substi- 
 tute ? Margetson won't go till the ersatz fellow 
 comes." 
 
 " I know ! " cried Molly. " I have it ! Send 
 Wilkins with Mr. Margetson, and let me stay with 
 you. I'll go over to Aunt Peg this morning and 
 tell her she must hide Grandpa in the church 
 I think isn't a church a sanctuary ? Anyhow 
 Gran must stay there until Margetson comes back 
 and sends a search party. I shall be at the Rectory, 
 
 all alone and innocent. They will be baffled " 
 
 Molly's voice became hollow. ' You must some- 
 how get the police on to a wrong track. Then,
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 63 
 
 at dead of night, I will drive Grandpa to to 
 where shall we go ? " 
 
 ' You'll have to make him consent to go at all, 
 first. Let me see, you had better not go to London 
 too obvious. ... I have it ! You can go to 
 Uncle Oliver's at Devonport. He can hide Gran 
 in somebody's submarine. That might answer 
 all right." 
 
 " Very well ! I can go to Aunt Peggy now ; 
 Mr. Margetson must think I have gone to lunch 
 with her, and then he won't be suspicious. Grandpa 
 might walk through the park at Stanbury this 
 afternoon, and I'll pick him up there." 
 
 They both got off the gate, with set and earnest 
 faces. It was very hard not to treat the whole 
 matter as a joke, and yet it was no joke. 
 
 " Grandpapa will certainly say it is one of your 
 wild-cat schemes, Daddy, and I can't somehow see 
 him in a submarine." 
 
 " Better than in the dock at a police court," said 
 Anthony. " You might as well come and help me 
 to persuade him." 
 
 They advanced upon Robert in his study, shutting 
 the door very carefully behind them, with the air 
 of conspirators. 
 
 " Father," said Anthony, " I am afraid that you 
 will have to make a move." 
 
 " Make a move ? What are you talking about ? 
 What sort of move ? " 
 
 " The fact is, that blighted bounder, Marget- 
 son " 
 
 " Not at all, I think him most gentlemanly,
 
 64 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 so much so that it is an insulting word to use about 
 him. He does not deserve it." 
 
 " Well, anyhow, he has taken the most prepos- 
 terous and ridiculous idea into his head about you. 
 It is a serious matter. He is going into Calverstoke 
 this afternoon to inform Eltham, the Chief Con- 
 stable, that he proposes to arrest you on the charge 
 of having murdered Eleanor." 
 
 Robert Preston looked at his son and looked at 
 Molly. He turned a deeper pink than usual, then 
 his face broke into smiles, as if he could not help 
 it. " Upon my word ! " he said, " what damnable 
 cheek 1 " 
 
 Anthony murmured " Deo Gratias " under his 
 breath to ftfolly, who said, " What ? " 
 
 ' What does the fellow propose to do ? " 
 
 ' Take you into Calverstoke before the Bench. 
 You know what that means, remands in custody 
 until the police are ready, and then you will be com- 
 mitted for trial at the next assizes. I suppose they'd 
 have to keep you in quod until June. You can't 
 grant bail on a murder charge, can you ? " 
 
 " Of course not. Bring me before the Bench ? 
 Does the fellow realize that I am a J.P. myself ? " 
 
 ' It would not make any difference if you were 
 the Lord Chancellor. You can't be arrested for 
 debt as an M.P. but a J.P. has no particular privi- 
 leges that I know of." 
 
 " But look here, Anthony, is this some wild-cat 
 idea of yours ? " 
 
 Molly giggled feebly. " I told you so 1 " 
 
 " My dear father 1 Am I likely to suggest
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 65 
 
 anything of the kind to you unless it were a matter 
 of the most serious and really vital importance ? " 
 
 ' You must have managed Margetson very 
 badly. How the devil has he got such an idea into 
 his head ? Arrest me at my age a magistrate 
 myself it is an outrage I tell you an out- 
 rage ! " 
 
 " I quite agree," said Anthony, heartily. 
 
 " Darling Grandpa," cried Molly, " we are 
 going to save you ! " 
 
 " Save me ? Pray don't be so perfectly absurd ! 
 Why should I be saved ? A man in this country 
 is innocent until he is proved guilty. It will take 
 that confounded Jew all his time to prove me 
 guilty ! " 
 
 " It seems that Dawson heard you ragging 
 Eleanor, and thought the worst. Margetson has 
 enough to give him a start, must arrest somebody, 
 you know, or Scotland Yard will ask the reason why. 
 Meanwhile you will be kept in quod at Calver stoke, 
 and it will be beastly uncomfortable and not at all 
 good for you that is what we must prevent. It 
 only requires a small effort, a little finessq " 
 
 " A small effort ! I don't see myself making 
 any effort at all. Why should I ? It is intolerable 
 that at my age I should be turned out of my own 
 house in this way. All this is a terrible shock to me, 
 Anthony. Poor dear Eleanor's horrible death was 
 a crushing blow; and now thisi tomfoolery; -on 
 the top of it." 
 
 " All we want you to do, Gran, dear, is to go and 
 pay a visit to Uncle Oliver at Devonport. I'll
 
 66 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 drive you down, only we must get away without 
 letting that silly detective know that we have gone." 
 " Molly is going to settle the business with the 
 Beaumonts at Stanbury. Peggy Beaumont will see 
 you through. You must go into the church and 
 sit in the vestry. It is rather a nice vestry, there is 
 an arm-chair and a stove. She will send you some 
 food. Meanwhile I will lay a false scent for the 
 police. When the coast is clear, Molly will pick 
 you up and drive you'* hell for leather down to 
 Devon port." 
 
 " You can't go hell for leather in my Jane, she's 
 only an Austin seven," grumbled Molly. 
 
 " Dreadful uncomfortable thing," growled Robert, 
 " can we get to Devonport to-night ? " 
 
 " Depends when we get away," said Molly, 
 " it mightn't be safe for you to sleep at Aunt 
 Peggy's." 
 
 ** Do you mean that you propose to drive all night 
 in that beastly open car, in a howling draught, with 
 your knees up to your chin ? " 
 
 " It isn't so bad as all that," urged Molly, while 
 the lines of perplexity deepened in Anthony's 
 forehead. How is a man to cheat justice or the 
 semblance of justice when he cannot bear to alter 
 the settled habits of his life by one hair's breadth ? 
 He knew his father. That he should be accused 
 of murder disturbed him remarkably little, but the 
 idea of change, discomfort, a shake out of the 
 acceptably lined rut in which he lived, disturbed 
 him a great deal. 
 
 " Perhaps it might not be necessary if I could have
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 67 
 
 a talk with Marge tson ? He always seems to be a 
 reasonable sort of fellow. I might get this maggot 
 out of his head. Anyhow, why can't I have the 
 Standard, my own car ? It is much more com- 
 fortable." 
 
 " Because by Jove, why shouldn't you ? 
 Wilkins can drive Margetson into Calverstoke in 
 Molly 's flivver. She can drive you in the Standard. 
 She has driven it before, lots of times." 
 
 " Do you mean, to tell me that that fellow 
 was going to be driven in my car by my chauffeur 
 to get a warrant for my arrest ? " 
 
 ' That's the ticket," said Anthony, who was apt 
 when nervous to relapse into the youthful slang 
 affected by his family, " it does seem a bit thick." 
 
 " I wish you would not talk like a boy scout " 
 
 Anthony winked at Molly, who doubled up with 
 laughter, and had to explain why, but the atmosphere 
 lightened. For some reason his success in comman- 
 deering his own car encouraged Robert. He was 
 still uncertain whether the whole thing was not part 
 of a sort of " prisoner complex " in Anthony, who 
 had been a prisoner in Germany during the war, 
 and had spent most of his time there planning 
 the escape that he eventually achieved successfully. 
 However, Robert consented that Wilkins should 
 pack his suit-case and entered into the plans for his 
 own " escape " with many grumbles, but a kind of 
 zest. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you, I am sure," 
 he said to Molly, with the sudden charm that 
 made him beloved, " for offering to drive me.
 
 68 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 You must wear a thick coat. It is still cold at 
 night." 
 
 But later he asked Anthony again, " What 
 does this detective fellow think he has to go upon ? 
 Surely it would be the merest farce to have me up 
 before my fellow magistrates ? They will only 
 suppose that Margetson has a bee in his bonnet ! " 
 
 "It is that blasted woman, Dawson," said 
 Anthony. " She has had her knife into you ever 
 since she was given warning, and Wilkins, or some 
 of them, let out that you could not stand her 
 whiny-piny voice." 
 
 " Dear me, dear me, how difficult servants are 
 nowadays ! I am a bit deaf you know, and I never 
 can hear what she says." 
 
 "It is all because you will go on having lamps, 
 and won't have electric light fitted in the house," 
 said Anthony, who never missed a chance to bring 
 in that old bone of contention between himself and 
 his father. 
 
 " I suppose you will say next that Dawson thinks 
 I refused to have electric light because I intended to 
 murder Eleanor ? Any stick will do to beat that 
 dog. What does the woman say really ? " 
 
 ' That she heard you talking loudly and angrily 
 to Eleanor, that Eleanor exclaimed, ' Oh, don't 1 ' 
 that something then fell with a sort of crash, and 
 you said, ' My God ! ' and after that there was 
 silence." 
 
 * You know what my argument with Eleanor 
 was about. I own that I thought her mistaken, 
 and became, I think reasonably, annoyed. The
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 69 
 
 crash that Dawson heard was the small table near 
 the sofa that had on it the books and papers that 
 Eleanor wanted me to look at. In a moment of 
 exasperation the thing was always confoundedly 
 rickety, I hate small tables I put down one of 
 the books rather impatiently and the whole thing 
 went over. I daresay Eleanor did say, * Oh, 
 don't ! ' but I thought it was ' Take care 1 * Very 
 likely I did say ' Good God ! ' or something of the 
 kind. After that I sat down, smoked my pipe and 
 read my book, and Eleanor picked up the debris. 
 That was all that occurred. We did not return to 
 the detestable subject, and I don't think we talked 
 much more before I went to bed, when Eleanor 
 said that she would sit up and write a bit. She had 
 no ill-feeling, I am sure, and I had not either. 
 We knew each other well enough to disagree. 
 I must own that I have never before seen Eleanor 
 so damnably obstinate.'* 
 
 " Poor Eleanor ! " said Molly. 
 
 " I am sorry that I did not urge her to go to bed, 
 instead of sitting up over that beastly writing. 
 She was a great deal too conscientious. By the bye, 
 Anthony, what became of all those papers ? She 
 had an envelope full of notes, official stuff, I think, 
 and there were some of the family archives, as you 
 call them, on that little table." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Anthony, as if his father's question 
 suddenly shed a fresh light on the subject. " I 
 have not thought about them. I must ask Margetson. 
 No doubt the police took possession." 
 
 He began to understand that Margetson held a
 
 70 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 better hand than he had realized, also that the 
 washing of family dirty linen in court must be 
 avoided, at any cost, although the linen in question 
 belonged to a former generation, and a distant 
 branch of the family. 
 
 " Cherchez la jemme ! " thought Anthony, with 
 a somewhat wry smile to himself. " I don't mean 
 Dawson, but all this has happened because that 
 minx Lady Irchester, who never had anything to 
 do with any of us, outran the constable, stole her 
 own jewels, and got round Julius Colquhoun. I 
 can see that Margetson thinks we are all tarred with 
 the same brush. It seems rather hard luck that 
 my father, who is as innocent as a babe unborn 
 I am not sure that he was born at the time when I 
 come to think of it should have to suffer. I feel 
 certain that he did not know in the least what the 
 papers were that he was giving to Eleanor." 
 
 That afternoon Margetson drove off to Calver- 
 stoke in the little two-seater car with Wilkins. 
 If he were sorry not to have the bonny Molly to 
 drive him, he did not say so. He knew that she 
 had gone to her aunt's at Stan bury, about twenty 
 miles away, and proposed to bring Mrs. Beaumont 
 her mother's sister who had married the rector 
 of Stanbury back with her to tea. That was 
 why, ostensibly, she had taken the more comfortable 
 car. Mr. Preston talked all through luncheon of 
 the fact that though there were two cars in his 
 stables, there was not one available for himself, 
 if he wanted it.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 71 
 
 " But you don't want it," said Anthony irritably; 
 he seemed to be in a rather goaded frame of mind. 
 * You know you hate motoring, and you don't 
 want to go anywhere." 
 
 " If you suffered from your feet as I do " 
 
 began his father. 
 
 " Oh, do shut up, I hate talking about feet at 
 luncheon." 
 
 Mr. Preston returned to his grievance about the 
 absent cars. Margetson understood perfectly that 
 it was being conveyed to him that he ought not to 
 have asked to be taken to Calverstoke. He did 
 not start until the ersatz, as Anthony called him, 
 arrived, a man called Ritchie, obviously only a 
 policeman in plain clothes. 
 
 Robert Preston retired as usual to his study. 
 He generally smoked and read, or wrote or slept 
 there in the afternoon. Anthony met Ritchie, 
 showed him the house and garden, and left him in 
 the housekeeper's room, with a pipe and a news- 
 paper. Evidently he expected nothing more. 
 
 He said afterwards that out of the window he had 
 seen Mr. Preston walking in the garden during the 
 afternoon. When Margetson returned, soon after 
 five o'clock, the ersatz once more mounted his 
 motor-cycle and rode away. Margetson had his 
 tea alone in the hall. Mr. Preston and Mr. 
 Anthony had gone out, he was told by Kate. 
 
 Two hours later they had not come in, and for 
 Mr. Preston this was so unusual that Margetson 
 began to get uneasy. He had no idea that Anthony 
 had suspected the reason for his errand to Calver-
 
 72 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 stoke, which he had mentioned casually as a mere 
 matter of routine, to make a report to the chief 
 inspector there, and also to enquire for himself 
 about anything further that the police might have 
 discovered. As a matter of fact he had arranged 
 to bring Robert Preston before three magistrates at 
 Calverstoke on Monday, as the next day was Sunday, 
 on the charge of having murdered Eleanor Went- 
 worth. The police evidence would be purely 
 formal; they would only ask for the accused man 
 to be remanded in custody. 
 
 Margetson was more human than Anthony sup- 
 posed ; he liked old Robert Preston, appreciated 
 Anthony, and was charmed by Molly, but his duty 
 was plain if grim. He was also a little haunted and 
 puzzled by Wilkins' description of the look of 
 terror in Eleanor's eyes, when she had first been 
 found. Wilkins had talked of nothing else all the 
 way to Calverstoke. " I can't think what she saw, 
 sir, and I can't bear to think of the poor lady being 
 that frightened. She had a pale look always, as if 
 she lived too much indoors, delicate-like, but she 
 was not nervous. She did not drive herself, but 
 she'd take a bit of a shave in the motor quite calm, 
 not rattled like Mr. Preston. He don't like motor- 
 ing, not really, too quick for him, I think, but Miss 
 Eleanor never seemed to mind, not to show, 
 anyhow." 
 
 It might have astonished Margetson if he had 
 known how near to a " shave " he was himself. 
 Wilkins was much tempted to upset him in a ditch, 
 or to run out of petrol in a lonely lane, and take
 
 A WILT) -CAT SCHEME 73 
 
 hours to get any more. Wilkins had every excuse, 
 as he was not driving his " own " car. Anthony 
 had had to take Wilkins into his confidence, on 
 account of the suit-case that had to be prepared 
 and other matters, and Wilkins was extremely 
 angry with the detective. " Such a pack of 
 nonsense as I never heard," was his opinion of the 
 evidence against his master. 
 
 When the dressing-bell rang, and there was still 
 no sign of any of the Prestons, Margetson woke up 
 to the fact that their absence could hardly be 
 accidental. He telephoned to the police at Calver- 
 stoke, and spoke very severely of Ritchie to his 
 superiors. Then he sent for Pratt from the village, 
 told the astonished man that he intended to arrest 
 Mr. Preston, and started once more with Wilkins 
 in Molly's little car for Stanbury. 
 
 He arrived as the Beaumonts and Molly were 
 sitting down to dinner, very calmly. He had ascer- 
 tained that the Standard car and Mr. Beaumont's 
 little Morris Oxford were both in the coach-house. 
 Margetson had left word where he was to be found, 
 and almost before he had explained his errand to 
 Mr. Beaumont, who only looked bewildered, he 
 was rung up by Pratt, passing on a message from 
 Calverstoke. Ritchie, by the merest chance, had 
 seen Mr. Preston get out of the car that could be 
 hired in Greystones village, at Starbeck, the nearest 
 station to Greystones. Ritchie had jumped off his 
 bicycle, and hurled himself into the station, only 
 in time to see Mr. Preston get into the train, which 
 Ritchie at once boarded by a dash into the guard's
 
 74 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 van. He had eventually telephoned from London, 
 to say that after all Mr. Preston had given him 
 the slip. It was a fairly quick train that stopped 
 only once after Starbeck, at Dorchester, before it 
 arrived at Waterloo, but Ritchie had not seen 
 Mr. Preston get out at that station, and certainly 
 not at Waterloo. He had warned the guard and 
 telephoned to the police inspector at Waterloo from 
 Dorchester where the train stopped for some 
 minutes. Ritchie said that Mr. Preston was appar- 
 ently alone ; he had not seen Mr. Anthony. 
 
 Margetson asked to see Molly, but she told him 
 nothing. She was not sure if her father might have 
 had to go to Oxford that afternoon. He had had a 
 letter at breakfast, and had mumbled something 
 about a Fellows' Meeting next day, so he might have 
 gone. Her grandfather had said nothing about 
 going to London, but she knew that his feet some- 
 times bothered him, and his chiropodist lived in 
 London. He generally went to her aunt, his 
 daughter, Mrs. Charlton, if he had to go up to 
 Town. He had grumbled a good bit at both cars 
 being requisitioned, but had himself suggested that 
 Molly should bring the Beaumonts back to tea. 
 Eventually she had found that they expected people 
 for tennis, the first game that year, so she had 
 decided to play, and stay the night. She had tele- 
 phoned to Greystones. Perhaps her grandfather 
 nad then decided that he would go to London. 
 
 After all, he did decide such things for himself. 
 
 Charles Beaumont, the typical country clergyman 
 of the present day, thin, tall, exceedingly conscienti-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 75 
 
 ous, a good honest fellow, not overburdened with 
 either brains or money, puzzled because his 
 parishioners were easy neither to lead nor to drive, 
 not countryman enough to enter into their ways or 
 their thoughts, but really a saint in the making, 
 was shrewd enough to hustle the detective. 
 
 " Do you want petrol or anything ? " he asked. 
 " I have some spare tins if you do. I suppose you 
 will go to London, though I don't know why it 
 matters where Mr. Preston is, but no doubt you 
 have reasons." 
 
 " Do you think that Miss Wentworth's burglar 
 is after him too ? " asked Mrs. Beaumont. She 
 was a lively soul, the antithesis of her husband, 
 quick, clever, kind-hearted, a little superficial, 
 but sometimes witty enough. Her eyes twinkled 
 as she asked the question. 
 
 " You will understand," said ( Margetson, a trifle 
 heavily, " that he will be wanted to give evidence, 
 if Miss Wentworth's murderer is discovered. The 
 police ought to be able to produce him at any 
 moment if necessary." 
 
 Molly put her finger in her mouth, and hung 
 her head like a child. " I suppose if the burglar, 
 or the murderer, was looking for anything at Grey- 
 stones that he has not found yet, it would be a good 
 chance for him to-night, with everyone away ? 
 Do you think I ought to go back ? " 
 
 4 The very last thing you ought to do, you 
 precious foolish child," cried Mrs. Beaumont, who 
 had no children of her own, and therefore adored 
 her sister's family.
 
 7 6 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " No," said Margetson, " your presence, Miss 
 Molly, would be only an embarrassment to the 
 police." 
 
 " I should love to embarrass the police ! " cried 
 Molly, with one of her infectious bursts of laughter ; 
 even Margetson smiled. 
 
 " I daresay they would enjoy it," he observed, 
 " and you must do as you like. I am going at once 
 to Starbeck to make enquiries, possibly I shall go 
 on to London." 
 
 He bowed to the two ladies, as a sort of farewell 
 gesture, but then turned to Mr. Beaumont again. 
 " Do you think that the station-master at Starbeck 
 would have recognised Mr. Preston ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly." Mr. Beaumont held the door 
 open for his departing guest. " Everyone in 
 this neighbourhood knows him very well. But 
 surely his servants could tell you where he has 
 gone?' 
 
 " Wilkins was out with me. I gathered that 
 one of the gardeners had fetched the car from the 
 village for Mr. Preston. They all suppose that he 
 has gone to his daughter, Mrs. Charlton, for the 
 night; but at the same time they all thought she 
 was out of Town. I have her address." 
 
 Mr. Beaumont offered to drive to Starbeck with 
 him, to make enquiries of the station-master, but 
 Molly's little car only held two, and Margetson 
 drove off alone with Wilkins. The detective was 
 puzzled, and would no doubt have been surprised 
 if, as the sound of his motor died away in the dis- 
 tance, he could have seen Mrs. Beaumont and Molly
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 77 
 
 clasp each other ecstatically and dance round the 
 room. 
 
 " Now, Molly," said her aunt, " off you go ! 
 Uncle Oliver will meet you at Longbolton. Don't 
 go further than that. You must come straight 
 back here. That man won't let the grass grow 
 under his feet. Directly he discovers that your 
 grandfather is not at the Charltons', he will begin 
 to search here again. I do hope he does not know 
 of Oliver's existence ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, he does," said Molly. " Uncle 
 Oliver was at Eleanor's funeral, only a few weeks 
 ago. But still, Mr. Margetson may not think of 
 him." 
 
 ' Who has gone to London disguised as your 
 grandfather ? Or was Ritchie's message all camou- 
 
 It may have been Daddy. I know he got out 
 some things from the dressing-up cupboard before 
 I started. Will Uncle Charles go and dig out 
 Grandpapa from the vestry ? I will take the car 
 round to the churchyard gate." 
 
 " I do hope I am going to embarrass the police 1 " 
 she called over her shoulder to her aunt, as she ran 
 out of the room.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. BEAUMONT was quite right; before luncheon 
 time the next day, which was Sunday, Margetson 
 was back at Stanbury, and hearing that all the family 
 were at church, he went into the coach-house and 
 examined the two cars that stood there. He thought 
 they were both rather suspiciously clean, and he was 
 perfectly right. In the end Mrs. Beaumont had 
 been troubled because her niece would be out alone 
 most of the night, and Charles Beaumont had 
 therefore started with Robert and Molly on their 
 drive to Longbolton on the South Downs, where 
 Oliver Preston had met his father, and took him 
 off to an hotel at Lyme Regis for the night, before 
 he went on to Devonport the next day. Oliver 
 seemed to be far more concerned that either Anthony 
 or Molly were about his father's state of health 
 and fatigue, for which no doubt Robert was grateful, 
 and at such moments there was something endearing 
 in his manner of recognising that people were doing 
 their best for him. He and Oliver went off 
 together very happily. 
 
 Molly and Charles returned to Stanbury by about 
 two o'clock and went to bed. Mrs. Beaumont 
 spent the rest of the night or rather morning 
 
 78
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 79 
 
 in cleaning the Standard car, because it had rained, 
 and the car was splashed all over. There had been 
 no rain the preceding day. She felt that she was 
 living " in a Buchan," as Molly would have put it, 
 enjoyed herself enormously, and appeared at church 
 for the early service as fresh as a rose. 
 
 How was Margetson to know all that ? He did 
 know that it had rained all night, and that both the 
 cars were meticulously clean. Regretfully he came 
 to the conclusion that the old gentleman had 
 escaped successfully. 
 
 The night before Margetson had made Wilkins 
 drive him " hell for leather," although it was in the 
 Austin, all the way to Town, over 100 miles, and 
 he had gone to the Charltons' house very early 
 the next morning to find there only a caretaker; 
 a caretaker full of the experienced Londoner's 
 easily roused suspicions. She was sure that Mar- 
 getson was " after no good," especially as he had 
 arrived with the milk a most ungodly hour on a 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 Nevertheless she knew Wilkins, and when the 
 chauffeur gloomily assured her that Mr. Margetson 
 was genuinely concerned only to find Mr. Preston, 
 she allowed him to come in, but followed him every- 
 where, with such shrill asseverations that no one 
 should go into any part of the house for which she 
 was responsible without her, that Margetson felt 
 certain that anyone in hiding must have been warned 
 in good time. The house certainly seemed very 
 empty, all shut up and dark, except the basement. 
 Somehow, Margetson could not imagine Robert
 
 8o A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Preston, fastidious and irritable, hobnobbing with 
 an elderly caretaker of respectable, but unprepos- 
 sessing, appearance in the basement ! 
 
 He had telephoned to the inspector at Calver- 
 stoke very late the night before, when he took the 
 protesting Wilkins to an hotel, but the police had 
 heard no further news. Wilkins had to garage 
 the car in the next street, away from the hotel, but 
 Margetson did not follow him there, or he might 
 have been surprised to hear Wilkins make cryptic 
 remarks to somebody or other on the garage tele- 
 phone, to the effect that he and Mr. Margetson 
 were staying at Bailey's Hotel for the night. He 
 might have been informing only his wife, but he 
 also seemed to hear news that made him smile, 
 and come out looking in a better temper than he had 
 shown since he started for Calverstoke that morn- 
 ing. The next day, when they went to the 
 Charltons* house he had relapsed into his grumpy 
 mood, and refused to rattle the car back at the pace 
 they had come up the day before. Eventually 
 they arrived at Stanbury before one o'clock. 
 
 Margetson met the Beaumonts and Molly after 
 church, and explained that he had had no luck in 
 London. Mrs. Beaumont was sympathetic, and 
 offered him lunch; Charles looked bored, and 
 vanished directly the meal was over. " He must 
 rest," his wife explained, " before Sunday School 
 this afternoon." 
 
 She and Molly seemed to be anxious to talk and 
 ask questions, but they volunteered no information, 
 and although any detective who is worth his salt
 
 A WILDCAT SCHEME 81 
 
 has a sort of sixth sense that warns him when he 
 ought to be suspicious, he did not yet feel that he 
 could ask to search the Beaumonts' house. He felt 
 convinced that somehow or other Mr. Preston 
 would " double back," and was not reassured by 
 Charles Beaumont's sulky manner, which only meant 
 if he had known it, that the poor man could not stand 
 late nights. After returning at two o'clock in the 
 morning, the unfortunate Rector of Stanbury had 
 to be up and in church by seven. By the end of 
 the morning service, he felt as if he would give all 
 he possessed to sleep for an hour, and instead found 
 himself constrained to " do the civil to the detective 
 fellow." 
 
 Margetson asked Molly if her father had gone 
 back to Oxford, and she said, " I suppose so," 
 rather vaguely, but offered to ring up and ask, and 
 as she spoke the telephone bell rang in the hall, 
 " I daresay that is Daddy," she said, and went to 
 answer it. 
 
 She returned, laughing, " Grandpapa wants to 
 know when I am going back to Greystones. He is 
 at home again." 
 
 " At home " Margetson stared at her. 
 
 " I must ask you to come there with me, please, 
 Miss Preston. There is some hanky-panky here. 
 I can't be sent from pillar to post like this." 
 
 " No ? " said Molly, and her eyes were very de- 
 mure. " Of course I will come, if you like. We can 
 leave Jane here, and Wilkins can drive us in the 
 Standard, or I will drive if he is too tired." 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Beaumont looked as if she
 
 82 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 were offended by the detective's dictatorial manner, 
 but all she said was, " Surely the travelling about 
 was your own idea, Mr. Margetson ? Must you 
 go now ? I rather wanted my niece to stay till 
 to-morrow." 
 
 They looked glared, Molly said afterwards 
 at each other for a moment, then Margetson said 
 stiffly, " I am accustomed to meet with more 
 consideration on the part of my clients. My duty 
 is to discover Miss Wentworth's murderer. Every 
 difficulty seems to be put in my way by those whose 
 duty and inclination, if I may say so should be 
 to give me every facility." 
 
 " I gave you my Jane and Grandpapa gave you 
 Wilkins. Isn't that enough ? Now you want me, 
 and I've said I'll come." Molly's voice was the 
 complaining voice of a chidden child. 
 
 Mrs. Beaumont still bristled a little, " I can't 
 think why we should be accused of putting diffi- 
 culties in your way. It is not our business if 
 Mr. Preston leaves home unexpectedly. You will 
 probably find that he left a message for you, that 
 Kate or someone forgot to deliver. After all, he 
 can do what he likes, I suppose, and so can 
 my niece. I don't recognise your right to dic- 
 tate to her. I shall come too, if she goes with 
 you." 
 
 " By all means," said Margetson, whose momen- 
 tary loss of poise, it could hardly be called loss of 
 temper, had been caused by a sudden suspicion that 
 they were laughing at him, " pulling his leg." All 
 the same he had wanted the opportunity to cross-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 83 
 
 examine Molly by herself. There was still some- 
 thing that he could not quite fathom, and Mrs. 
 Beaumont was a little distracting. She was volatile, 
 talkative; he did not want her company in the least. 
 At the same time, if he arrested Mr. Preston and 
 took him to Calverstoke on Monday, it would be 
 as well for Molly to have someone with her. At 
 bottom, in spite of his firm faith in the general 
 corruption of human nature in everyone but a few 
 specially favoured officials of Scotland Yard, Mar- 
 getson was not a bad fellow. It was not his business 
 to be kind, but he would not go out of his way to 
 be unkind to a child like Molly. 
 
 " By all means," he repeated to Mrs. Beaumont, 
 " only I must ask you to come at once. I shall be 
 glad to get back to Greystones as soon as pos- 
 sible." 
 
 " May we put on our hats ? " asked Molly 
 meekly, and the aunt and niece went off together. 
 Margetson could not know that they again 
 danced together, wordlessly, at the top of the 
 stairs. 
 
 ' That came off all right," said Mrs. Beaumont, 
 when she was safely in her own room, " but 
 you forgot to say that Grandpapa was not very 
 well." 
 
 " Oh, bother ! " said Molly, " but I will, in the 
 car." 
 
 " Be careful," Mrs. Beaumont warned her. 
 
 " I wonder what is the matter with Gran," Molly 
 said, after they had driven some way in silence. 
 Margetson was sitting in front with Wilkins, but
 
 84 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 he had put down the glass screen at his back before 
 they started. She knew that he meant to hear 
 everything they said. 
 
 * The matter with him ? Why should he have 
 anything the matter with him ? " 
 
 " Oh, I forgot to tell you. It was Kate who rang 
 me up to ask when I was coming, you know. She 
 said that Grandpapa got back rather late last night 
 with a bad cold on him, and that he was staying in 
 bed. That is probably why he told her to send for 
 me. He can't bear to be alone when he is ill. 
 She said that Dr. Calgarrie had seen him and was 
 keeping him in bed, but was not alarmed." 
 
 " Did Kate say where he had been yesterday ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, I did not ask her." 
 
 " I hope it is not going to be one of his really 
 bad colds," said Mrs. Beaumont, with unaffected 
 anxiety in her voice. 
 
 " Kate said she wished Mr. Margetson would 
 come back, because Pratt was very cross and dis- 
 agreeable, always ticking them off if they said a 
 word." 
 
 Mrs. Beaumont laughed. " He must have his 
 work cut out. They are not exactly Trap- 
 pists." 
 
 Margetson heard it all, and found himself wonder- 
 ing. He would not be able to take Mr. Preston 
 to Calverstoke even under arrest, if the doctor in- 
 tervened. Well he would get a couple of extra 
 plain-clothes men on duty if necessary, to see that 
 the old man did not get away again unobserved. 
 
 They found Robert Preston in bed, probably
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 85 
 
 not seriously ill, but unusually quiet, Margetson 
 thought, and very hoarse when he spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Beaumont observed how unexpectedly 
 patient he was, and Molly exclaimed, " You don't 
 know Grandpapa when he is ill, cherubs and 
 martyrs aren't in it. He is always terribly chas- 
 tened by pain. We cheer up when he begins to 
 shed his halo and his sprouting wings. When he 
 says ' Good God, what is this muck ? ' to his 
 Allen & Hanbury, or whatever it is, Mummy 
 and I always feel that we can go and play golf 
 in peace." 
 
 " Charles is rather peevish when he is ill," said 
 Charles's wife, as if it were a superior attitude on 
 her husband's part, " but then he thinks it his duty 
 to be perfectly equable when he is well." 
 
 " He is terribly angelic when he plays golf," 
 said Molly. " I always long to say to him : 
 
 " He taught them bother, likewise blow, 
 Of wickedness the germs, 
 But golfers know the sweet relief 
 That lives in awful terms ! " 
 
 They prattled on, they were always prattling, or 
 so it seemed to Margetson. One or other or both 
 of them were always in the room when he saw Mr. 
 Preston; he felt as if he were in a bee-hive, with 
 bees very amiable bees always buzzing round 
 him. 
 
 But on the third day in the afternoon Margetson 
 found the patient up and dressed, and after some 
 dodging or the female part of the family, contrived
 
 86 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 to serve the summons on him, to appear before the 
 Bench at Calverstoke on Thursday. Robert was 
 reading by the light of one small lamp. He looked 
 up from his book. " I knew you had this card up 
 your sleeve, my good fellow, you were never more 
 mistaken in your life." 
 
 Margetson warned him that anything he said 
 could be used in evidence against him. 
 
 " All right," said Robert. " Order the car when 
 you like, I shall be ready, only get out of my room 
 now, and for heaven's sake shut the door after 
 you." 
 
 Margetson left him; shrugging his shoulders. 
 These Prestons always contrived to turn the tables 
 on him. It was not he who ought to have felt small, 
 but the man who was virtually his prisoner. 
 
 The next day three of Bob Preston's very good 
 friends and neighbours, Lord Thorell, who was in 
 the chair, Sir John Elgin, and young Partridge, 
 a gentleman farmer of the neighbourhood, fellow 
 magistrates, and fellow members of boards and 
 councils all over the county, found that they were 
 being asked to commit their respected friend and 
 colleague for trial on a charge of murder. Not one 
 of the three believed that he was guilty, not one of 
 the three knew how to evade committing him for 
 trial. 
 
 They had the coroner's verdict before them, so 
 that it was unnecessary to call witnesses to certify the 
 death of Miss Wentworth, and Margetson's state- 
 ment was, on the face of it, unanswerable. He was 
 plausible, sensible, even sympathetic.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 87 
 
 There was a quarrel, nobody denied it, Mr. 
 Preston himself acknowledged that he had quarrelled 
 with his niece over a family matter that concerned 
 Mr. Preston himself very closely. The police 
 had the papers involved. They all knew that Mr. 
 Preston had a hasty temper slight chuckles, re- 
 pressed, from the Bench Miss Wentworth had 
 gone too far, no doubt, she was aggravating, 
 irritating, probably inconsiderate. It was possible 
 that her uncle meant only to throw the book at her 
 as a relief to his feelings, not really to injure her. 
 At that moment the prisoner interrupted, " God 
 bless my soul ! throw a book at her what book ? 
 I never threw any book at her only on to a table." 
 ' Wait a bit, sir," broke in young Partridge, 
 irrepressibly, " let the fellow go on." 
 
 ' Why do you say that Mr. Preston threw a 
 book at her ? " asked the Chairman, Lord Thorell, 
 very majestic, with his white hair and tufted eye- 
 brows, but spoilt by a pink nose and a twitching 
 mouth. He was a fine shot and a good landlord, 
 but didn't all the rest of them know that Bob 
 Preston, in a characteristically irrepressible moment 
 had said that " the good God who made rabbits 
 might have made someone who looked stupider than 
 Thorell, but evidently had not thought it worth 
 while." 
 
 Margetson's answer was clear and definite. 
 ' The book which Mr. Preston says he threw on 
 a table was found under the table near the head of 
 the corpse, stained with her blood." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it, ' began the
 
 88 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 prisoner, testily, but was again silenced. Hi? 
 solicitor, who was in court, came to the rescue. 
 " There is nothing for us to say at the present 
 stage," he remarked. " My client pleads ' not 
 guilty,' and I understand that the police ask for a 
 remand until they are ready with their evidence." 
 
 The Bench hesitated again. Mr. Blakeney, the 
 solicitor, said he supposed that it was no use, even 
 under the special circumstances, his client's ad- 
 vanced age and uncertain health, and so on, to ask 
 for bail ? 
 
 Thorell said hastily, " Oh 5 of course," but the 
 clerk of the court muttered something, and the 
 other two justices looked uncomfortable. " I 
 don't think we can on a murder charge t " said 
 Sir James Elgin, who had been a county court 
 judge himself. ' We should like to, of course," 
 said young Partridge. 
 
 Margetson thought his prisoner still extra- 
 ordinarily quiet ; he had made very few character- 
 istic outbursts, and he had been obstinately silent 
 in the car, driving from Greystones, with Margetson 
 and an inspector from Calverstoke. Pratt shed 
 tears and obstinately refused to accompany them, 
 though he and Dr. Calgarrie were both in court in 
 case they were wanted. Mr. Preston was still 
 hoarse after his cold, he turned up his coat-collar, 
 pulled his hat over his eyes, put his hands in his 
 pockets, and apparently went to sleep. Margetson 
 thought of all this, and wondered if the old man were 
 really feeling ill, chastened by pain, as Molly had said. 
 
 Robert Preston got up from the chair they had
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 89 
 
 given him in the dock ; he seemed to think that it 
 was all settled. " Well, good-bye, you fellows," 
 he said to the men who were his judges, " I 
 shan't bear you a grudge." 
 
 Probably he said good-bye to them just like that 
 when he had been sitting on their side of the 
 court, but at that moment he stumbled a little, his 
 left hand shot out and caught at the ledge in front 
 of him, and then Margetson began to feel that the 
 whole concern was a nightmare, not only Gilbertian 
 from the intimate terms of Bench and prisoner. 
 Young Partridge flung himself out of his seat, 
 dashed across the court and caught the prisoner's 
 hand with a sort of roar : " Look here ! Look 
 here ! What's this ? What's this ? This is 
 Anthony's hand. . . ." 
 
 Then even the bare semblance of a court fell to 
 pieces, they were all crowding round Partridge, 
 and Partridge was holding the prisoner's left hand 
 by the wrist, and keeping off the blows aimed at 
 him by the prisoner's right hand. " Damn you, 
 Anthony, don't be an ass ! I can't mistake your 
 hand. This is the finger you had blown off at 
 Givenchy when you fielded some bits of shell that 
 came your way " 
 
 " It isn't, you fool, shut up ! How could it be, 
 if it was blown off ? " 
 
 But unmistakably there it was, a hand with the 
 two top joints of the third finger missing ! 
 
 Margetson's face was more like a stone image 
 than ever, but inwardly he was like a ravening wolf. 
 How had he allowed himself to be tricked ? Of
 
 90 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 course if a man were in bed, you did not notice par- 
 ticularly if he kept his hands under the bedclothes, 
 and if he had a bad cold, you expected him to be 
 hoarse, and not very talkative. Who could be 
 talkative with those chattering women damn that 
 Mrs. Beaumont ! It was a put up job on her part 
 of course. She had never allowed anyone to concen- 
 trate, to think, or even to look much at the invalid. 
 The room had always been rather dark, as well as 
 full of people; suddenly Margetson realized that, 
 and understood why he had not missed Robert 
 Preston's remarkably blue eyes. Oh, confound it ! 
 He could see now that Anthony's make-up was 
 wonderfully good, including the bald head and the 
 whiskers, but no amount of extraneous pigment 
 could turn brown eyes to blue. . . . 
 
 Mr. Blakeney, the old solicitor, was twittering 
 like a bird, he was not in the secret, it was a shock 
 to him, too, and there was that confounded doctor 
 was he in the plot he was laughing ; oh, they 
 were all laughing, roaring, pleased to have made a 
 fool of the detective the stranger in their midst. 
 Englishmen were like that. Margetson was just 
 as English as they were, but for the moment he felt 
 like a Jew, and nothing but a Jew. He was not 
 one of them. He hated their laughter. He 
 wanted the law, and nothing but the law. 
 
 His voice broke into the clamour, coldly. " Do 
 I understand, gentlemen, that you recognise that 
 the prisoner is not Mr. Robert Preston ? " 
 
 Anthony pulled off the wig and flung it down.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 91 
 
 " I give in, I confess," he said. " I dressed up to 
 take my father's place." 
 
 ' You did it uncommon well, by gad, you did," 
 said Lord Thorell. ' You took us all in. I only 
 thought your father was a bit off colour, not so much 
 on the spot as usual, but his position was a bit 
 embarrassing ha ! ha ! ha ! You young devil ! " 
 
 " May I suggest," said Margetson, in a voice that 
 might have frozen the fires of hell, " that the usual 
 procedure would be to commit Mr. Anthony 
 Preston for contempt of court ? " 
 
 Sir John Elgin pulled himself together. He had 
 known the Prestons for years, his own boy lay where 
 Anthony had lost that finger . . . but still . . . yes, 
 of course, the detective was right. 
 
 " Look here," said Anthony. " I don't care if 
 you do commit me, but just listen. My father 
 is eighty, you know he is a fairly good specimen, 
 but still he is eighty, and he oh, I need not tell 
 you, he is as innocent of this crime as a babe unborn. 
 I know that Mr. Margetson doesn't see it in that 
 light. A curious set of coincidences have piled 
 up a sort of case but hang it all a very flimsy 
 case against him. All the same, if he were here, 
 you'd have to remand him under custody my 
 father at eighty in Calverstoke Gaol. Upon 
 my soul, if he had lost his temper and thrown a 
 book at Eleanor I never heard of the book until 
 to-day he would hardly deserve that 1 " 
 
 ' The counsel for the defence will no doubt 
 bring all these arguments to bear," said Margetson, 
 dispassionately; he was angry, furiously angry,
 
 92 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 but he refused to be rattled. He thought Anthony 
 a good actor, but he was not going to sympathize 
 with a fellow who had made a fool of him ; he had 
 seen the policemen sniggering. 
 
 Then Lord Thorell suddenly intervened; he had 
 relapsed into his seat during Anthony's appeal. 
 ' Upon my soul," he said, with sudden fervour, 
 " if you were your father, I wouldn't do it. I 
 thought we could grant bail, and the thing 'ud get 
 cleared up. I couldn't send the old fellow to gaol, 
 it 'ud be a scandal. Even if he had thrown a book 
 at Miss Wentworth. No doubt he did not mean to 
 hit her stupid woman, ought to have dodged it 
 or fielded it or something . . . clever women are 
 always the devil about anything practical can't 
 cook a dinner, fail at a pinch ... it was all her 
 fault . . . but he ain't here. Let's clear out. 
 Bother contempt of court ! I think you're a deuced 
 good actor, Anthony, used to act myself when young. 
 Come along if you catch Mr. Preston you 
 Margetson theredon't ask me to sit come along 
 now, don't let's talk any more." 
 
 " Do you agree ? " Sir John Elgin laughed, as 
 he turned to his other neighbour. 
 
 " I think Anthony's dashed clever and I daresay 
 there's some water somewhere," said young 
 Partridge, rather helplessly. " You do look rum, 
 Anthony, you might have done anything." 
 
 4 You are not going to accuse me, myself, of the 
 murder, are you ? " asked Anthony. " If you 
 had only held your tongue . . ." 
 
 4 The surgeon at the gaol would have found out
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 93 
 
 directly," said Partridge. " Pretty sort of fools 
 we should have looked then ! " 
 
 The clerk of the court said a few things in an 
 incomprehensible, but presumably legal jargon, 
 of which the upshot seemed to be that the prisoner 
 was discharged. 
 
 Anthony made his way to Margetson with his 
 hand held out. " Don't bear a grudge against 
 me," he said, " you'd have done it a jolly sight 
 better, too for your own father." 
 
 Margetson thought rapidly ; he must keep on 
 terms with these people, or chuck the case, and he 
 had never chucked a case yet. " All is fair in love or 
 war," he said philosophically, " meanwhile there 
 is still a warrant out against Mr. Preston. I sup- 
 pose I can't ask you to tell me where he is." 
 
 " No," said Anthony, " as a matter of fact I 
 don't know where he is. He met my brother 
 Oliver the night that he left Greystones. I don't 
 know where they met and that is all I can tell you." 
 
 He did not add that Oliver had written that 
 morning to Molly : " Send the blighter along 
 to me. I'll keep him busy." 
 
 " I wish that I could convince you," Anthony 
 went on, " that you are on a wrong track. The 
 real criminal must be laughing in his sleeve." 
 
 Margetson suddenly fixed him with a look of 
 steel. " If I had been guilty I should have burst 
 into tears," Anthony said afterwards. " I didn't know 
 that the fellow had guts enough to look like that." 
 
 " Do you know who the real criminal is ? " 
 Margetson asked.
 
 94 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " I have not the vaguest notion, but I lean 
 towards Pratt's burglar." 
 
 " I have never known a burglar kill anyone by 
 hitting them on the head with a book. They have 
 their own weapons as a rule." 
 
 " It seems a bit clumsy," Anthony agreed. 
 " What book was it ? You did not tell me about the 
 book. Calgarrie and Pratt never mentioned it. 
 It was not shown to the Coroner." 
 
 " I found the book, Pratt missed it, but I went 
 through everything in the room pretty thoroughly, 
 after the inquest. It was an old account book with 
 a brass lock and corners." 
 
 " Come on, Anthony," Partridge was at his elbow, 
 " I can drive you back, if you'll make yourself look 
 respectable." 
 
 " I shall want some grease," said Anthony. 
 " No, I'm padded up and all sorts of things ; I'll 
 put the wig on again." 
 
 Most of the people of Calverstoke, who happened 
 to see them, supposed that Mr. Preston had just 
 gone home again no case that would lie against 
 him they were honestly very glad, though it 
 meant the end of a seven-days wonder in the little 
 country town. Wilkins arrived at Greystones later, 
 grinning all over. " Mr. Margetson's gone to 
 Plymouth," he said, " but he went to the Dorset 
 Herald first, they had a reporter in court, and he 
 stuffed them up that they weren't to publish a 
 report. Sir John Elgin went with him." 
 
 " I told you that man wouldn't let the grass 
 grow under his feet," said Mrs. Beaumont.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 95 
 
 Anthony, returned to his own lawful image, 
 grunted uneasily. " I wish that I knew where my 
 father has gone," he said, " it is all very well, but 
 Margetson has his professional pride to think of, 
 also he's a Jew, and the Jews never let go." 
 
 " Are you sure, Daddy," asked Molly. " I 
 thought it was only bull-dogs, bull-dogs of the 
 British breed, who never let go. Mr. Margetson 
 is less like a bull-dog than anyone I ever saw." 
 
 " He was more like an image of cold and con- 
 centrated fury than anyone I ever saw to-day," 
 said Anthony. " Shylock wasn't in it; he kept his 
 temper remarkably well, but he will never forgive 
 me, even if he catches the real culprit. Old Thorell 
 was a trump. We must not let my father say dis- 
 agreeable things about his bunny-face again. If 
 he'd looked like who looked less like a rabbit 
 than anyone that ever was, Molly ? " 
 
 Molly was accustomed to curious pseudo-literary 
 games and cross-word puzzles, she had an answer 
 pat. " Solomon, I suppose." 
 
 ' Well, if he'd looked like Solomon in all his 
 glory, he couldn't have played up better than he did." 
 
 " Do tell me," said Mrs. Beaumont, " did you go 
 up to London on Saturday in your disguise ? " 
 
 Anthony laughed. " Yes, I did. It was because 
 that came off so well that I thought of this stunt. 
 It has given my father a little time. I wonder 
 where the dickens he is ? Nobody looked at me 
 twice. Borden from the village took me for my 
 father all right. He drove me to the station and 
 made remarks about the weather when I got out,
 
 96 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 all that sort of thing. Price, the station-master at 
 Starbeck, was most empresse in his attentions, said 
 he hadn't seen me for a long time, hoped I was well. 
 I was rather grumpy to both of them, as my father 
 is when his corns are hurting him. I looked out of 
 the window after I'd got into the train, I had found 
 a carriage to myself all right, and I saw Ritchie 
 bound into the guard's van. So ho ! thought I, 
 and I did not change my clothes until after we had 
 stopped at Dorchester, in case he turned up there. 
 Then I got into my own things and packed the dis- 
 guise as you call it. I had some grease with me 
 for my face, and luckily no one got in at Dorchester. 
 I got out of my carriage at Waterloo on the wrong 
 side, into another train standing alongside. I did 
 that once before, when I was escaping in Germany. 
 It is not difficult, if you can get from one footboard 
 to the other, but there is always a chance of the door's 
 being locked, or of someone seeing you." 
 
 Anthony paused and laughed. " Well, it was 
 rather absurd. I had hardly hauled myself into 
 the other carriage when I'm blessed if the train 
 did not start right away ! " 
 
 " Daddy ! " cried Molly, with fervent horror. 
 " You might have been killed ! " 
 
 " No, ducky, I don't think so, trains on the 
 Southern Railway don't start like trains in the Tube. 
 I found that I was just retracing my steps, so I 
 got into my disguise again, and came here. I 
 arrived rather late, and found Pratt in command, 
 but I put on my father's best air of injured innocence, 
 and went to bed. I was very hungry, and Mrs.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 97 
 
 Crutcher had gone, so I had to put up with Elsie's 
 preparation of Bovril and some cold ham. Merci- 
 fully Kate or someone had the inspiration to bring 
 me some of the best Marsala. I did not do badly. 
 Then next day I sent for you, Molly, because I 
 wanted to know what had happened. I did not 
 realize that you already had Margetson in tow. 
 Apparently he started so early from London that 
 Pratt did not catch him on the telephone at his hotel." 
 
 " He was dreadfully angry with us at Stanbury," 
 said Molly. 
 
 Anthony went out to the stables to find Wilkins, 
 and wondered as he went, what could be done to put 
 Margetson off this entirely false scent. " He is 
 more determined than ever," thought Anthony, 
 " especially after the way that the justices behaved 
 to-day. No doubt he thinks all country magis- 
 trates beneath contempt." 
 
 Wilkins was cleaning his car, with a face of deep 
 depression. "It is all very well, you know, sir, 
 you've played this trick and it has come off success- 
 ful like, and I am thankful that Mr. Preston is 
 out of the way, but what troubles me is that we are 
 no nearer than we were at the beginning to the 
 real murderer. Miss Eleanor's face fair haunts me, 
 it does, sir. You needn't tell me that nothing 
 Mr. Preston could do would make her look like that. 
 She saw something or someone that fairskeered 
 her. ... I can't bear to think of it. You ask 
 Dr. Calgarrie or Pratt they saw the look. They 
 were downright frightened themselves." 
 
 " I saw her only after her eyes were closed.
 
 9 8 A WILDCAT SCHEME 
 
 She looked quite young then, there was no look of 
 terror." 
 
 " No, sir ? Perhaps it was chiefly in her eyes 
 but no, it was more than that, her mouth her 
 whole face her clenched hand ... I've no 
 patience with that Margetson. Mr. Preston in- 
 deed ! He barks a bit, but he's no bite. Look 
 here, sir, why don't the police make more enquiries 
 about strangers here ? Pratt says Mr. Margetson 
 enquired about the workmen's train, 6.25 from 
 Starbeck, but that's too early. No one could have 
 got there in time if Kate didn't unbolt the back door 
 till past six, could they, sir ? " 
 
 " Not on foot. Could anyone have done it with 
 a car or a motor-bike ? " 
 
 " Not for me to say, sir, but if he'd had a car, 
 surely some of us would have met it ? Besides, 
 then he'd have gone straight to London probably, 
 not to the station. No, the gardeners came one 
 way up the road, and I came the other ; there wasn't 
 no car, and that's a fact." 
 
 Wilkins hesitated, and then went on, " I don't 
 much like that Margetson's going to Plymouth. 
 Mr. Oliver'll never understand. I don't want Mr. 
 Preston to be found, sir, and that's the truth. 
 I thought in court this afternoon, that if he had been 
 in your place, sir, he couldn't have stood it. His 
 heart'd have given out. He can't bear agitation, 
 it does for him." 
 
 ' Why do you think Mr. Oliver won't under- 
 stand ? I am afraid that sometimes he considers 
 Mr. Preston's health more sympathetically than I do."
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 99 
 
 " He won't take Mr. Margetson seriously. 
 He'll think if you could play a trick that he can 
 play another. You know what those naval gentle- 
 men are, sir. It ain't right somehow. Mr. 
 Preston's as innocent as a daisy. He said to me that 
 morning before he went to Stanbury, ' This is all 
 wrong, Wilkins. I'd much sooner stand the 
 racket.' I told him I didn't think it'd be good for 
 him; better go away on the quiet, sir, I said, and wait 
 until the real culprit's found. He looked a bit 
 dazed-like, for a minute, as he do sometimes when 
 he's ill, and says he can't see properly. ' The real 
 culprit, the real culprit it's true she was mur- 
 dered ? ' Almost as if he didn't quite believe it. 
 I know he could never stand all that ding-dong in 
 court, although he do seem so fierce sometimes, and 
 I heard him tell 'em off proper last month at the 
 Parish Council about that flooding of the road by 
 the mill, knew all about the law and the what 
 do you call it, sir the ripe-something owners ; 
 had it all at his fingers' ends." 
 
 ** Riparian owners," laughed Anthony. " The 
 fellows who own the banks of the river. Yes, 
 he's pretty smart about things like that." 
 
 " I suppose, sir," Wilkins touched his cap, 
 " you wouldn't let me go down to Plymouth ? " 
 
 " Well, by Jove, if you think Mr. Preston's 
 there. . . . Look here, we'll all go. You and I, 
 and I'll take Miss Molly." 
 
 He looked at his watch. " Not to-night . . . 
 well, I don't know, we could start, and stop some- 
 where for the night. I'll tell Miss Molly. We
 
 too A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 could drop Mrs. Beaumont on the way might 
 dine at Stanbury . . ." 
 
 He was off, and Wilkins looked after him 
 affectionately. " He don't let the grass grow, 
 neither, he and his wild-cat schemes, as Mr. 
 Preston calls 'em, but he's all right, a real gentle- 
 man, Mr. Anthony is ... the car's quite ready, 
 but I'll get a bite of something before we go. . . . 
 I ought by rights to mow the lawn to-morrow 
 it looks like a hayfield now. Mr. Preston will be 
 vexed. . . ." 
 
 After the fashion of country servants Wilkins 
 did a great many things that were not exactly his 
 job, among them he mowed the big lawns, for the 
 very adequate reason that no one else could work 
 the motor-mower. So the lawns had to convert 
 themselves into hayfields at their own sweet will. 
 
 Molly, like most young people, loved doing 
 things in a hurry. Mrs. Beaumont was resigned, 
 and after telephoning, said there would be enough 
 dinner for them all at Stanbury. Anthony was 
 perfectly well aware that she was longing to come 
 with them, but he would not encourage her. ' ' Why 
 do you bring all these clacking females ? " his 
 father would ask. Molly would giggle and refuse 
 to be accounted a clacking female, but there would 
 be just enough sting in the adjective to put a strain 
 on Mrs. Beaumont's sense of humour. 
 
 The Crutchers always slept in the house when 
 none of the family was there, and Pratt would have 
 to remain. " How we shut the door after the steed 
 is stolen 1 " thought Anthony, as they drove away.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE other great exponent of seizing Time by the 
 forelock arrived at Plymouth in a state of complete 
 uncertainty. Should he conceal himself and lie in 
 wait for the unsuspecting Mr. Preston until he could 
 " nab him " in the street, or should he go straight 
 to Oliver Preston and demand that his prisoner 
 should be given up to him ? 
 
 He discovered very quickly that Commander 
 Preston, who was one of the officers at the submarine 
 depot, lived in the Naval Barracks, and Margetson 
 spent his first evening at Devonport in various bars 
 frequented by the "lower deck," in order to hear 
 if there were any gossip about a guest staying with 
 the commander. 
 
 It was not an infallible method, no one knew that 
 better than Margetson himself, who particularly 
 disliked putting on rough clothes and treating 
 "jolly sailor men " at local pubs. But he was a 
 good actor, knew how to encourage talk, and pre- 
 tended to be travelling for a firm of china and 
 glass manufacturers. At Plymouth he was natur- 
 ally anxious to provide decanters, tumblers, cock- 
 tail-shakers, wine-glasses, direct to any naval mess 
 that required such articles without the intervention 
 of the expensive middleman. He showed himself 
 
 101
 
 102 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 also to have a pretty taste for the usual contents of 
 his wares, and to be generously disposed towards 
 anyone likely to assist him in the disposal of his 
 goods. By this method he very quickly got in 
 touch with one of the marines who acted as mess- 
 waiter at the barracks, and went straight to the point 
 by saying that among his oldest customers was 
 Commander Preston's father. He gave a glowing 
 account of the beautiful glass and still more beau- 
 tiful drinks at Mr. Preston's house in Dorsetshire. 
 
 " If the commander would let me show him some 
 of my things, he'd recognize them at once. Mr. 
 Preston has great taste at his table. . . ." 
 
 " So's the commander," said Gregson, the 
 marine, with a wink, " knows what's what, in a 
 b y glass or out of it." 
 
 " I thought he would. Have you ever seen the 
 old gentleman ? He is a rare specimen, he is, one 
 of the old school." 
 
 " You don't say ? No, I've never seen him. 
 I've seen the commander's brother. Talkative 
 gent, likes his port. He's one of them college 
 gents ; they knows a thing or two about cocktails 
 and port too." 
 
 Gregson laughed, a little thickly perhaps. He 
 had never met a traveller quite so generous as this 
 one, though he knew the breed pretty well. They 
 never seemed able to realize that the barracks 
 employed regular contractors, and that Gregson 
 had no more power than a mouse even to recommend 
 a liqueur glass, much less tumblers and cocktail 
 shakers.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 103 
 
 " Well, that's funny," said Margetson. " I 
 took an order at his house last week and heard that 
 the old gentleman was coming to stay with his 
 son." 
 
 " Perhaps he is staying in the town. There's 
 no accommodation much in the barracks, not for 
 an old gentleman who might be fussy-like. Mostly, 
 they puts up at the hotels, and comes round for 
 lunch or dinner, but I haven't seen no old gentle- 
 man, nor heard talk of him." 
 
 " Well, p'raps he put it off. He's over eighty, 
 and a bit cranky. Now, just let me show you 
 have another I'll show you a glass I've got here, 
 and if you don't think it the best shape you've ever 
 seen for a port glass, I'll be surprised, that I 
 will." 
 
 He had provided himself with a few specimens, 
 and was not astonished at their popularity when 
 used for treating. They held a lot. The barmaid 
 charged double for filling any one of them, but 
 Margetson did not care. He had discovered de- 
 finitely that the lower deck had not seen Mr. 
 Preston. 
 
 That decided his next move. He was not sure 
 how much Commander Preston already knew, 
 but the detective wanted to get at him before he had 
 had time to hear about the proceedings in court the 
 day before. All the same Margetson groaned 
 to himself. Anthony would hardly have mentioned 
 his brother's name if he had thought it likely to 
 cause any detriment to his father. Nevertheless 
 Margetson believed that Oliver was perhaps the
 
 io 4 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 one person through whom Mr. Preston's where- 
 abouts might be discovered. 
 
 Sailors are supposed to be simple people " the 
 simpler the more difficult," thought Margetson. 
 He would have known a great deal better how to deal 
 with a gang of underworld crooks, warranted to go 
 wrong, than with these people who had consciences 
 and were straight, "up to a point," thought the 
 detective, who believed in a breaking point for all 
 ordinary humanity. " It just shows you," he said 
 to himself, "even these fortunate, so-called honour- 
 able, highly respected people, can take cover and 
 defend themselves with remarkable ingenuity and 
 sheer disregard of truth when once they are threat- 
 ened with the rigours of the law. They think they 
 can do what they like. I fully believe that the old 
 gentleman did murder Miss Wentworth in a 
 moment of rage, perhaps half accident, with that 
 heavy book. And he could go to bed and deny it 
 there were times when I couldn't believe it my- 
 self but an innocent man wouldn't have tried to 
 escape, his sons must know that." 
 
 Margetson's study of psychology had never 
 envisaged a simplicity of the civilized order that 
 made discomfort and the risk of catching cold of 
 greater importance than the self-conscious rectitude 
 that would prefer to be taken into custody and 
 incur heavy expense to say nothing of possible 
 illness in order to prove a man's innocence of the 
 charge against him. " If a man's not guilty he does 
 not need to hide," thought Margetson, " and the 
 proof of the pudding is in the eating. If he'd been
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 105 
 
 in Court to-day, they wouldn't have committed him 
 for trial at least I suppose that old sheep, Lord 
 Thorell, wouldn't, and that would have been the 
 end of it, for the moment anyhow." 
 
 But he was not quite sure. Sir John Elgin had 
 let off Anthony without demur, but he might have 
 found it difficult to be equally lenient if the real 
 offender had been before him. It was true that the 
 Chief Constable of the county, Colonel Eltham, 
 had practically washed his hands of the business and 
 left it all to the detective from Scotland Yard, 
 but he had made inquiries lately of the police in- 
 spector at Calverstoke and had pooh-poohed the 
 idea of Mr. Preston as the possible criminal. 
 
 " All the same, Sir John was dreadfully bothered 
 by the book," thought Margetson, " because it was 
 just the sort of thing an irritable old fellow might 
 do, throw the book without actually meaning to 
 hurt her. His going off to bed so quietly after- 
 wards was a bit out of the picture ; but a man 
 may do anything in self-defence, to avert suspicion, 
 and there's something behind that Colquhoun fund 
 I shall have to find out a bit more about that. 
 If he played any hanky panky with that, it was 
 enough to scare him stiff when she wanted to pub- 
 lish the facts. Possibly he was only trying to frighten 
 her out of it. Something did frighten her, there's 
 no doubt about that." 
 
 The next morning, directly after breakfast, he 
 rang up the naval barracks and asked for Com- 
 mander Preston Commander Preston was out ; 
 evidently his naval duties began at an early hour.
 
 io6 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Margetson asked for an appointment on urgent 
 business, gave his name and the telephone number 
 of his hotel. As the morning went on, he became 
 impatient, walked down to the barracks and again 
 asked for Commander Preston, only to be told that 
 he was still out, and Margetson, full of impatience, 
 went back to his hotel. There he found a message, 
 giving him an appointment at six o'clock. He 
 arrived punctually and was shown into the smoking- 
 room, where a vigorous-looking young naval officer 
 not in the least like the other members of his 
 family whom Margetson had seen, greeted him in a 
 ringing voice and with a sufficiently hearty manner, 
 though with considerable reserve behind it. With all 
 his supposed simplicity, a naval officer is essentially 
 suspicious ; he has a fear, apparently derived from 
 constant contact with his brother officers, of being 
 " bounced," and he never gives himself away to a 
 stranger. Margetson knew at once that Com- 
 mander Oliver Preston would not answer any ques- 
 tions that he was not fully prepared to answer. 
 
 Somehow or other, civil law, as known to the 
 police, hardly seemed to exist in those surroundings; 
 only the Admiralty. Without a word said it was 
 clearly conveyed to the detective that here he had 
 no authority and no status. 
 
 Oliver offered his visitor a chair, a cocktail, a 
 cigarette, after the time-honoured custom, but always 
 with the air of one in command to the commanded. 
 Margetson thought that he resented something; 
 but could not say what it was. 
 
 He refused all hospitality but the chair, and
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 107 
 
 began at once, ' You know my name, no doubt,*' 
 he very nearly said " sir," but recovered himself 
 in time. The man was young enough to be his 
 son. 
 
 " I do indeed," said Oliver, " if you won't have 
 a cigarette, do light your pipe." 
 
 He lighted his own pipe, after the fashion of one 
 to whom time does not exist. There is no one 
 so entirely care free and irresponsible as a naval 
 officer off duty. 
 
 " Well then, you know without my telling you, 
 that I am here on serious business, to ask for your 
 father, Mr. Preston's address ? " 
 
 ' Why the hell should I give it to you ? " re- 
 torted Oliver, in a quiet and conversational tone of 
 voice, looking at the bowl of his pipe to see if it had 
 lighted properly. 
 
 " Because," Margetson rapped it out sharply, 
 " he is wanted by the police." 
 
 ' We don't know anything about the police 
 here," said Oliver. " We are under naval law 
 you know." 
 
 " But Mr. Preston is not," said Margetson. 
 
 He was not certain how much Oliver was bluffing, 
 speaking with his tongue in his cheek. 
 
 ' You never know with these people," thought 
 Margetson, referring to those who have their busi- 
 ness in great waters, " whether they are really 
 children, or whether what you or anyone else could 
 teach them ain't worth knowing." 
 
 ' Well, of course," said Oliver, speaking with 
 the air of one making a polite concession, " if my
 
 io8 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 father were here he is not, I assure you he would 
 have to meet you on his own ground." 
 
 " And what the devil does he mean by that ? " 
 thought Margetson. 
 
 " You refuse to give me Mr. Preston's present 
 address ? " he asked. 
 
 " I have told you that he is not here." 
 
 Margetson got up. " Then I won't waste any 
 more time," he said, " but you know that unpleasant 
 consequences can be invoked for those naval 
 officers or not who obstruct the police in their 
 duty." 
 
 " Sit down," said Oliver. " I am not obstructing 
 you, and you have no witnesses, if I were. Let's 
 talk it over, without prejudice, you know. What is 
 it the newspapers are so fond of as man to man. 
 I've heard about you from my brother. I recognise 
 that you are only doing your duty. I'd like to talk 
 to you about my father, because you're altogether 
 on the wrong tack about him. You're wasting 
 your time trying to find him. He is not the man 
 you want." 
 
 " So I have heard several times from your 
 brother. I don't deny that you are good 
 sons." 
 
 ' We are rather more than that," said Oliver ; 
 " we know my father, and we've knocked about a 
 bit, both of us; we aren't easily taken in. My 
 father couldn't murder anyone. It is one of those 
 things that aren't done. If you'd realize that, you'd 
 simplify matters all round." 
 
 " I have been told the same story, even more
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 109 
 
 impressively, about a good many men who have 
 been proved guilty and hanged." 
 
 " Think it over," said Oliver. " My father is 
 irritable, and he does not hide his feelings, but he is 
 not violent, never was and never could be. I wish 
 you could have seen my mother. You'd have 
 known that her husband would never touch a woman 
 in anger." 
 
 Margetson stared at him in sheer amazement. 
 This display of feeling, of sentiment, or whatever 
 it was, was utterly unexpected. These Prestons 
 were always unexpected. Five minutes before he 
 would have called Oliver a damned obstinate, 
 arrogant brute, with a most annoying " quarter- 
 deck " manner, and now, thought Margetson, he 
 was talking like the hero of a movie about his 
 mother ! No, that was not fair. The young 
 man was quite real, unaffected, sincere, in his 
 tribute to his mother. But it was all part of the 
 same thing. These people thought that they could 
 jolly well say just what they liked, and expected 
 everyone to believe them. 
 
 " Do you think that you could forget for a few 
 minutes that I am talking about your father, and 
 see the case from a detached point of view ? Mind 
 you, I think you are going the wrong way to work. 
 Roughly, in nine cases out of ten, a man is doubtful 
 of himself and his case when he runs away. Just 
 think of him as John Smith, who is accused of the 
 murder of Arabella Brown. . . ." 
 
 " Must she be Arabella ? I feel that I could mur- 
 der anyone called Arabella myself . Well goon 1*'
 
 no A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Margetson frowned at the levity, but he went on, 
 " There can be no question that she was murdered, 
 hit on the head by a heavy brass-bound book that 
 was evidently thrown at her. John Smith had had 
 a violent quarrel with her that is known to two 
 reliable witnesses." Margetson repeated the story 
 that he had told before the Calverstoke magistrates, 
 and wound it up by saying, " At the first sign of 
 suspicion being roused against him, Smith ran 
 away, and his friends say that he could not face the 
 ordeal. We put it that he could not meet the charge. 
 Now, if he were really Smith, what would you 
 say ? " 
 
 " Isn't that the crux of the whole matter ? If I 
 don't know what sort of a fellow Smith is, how can 
 I judge ? He might bring a whole flood of reliable 
 witnesses to prove that he was totally incapable of 
 murdering anyone." 
 
 Margetson shook his head. " None of us is 
 totally incapable. At least who can be sure that 
 he is ? I daresay you have experienced with your 
 men that even the most trusted will suddenly run 
 amok. You can't let him off because you thought 
 him incapable of doing anything of the kind ? " 
 
 " Touche \ " said Oliver. " I yield the point for 
 the sake of argument, but with my fellows in nine 
 cases out of ten the trouble is caused by drink, 
 and in the tenth case by a woman, sometimes com- 
 plicated by debt or gambling. My father is not 
 in any of those galleys." 
 
 ' The whole of this trouble, if I am not mistaken, 
 was caused by a woman in debt a good many
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 1 1 1 
 
 years ago, it is true and it is a woman who has 
 suffered for it now." 
 
 " Rather a good caption, said Oliver. " No, 
 don't be offended ! I see what you mean. You 
 want to persuade us that my father is doing himself 
 harm by running away. Look here, I'll think it 
 over. It may be a mistake not to let him face the 
 music, but he has a groggy heart, it would do no 
 good to anyone if he died in court before any 
 verdict could be given ? " 
 
 Margetson shrugged his shoulders. ' That is 
 not my business, the doctors would have to be 
 consulted, but I have never seen anyone die in court." 
 
 " I'll think it over," Oliver repeated slowly, 
 with the manner of a man who is cogitating very 
 deeply, " but, honestly, I don't believe that he would 
 survive sitting in Calverstoke Gaol waiting for the 
 assizes. We might come to an understanding with 
 you to produce him in time for the trial. . . ." 
 
 Margetson 's face of sheer astonishment made 
 Oliver laugh. " I am not proposing to bribe you," 
 he said. 
 
 " Nothing doing that way," said Margetson, 
 " it wouldn't pay me." 
 
 Oliver jumped up and smote him with vehemence 
 on the shoulder. ' You're a good chap ! Tony 
 said that you were, though he vowed he would 
 rather be dead than have the low opinion of his 
 fellow-creatures that you have. I am not sure 
 that you are not right about my father, he himself 
 thinks the hiding business all wrong, but he has 
 a vision of Calverstoke Gaol without his own man,
 
 U2 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 and can't face it. Perhaps if he could take Wilkins 
 and his books and his hot-water bottle, and a perfect 
 cargo of medical stores and gadgets, he would not 
 mind so much." 
 
 " Think it over," said Margetson. He wished 
 he could persuade Oliver that the minor comforts 
 of life were a poor exchange for the higher principles. 
 
 " Look here ! " Oliver said impulsively, as if 
 on the spur of the moment, " give me till to-morrow, 
 and dine with us to-night, to show that there is no 
 ill-feeling. I must go now, but do come ! Never 
 mind about a boiled shirt if you haven't one with 
 you. There won't be many of us." 
 
 If Margetson had known a little more about the 
 manners and customs of the Navy, he would have 
 realized that for Oliver to invite him to dine at 
 mess without dressing for dinner meant that for 
 some mysterious reason his presence was much 
 desired, but he had a " boiled shirt," and he went 
 to dine at the barracks. There were only about a 
 dozen men there. The Commodore of the barracks 
 was married and dined at home, some of the others 
 were on leave or away with their submarines. 
 Margetson thought them a quiet lot, pleasant young 
 fellows, though, naturally, he looked on them all 
 as potential criminals, and they occasionally sub- 
 sided into naval slang which he could not follow, 
 but discovered that most of them were hurrying 
 over their meal to go to a dance in the neighbour- 
 hood, some way out of the town. 
 
 He sat between Oliver and a light-hearted young 
 lieutenant, Paul Hardy by name, who chattered
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 113 
 
 freely, mostly about submarines. Evidently he was 
 very keen on his job, and Margetson began to be 
 infected by his enthusiasm, though it struck him 
 once or twice that some of the others looked aston- 
 ished, if not impatient, and he caught one of them 
 making a face at Hardy. Margetson liked the boy, 
 and, since the war, had always wished to see and 
 know more about the " under-sea boat " at close 
 quarters. 
 
 Hardy told him a fine story of courage, persever- 
 ance and presence of mind shown by a stoker 
 petty officer who was the sole survivor from a sub- 
 marine which sank after attempting to ram an 
 enemy submarine during the war. Everyone, 
 except the one man who had remained in the engine- 
 room, was choked by the escape of chlorine gas. 
 The one survivor knew that his only chance was to 
 open the torpedo hatch in the hope of being blown 
 out of the boat by the escape of air. After seven 
 heart-breaking failures he succeeded, though himself 
 half choked with gas, and with one hand badly 
 crushed. Then, as Hardy said, he reported, " I 
 raised the hatch and escaped, rising to the surface 
 and being picked up by the destroyer Dodo" 
 As one might say, " I opened the door and walked 
 out," after that desperate but never despairing 
 struggle of over an hour and a half. 
 
 Even Margetson had to own that he could not 
 utterly despair of human nature after that story. It 
 would have made Hardy laugh if he had said what 
 he really thought, " We ought to have that man 
 at Scotland Yard."
 
 n 4 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 After dinner, when most of the party had gone 
 to their dance, Oliver, Margetson, Hardy, and 
 another man, who proved to be a doctor, played 
 bridge. Eventually young Hardy said that he would 
 drive Margetson back to the hotel, in his very ancient 
 two-seater car of an antediluvian type that almost 
 shook the teeth out of your head. ' You may arrive 
 alive," said Oliver Preston as they started, " but 
 you will certainly be in little bits. Everyone who 
 drives with Hardy is lucky if he can be reassembled 
 from adjacent parts of the car, and not from remote 
 points on the journey.'* 
 
 " I wonder," Hardy said, as they drove away, 
 " if you'd care for a run in my boat, the Z. 1 7 ? She 
 goes a bit smoother than this," he laughed, " unless 
 the sea's very choppy." 
 
 " I have to be off some time to-morrow, thanks 
 very much all the same, I should have liked it," said 
 Margetson, with chattering teeth, clutching his hat. 
 
 " Couldn't you stay another night ? We are 
 going out to-morrow, three of us Z.'s, for exercises. 
 My skipper is taking a guest, I am sure you could 
 come." 
 
 " It is very kind of you," Margetson was really 
 tempted. He enjoyed new experiences, and flying 
 had ceased to be a new experience, but he had never 
 tried a submarine. 
 
 " The owner, he was not there to-night, dining 
 with his best girl or something, his name's Jarvis, is 
 taking old Preston, the bloke I mean Commander 
 Preston's father." 
 
 Margetson felt like the proverbial housemaid
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 115 
 
 who might have been " knocked down with a 
 feather." So that was how they proposed to take 
 Mr. Preston out of his reach. It was quite true 
 that he would never have thought of looking for 
 him in a submarine. He managed to ask without 
 more emotion than could be accounted for by the 
 vagaries of his chariot, " Is Mr. Preston staying in 
 Devon port ? " 
 
 " No, he is at Stoke or somewhere in the suburbs, 
 but he is coming in to-morrow. We are going to 
 run him over to Westingbury, there's a pier there 
 that we can get alongside. I think he is going to 
 stay with the jolly old Bishop of Truro or somebody 
 like that. You know the bloke's grandfather was a 
 bishop, he is always rather tangled up with eccle- 
 siastics. A car is going to meet Mr. Preston at 
 Westingbury. Rather sporting of the old boy 
 he's frightfully ancient to want a run in a sub- 
 marine, but he says we are not to submerge while 
 he's on board. The M.O.'s coming too, to keep 
 an eye on him. We are going to start at 3 o'clock 
 from the harbour, you know where the submarine 
 pens are, don't you ? I don't think there will be a 
 gale to stop us. Do come along if you'd like it." 
 Margetson concluded that Jarvis, if he had been 
 at dinner, might have been warned to say nothing 
 about Commander Preston's father, but that no one 
 had thought it worth while to warn young Hardy, 
 probably no one troubled to find out if he knew 
 that Mr. Preston was coming, and Margetson 
 himself had been introduced very vaguely as " a 
 friend of my brother's." He looked, as Oliver
 
 n6 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 remarked in a brotherly spirit to Anthony at a later 
 date, much more aristocratic that most Varsity dons. 
 Had not the most noble the Vice-Chancellor of 
 Oxford * been turned from the door of one of his 
 own college farms, as a tramp, and a seedy one at 
 that ? He was a bachelor, and Molly always said 
 that his clothes reminded her of a third-rate waiter 
 out of work. Margetson bore no resemblance to 
 a waiter of any kind even in a boiled shirt. There 
 was no reason why Hardy should not ask a guest of 
 " the bloke's," to go out for a trip, longing, after the 
 fashion of every specialist and ardent lover, to show 
 off the darling of his heart. 
 
 Accordingly Margetson, in high spirits for was 
 he not killing two birds with one stone, doing his 
 duty and taking his pleasure together arrived at 
 the submarine steps in the harbour, before three 
 o'clock the next afternoon, giving a glance on his 
 way to some of the famous memorials on the Hoe. 
 
 He little knew what was before him. 
 
 As Paul Hardy had foretold there was no gale, the 
 sun shone and the wind on shore was not noticeable, 
 but there was a short and choppy sea. Hardy met 
 Margetson with glee, and poured a vast amount of 
 technical information into his ear, as they stood on 
 the sloping deck of that peculiar contraption that 
 calls itself a submarine. He heard much about 
 ballast tanks, batteries, Diesel engines, dynamos, 
 ballast tank vents, re-charging batteries, accumu- 
 lators, valves, air-storage, stability, pressure ... if 
 he could have listened intelligently no doubt he 
 
 * This is a libel on any Vice-Chancellor.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 117 
 
 would have known everything that there is to be 
 known about a submarine in theory and practice. 
 
 Hardy and one or two of the seamen who were 
 on deck seemed to find it perfectly natural to stand 
 and walk about at any angle on their precarious craft, 
 with its practical absence of bulwark or freeboard, 
 without holding on to anything, but Margetson clung 
 firmly to a corner of the superstructure,* that con- 
 tained the conning tower and the one little four-inch 
 gun, because it seemed to be the only support and stay 
 that he could find in a sloping and slippery world. 
 
 He asked after Mr. Preston, but was told that 
 he had " gone to earth " already, in the officers' 
 quarters, having stoutly refused to " hold on to 
 nothing by the skin of his teeth." " He's in Jarvis's 
 berth, with his servant holding one hand, and poor 
 old Jarvey the other." Hardy giggled shrilly, and 
 then said, suddenly, " Hullo sir you look rather 
 green about the gills. Would you like a spot of 
 brandy ? " 
 
 He vanished from sight, while Margetson shut his 
 eyes, shivered a little and wished that the sea were 
 not so yellow. Hardy reappeared with startling 
 rapidity; he seemed to be able to balance himself, 
 like a cat or a fly, on any surface, anywhere, even 
 with a tumbler full of liquid in his hand. " It may 
 be rather nasty," he observed, " the M.O. has put 
 some stuflfinto it. Mother Siegel's soothing syrup 
 no, that's for babies but it's Mother-something, 
 anyhow he says it will put you right." 
 
 * The Z.i 7 was of the L-class, not the more modern type with 
 elaborate superstructure and several guns.
 
 n8 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Margetson drank it; it was exceedingly nasty 
 more syrup than brandy, he thought and it was 
 worse than useless. He was too ill to care, though 
 he found himself wondering what an M.O. was, 
 and if it could be put under arrest for poisoning 
 him, but he relinquished his despairing grasp of 
 the friendly corner that had sustained him, had an 
 idea that he blid into Paul Hardy's arms, and was 
 dragged off somewhere, down some ladder, leading 
 apparently to the nethermost hell, and was laid on a 
 shelf he thought it was a shelf, but it might have 
 been a coffin did they take coffins to sea with them? 
 He thought that dead bodies at sea were always 
 sewn up in the Union Jack. . . . After that he 
 seemed to himself to be existing in some awful 
 inferno, full of the smooth uncompromising sounds 
 of engines, punctured by his own agonies, tended 
 quite kindly by a man in blue serge that smelt of 
 the sea those lines on his collar what for 
 Nelson's victories. . . . Nelson was always sea-sick. 
 But Nelson had never been in a submarine. Why 
 had he not followed that great man's example ? . . . 
 Then apparently Margetson went to sleep, and woke 
 up with all that awful throbbing and vibrating and 
 rotating at an end, in a peace that he hoped was 
 eternal. . . . 
 
 All at once he found his kindly attendant bending 
 over him, asking if he would like a breath of air on 
 deck. The Z. 1 7 was at anchor, he said, at Westing- 
 bury. Margetson's professional zeal was on the 
 alert at once. He waited for nothing, but picked 
 up his coat, collar and tie, that had been taken off
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 119 
 
 for him, and dashed up the companion ladder, or 
 whatever it was called, and found himself on deck, 
 just as a gangway was hauled on board again. The 
 boat was alongside a fisherman's little rough pier, 
 and walking up the pier, in his usual sturdy manner, 
 his characteristic gait and the droop of his left 
 shoulder clearly visible, was Robert Preston, followed 
 by yes, without doubt followed by Wilkins. 
 Robert turned round and waved his stick, a familiar 
 farewell gesture, to the submarine. At the shore 
 end of the pier, within a stone's throw, as it were, 
 stood a large car, evidently waiting for him. 
 
 Margetson made a dash for the side of the sub- 
 marine, meaning, if necessary, to make a jump for 
 it, but he was held back by kindly though deter- 
 mined hands. " You can't go ashore now, sir," 
 said someone, " very sorry, sir, we didn't know you 
 wanted to land," and Hardy came up behind him. 
 
 " Are you better, sir, I thought you were asleep. 
 You've had a rough passage. I am deuced sorry. 
 You can't land now, I am afraid, we're just going to 
 dive. You won't feel the movement so much below. 
 We're going to do exercises, but we shan't be long. 
 It looks like blowing." 
 
 " You ought to have put me ashore," Margetson 
 said furiously, " if I am as ill as I was before, I 
 should think it would kill me. ..." 
 
 " Come along and look slippy, if you don't want 
 to be washed overboard. ..." 
 
 Down they went, somehow, and down went the 
 Z. 17. The remainder of Margetson's painful 
 pilgrimage under the sea may be covered with a
 
 120 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 veil of silence. It was only a poor remnant of a 
 man who staggered back to his hotel at Devonport 
 late that evening. 
 
 " You need not have given the poor chap such a 
 stiff go of emetic whatever it was," so said Oliver 
 Preston, later on the same evening, in intimate 
 converse with the doctor and Paul Hardy. 
 
 " He was bad," said Hardy, reminiscently, " I've 
 never seen anyone make such heavy weather of it. 
 I thought we should bring back only his corpse. 
 But Mr. Preston got away all right, he was not sick 
 at all, though he said he was going to be. I drew a 
 touching picture of his prostration in Jarvey's 
 cabin for Margetson's benefit." 
 
 " You carried out your orders very well, Hardy," 
 said his superior officer, kindly. " Your conversation 
 at mess yesterday nearly made me sick, but no 
 doubt it impressed Margetson. I am hardly in a 
 position to report favourably about you, but My 
 Lords would doubtless express their appreciation 
 of your services if I could. Did you tell our suffering 
 friend that my father had gone to Truro ? " 
 
 " I did, and I think the poor blighter will go there 
 to-morrow, but he won't ask us to take him." 
 
 " It shows how little Margetson understands my 
 father, or he would know that it is as absolutely 
 unthinkable that he would risk himself in a sub- 
 marine as that he would commit murder." 
 
 ** I am really beginning to respect Mussolini 
 and his castor-oil methods," said the doctor. 
 
 " Poor old Margetson ! " Paul Hardy laughed.
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 121 
 
 " He was as meek as a lamb when we landed him. 
 I told off Rogers to look after him, and he clung to 
 Rogers like a child to his nanny." 
 
 ' You're a hard-hearted, little beast," said Oliver. 
 '* Anthony imitates my father very well, though he 
 wouldn't come face to face with Margetson again, 
 something to do with the colour of his eyes. I've 
 had a rough time with Molly, because she wasn't 
 allowed to go too, disguised as Wilkins was her idea, 
 I think. You'd better take her out, Hardy, and 
 submerge and do trick turns with her as soon as 
 you can, or life won't be worth living. Don't let 
 this old fellow dose her though, at least not yet, 
 we'll try gentler methods first, before we imitate 
 Mussolini." 
 
 " Don't insult an old fellow," said the M.O. 
 " Am I not a gallant man, a squire of dames, and a 
 humble admirer of Miss Molly ? Your friend 
 Margetson looked a shade yellow, I expect he will 
 be none the worse for his dose." 
 
 " I'd sooner stay yellow," said Hardy, and dodged 
 something that the doctor threw at him. 
 
 " I wonder what our brother of Truro will do," 
 said Oliver, chuckling, " talk tosh about being 
 answerable only to the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as I did 
 about the Admiralty and naval law, though I 
 think friend Margetson suspected the presence of my 
 tongue in my cheek. Poor chap ! The underworld 
 must be a joke compared to us. I should think he'd 
 become a red hot Socialist out of sheer annoyance 
 with the professional classes ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MARGETSON got out of bed the next morning at a 
 reasonably early hour. He felt sore and bruised 
 and rather jaded altogether, but he rang for tea 
 and toast and a Bradshaw without doing more than 
 groan at the thought of catching a train to Truro. 
 
 He wondered if Oliver Preston knew who had 
 been on board the Z. 1 7, and if he would contrive to 
 warn his father ? For that reason Margetson con- 
 sidered it incumbent upon him to make an early 
 start. Of course Oliver would send for him later 
 to argue once more about Mr. Preston's innocence, 
 and probably in the end would give him a false 
 address. Margetson wondered a little why Oliver 
 had not done that before, but concluded that he had 
 thought it wiser to keep the detective under his 
 own eye until his father was out of reach. Margetson 
 wondered still more why Anthony had brought him 
 within reach, but supposed that for some reason, 
 probably connected with Mr. Preston's health, his 
 start for Truro had been deferred, or perhaps 
 Anthony had not been prepared for Margetson's 
 very prompt departure from Calverstoke. 
 
 The waiter who brought his breakfast and the 
 Bradshaw, also brought two telegrams, which made 
 the detective sit up in bed and swear aloud. 
 
 122
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 123 
 
 The first telegram ran: 
 
 " House broken into last night Miss Went- 
 worth's room entered only self and Crutchers here 
 waiting instructions. Pratt. Greystones." 
 
 The second was from the police inspector at 
 Calverstoke : 
 
 " Can you return immediately development at 
 Greystones. Smithers." 
 
 Margetson was torn in two, here was Robert 
 Preston almost within his grasp, but what did this 
 new " development," as Smithers called it, mean ? 
 
 He asked for a trunk call to be put through to 
 Calverstoke, and meanwhile dressed, in the spirit of 
 the mediaeval knight, who bathed before he went 
 into battle, if at no other time in his life. 
 
 Then he began to look up trains for Truro. 
 Who could have broken into Greystones, unless it 
 were another ruse engineered by Anthony, for whom 
 Margetson now had the deepest mistrust ? Anthony 
 must have known of his father's whereabouts, al- 
 though he had disclaimed that knowledge, or how 
 could he have sent Wilkins so quickly to join his 
 master at Devon port ? The whole affair seemed to 
 be a plant, to keep Margetson on the run. If that 
 boy had not invited him to go out in the Z. 1 7, he 
 would still be absolutely in the dark as to his quarry's 
 movements. Anthony was evidently trying to get 
 him back to Greystones. It was all very clever, 
 very neat. There would have been nothing in the 
 wide world to connect Mr. Preston with the Bishop's 
 palace at Truro, if, by the mercy of Providence, that 
 enthusiastic impulsive youth had not invited Marget-
 
 1 24 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 son to go for that most painful and personally 
 disastrous run. Even as it was he had been so ill 
 that he had very nearly missed seeing Mr. Preston 
 altogether. 
 
 Margetson went downstairs to speak to Inspector 
 Smithers on the telephone, and try to find out more 
 about the new position. 
 
 Smithers was at all events definite on one point. 
 " I think you had better come back," he said, " my 
 own impression is that this outrage is connected with 
 some property of Miss Wentworth's. You went 
 through her belongings, and you could tell better 
 than we can. I have had nothing touched. The 
 room is in sheer confusion, but I have had the 
 windows barred heavily outside, and have put two 
 men on night duty." 
 
 Margetson explained that he knew Mr. Preston 
 was at Truro, at the Bishop's palace, and that he 
 himself meant to go there that day. He continued, 
 in the code that had excited Molly, to say that he 
 meant to arrest Mr. Preston there, and would bring 
 him to Calverstoke probably next morning. 
 
 The inspector urged him to come at once. " I 
 think you will agree that this occurrence rules out 
 Mr. Preston. Someone is after something that was 
 in Miss Wentworth's possession. It was her room 
 they got into, by a ladder, through the window." 
 
 Again in code, Margetson suggested that it was 
 only the family. Mr. Anthony was probably 
 attempting to distract attention from his father. 
 The inspector's reply was astonishing. " I have 
 made enquiries. Mr. Anthony, with his daughter
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 125 
 
 and Wilkins, left by car the same evening that 
 you did, apparently, according to the servants and 
 Mrs. Beaumont, for Devonport. They certainly 
 slept at Exeter that night, and arrived at Devonport 
 the next day, because Wilkins' wife had a letter from 
 him that she showed to Pratt. I don't think that 
 this affair has anything to do with the family." 
 
 " The Crutchers aren't in it, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, no, Pratt heard noises in the night, and 
 woke them up." 
 
 " Has any information been sent to the Prestons?" 
 
 " Not to my knowledge. I told Pratt to wire 
 only to you." 
 
 " Very well," Margetson said reluctantly, " I 
 will come as soon as I can." 
 
 He still wanted to go to Truro, to make sure of 
 his prisoner there. Then an idea occurred to him. 
 He got himself put through to the palace at Truro, 
 and said he was speaking for Commander Preston, 
 who was anxious to know how Mr. Preston was 
 after his journey. 
 
 The call was answered, evidently by a servant, 
 who made considerable difficulties over the name. 
 Margetson at last said impatiently, " Surely Mr. 
 Preston is staying at the palace. He should have 
 arrived yesterday." 
 
 The man seemed astonished. " No, sir, Mr. 
 Preston is not here. Hold the line, I will make 
 enquiries." 
 
 After some delay, an educated voice began to 
 speak. " I am the Bishop's chaplain we don't 
 understand about Mr. Preston. I think I know who
 
 126 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 you mean, Mr. Robert Preston of Greystones, no, 
 he has not been here, was not expected. The 
 Bishop hopes that there has been no accident. He 
 would like to speak to Commander Preston." 
 
 Margetson said that the commander was out, 
 on duty, but would ring up later. He professed 
 considerable anxiety, and stated that, " Mr. Preston 
 started from Westingbury yesterday, to motor to 
 Truro, and he had certainly intended to go to the 
 palace." 
 
 The chaplain then went away, but came back with 
 a further message from the Bishop. He would 
 have been delighted to see Mr. Preston, but had not 
 expected him, and he had not arrived. .No car had 
 been sent from the palace to meet him at Westing- 
 bury. 
 
 Slowly it began to dawn on Margetson that he 
 had been " diddled again." What had the Calver- 
 stoke inspector said ? Anthony had gone to Devon- 
 port. He rang off, promising that Commander 
 Preston himself would telephone later. 
 
 Margetson sat down, with his still somewhat 
 dizzy head between his hands. He felt very much 
 like " the morning after the night before," but his 
 mind worked clearly enough. 
 
 The missing link was revealed; at last he under- 
 stood why Anthony had broadly hinted at informa- 
 tion to be obtained from Oliver. Truro was not in 
 the plot. His fellow passenger in the Z.iy had 
 been Anthony and not Robert Preston. 
 
 Margetson swore so loudly that a frightened 
 servant of the hotel came up to ask him if anything
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 127 
 
 were the matter. He pulled himself together, asked 
 for a whisky and soda, his bill and a taxi to meet 
 the next train to Truro. He would go back to 
 Greystones at once, but would leave the Prestons 
 under the impression that he had gone to Truro. 
 He knew that there was an up train about the same 
 time. Had Pratt or Crutcher wired the news about 
 the house to Anthony or Oliver ? Margetson hoped 
 fervently that they had not. But his suspicion of 
 an ingenious plot arranged by Anthony remained 
 strongly fixed in his mind. It would call for some- 
 one who knew the house very well to break straight 
 away into Eleanor Wentworth's room. He made 
 calculations. The Z. 1 7 had arrived at Westingbury 
 before five o'clock. It might have been just possible 
 in the big touring car that he had seen to get back to 
 Greystones before dawn, though the day broke early. 
 He had not asked at what time Pratt had heard 
 sounds and awakened the Crutchers. 
 
 Margetson arrived at Greystones late in the 
 afternoon, after picking up Smithers, the chief 
 inspector, at Calverstoke. Pratt and one of the 
 Calverstoke constables on duty met them at the 
 door, Pratt in a far more cheerful frame of mind than 
 when Margetson had seen him last. But he volun- 
 teered no information until Smithers questioned 
 him, " What did you hear last night ? " 
 
 " I was asleep, but was waked by the sound of 
 someone moving in the passage or the next room. 
 I was sleeping in the room next to the bow-window, 
 Miss Eleanor's room. At first I thought it was 
 Crutcher, getting up early to pump or something.
 
 128 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Then I looked at my watch, it was about 3 o'clock, 
 too early for Crutcher, so I got out of bed. Sure 
 enough I could see a light under Miss Eleanor's 
 door. The key of that room has been kept locked 
 up in a cash box in my room, so I could get it 
 quickly, but I thought it better to wake Crutcher 
 and get him to come with me. I crept round to 
 their room as soft as I could, but I s'pose the thief 
 heard me. When we opened the door it was 
 locked all right we found no one. The room was 
 all of a clutter as it is now, and the window was 
 broken. There was a candle guttering mercy it 
 didn't set fire to the house, with all the papers there 
 was about. There was a ladder up against the 
 window." 
 
 " Why do you say 4 the thief,' had he taken any- 
 thing ? " 
 
 " Not as I know, sir, but Mr. Smithers 
 thought best to leave things as they were till 
 you came." 
 
 " What time did you go to bed ? " 
 " About ten o'clock, sir. Not much after." 
 " Did you go round the house first ? " 
 " Yes, sir. Me and Crutcher. We did every 
 night, right round, outside, stableyard, front-drive 
 and garden and all. 
 
 " You saw no one, heard nothing ? " 
 " Not a blessed thing, sir. Patch, the yard dog, 
 was tied up in his kennel and we let him loose. I'll 
 swear he never made a sound all night." 
 
 Margetson grunted, " Looks as if he knew the 
 thief. Where was he in the morning ? "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 129 
 
 " Out in the yard, sir, waiting for his breakfast, 
 as he always do." 
 
 Margetson grunted again. He thought that was 
 pretty good evidence against the family. Patch 
 was a mongrel, but a very good watch-dog. It 
 had been one argument against any theory of an 
 intruder from outside when Eleanor was murdered, 
 that no one had heard Patch bark. 
 
 Margetson went outside first, and saw where the 
 branches and leaves of the roses growing up to the 
 broken window had been flattened and crushed by 
 the ladder against them. The window had been 
 boarded and nailed up. There was not much else 
 to see. 
 
 Margetson felt that he would be on firmer and 
 more familiar ground, hunting for a tangible thief, 
 than struggling through the web woven round him 
 by the Preston determination to keep their father 
 out of his reach. Yet he hardly hoped to find a 
 fresh clue in this affair. He felt more and more 
 certain, not only that in hunting for Mr. Preston 
 he was on the track of the real murderer, but that 
 the old man's sons knew it. The position had 
 become strained and difficult. Even if he brought 
 an action against the sons for obstructing him in his 
 duty, he doubted if any case would lie against them. 
 The magistrates at Calverstoke had rather " cramped 
 his style." 
 
 Smithers had made enquiries about the possible 
 escape of the thief, but no one had heard or seen 
 anything unusual. After all there were few people 
 on the roads at three o'clock in the morning. The
 
 1 30 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 gates had all been shut and fastened when Pratt 
 and Crutcher went to bed and apparently they had 
 not been opened. It had rained rather heavily in 
 the early morning so that all wheel-marks or foot- 
 marks had been obliterated. It seemed evident 
 that the intruder had come on foot or had at all 
 events left his car, if he had one, somewhere outside 
 the Greystones demesne. 
 
 " Well, we must go and look upstairs," Marget- 
 son said at last. He and Smithers went together, 
 followed by Pratt, into the bow-windowed room, 
 where Eleanor had been sleeping. Margetson 
 himself had already gone through everything in that 
 room, and as a precaution he had caused all the papers, 
 which Eleanor had had with her on that fatal night, 
 to be brought upstairs from the library, and locked 
 up in the bureau, which stood in the window. It 
 was on those family papers that he depended to 
 prove the motive for the crime of which he accused 
 Robert Preston. 
 
 He had thought " the bow-window " a most 
 charming room, with that air of grace and Tightness 
 that belongs only to rooms that have been cared for 
 by one generation after another; the atmosphere 
 of having " grown," and not of having come out of a 
 shop. The graceful old furniture was of the 
 " farmhouse " type very general in the eighteenth 
 century, and the gay-flowered chintzes were lavender 
 and green. This highly-favoured room had a south- 
 ern aspect, looking over the garden, and away to the 
 blue distance of fields and woods. The window 
 itself was modern, a bit built on to the original house,
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 131 
 
 over Robert Preston's smoking-room below, which 
 had also an added bow-window, of the same com- 
 fortable type. Until he inherited the house there 
 had been no smoking-room, he remembered as a 
 young man, in his grandfather's day, being sent to 
 smoke in the kitchen. In the present day, naturally, 
 everyone smoked everywhere, and " the smoking- 
 room " had become just Robert's own sanctum and 
 den. 
 
 Outside the house trees grew not far off, and 
 among them a pink chestnut then in full and glorious 
 bloom which must have thrown a glow right into 
 the room when the windows were open on the east 
 side. There were two or three rooms beyond the 
 bow-window upstairs, in what might be called the 
 east wing, and a garden door next to the smoking- 
 room below. A couple of panes on the east side of 
 the window had been broken, and evidently a ladder 
 had been put up there, a very easy matter, as the 
 house was not high, and the walls were thickly 
 covered with creepers, roses, jessamine and clematis. 
 Doubtless a hand had been put through the broken 
 pane to unfasten the bolt of the sash window, and 
 the rest must have been easy. The windows of the 
 upper floor had shutters, but they were never 
 fastened, and could easily be pushed aside. 
 
 Margetson stopped in dismay as the door opened. 
 The room as he had left it, was in the drearily neat 
 state of being unused, shut up, with dust sheets or 
 newspapers over everything, permeated with a 
 strong smell of camphor, and with every cupboard 
 or wardrobe door closed, every drawer firmly in
 
 1 32 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 position, the bureau locked. But now the dust sheets 
 had been thrown into a mangled heap on one side, 
 every drawer and door was open, the bureau and the 
 floor all round it seemed to be a mass of dishevelled 
 papers, letters, notebooks, diaries, sheets of foolscap, 
 one or two parchment deeds, long envelopes, in a 
 strange confusion, all heedlessly thrown down, 
 dashed hither and thither, pell mell, in a wild mad 
 unheeding search for something, something that had 
 been found and carried away, or that Pratt's well- 
 meant, but doubtless elephantine, efforts to be 
 quiet had disturbed the searcher in time to save ? 
 
 Margetson gasped, " Someone in a damned 
 hurry ! " 
 
 " You bet," said Smithers, who was not a refined 
 person, " but this is the real thing, Mr. Margetson, 
 no joke of Mr. Anthony's." 
 
 Margetson was silent, but he could not deny it. 
 There was something familiar, though perhaps 
 sinister, about all this. He had seen it before, 
 this apparently insane, desperate, secret, hurried 
 search for something, regardless of any and every 
 other consideration in the world. 
 
 But a search for what ? What could Eleanor 
 ever have possessed that could account for this con- 
 dition of affairs ? What had she attempted to 
 conceal or to keep even at the cost of her own life, 
 and that was still being hunted at the risk of the 
 hunter's life ? She had no jewels of any value, 
 and no hoard of money, of that Margetson was 
 certain. 
 
 If Pratt had only opened the door at once without
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 133 
 
 going for Crutcher, would he have caught red-handed 
 the real culprit, the murderer, or would he in his 
 turn have been sacrificed to some grim need ? 
 
 Pratt had evidently been frightened, there was no 
 doubt about that, but if he had only been quick 
 enough ? " 
 
 " There might have been more than one man in 
 it," said Smithers, who was probably going through 
 exactly the same considerations and calculations 
 as Margetson was, " but you can't suppose it was 
 Mr. Preston this time." 
 
 " God knows," said Margetson, bitterly. " I 
 have not the least idea where Mr. Preston is, or 
 what he is doing. So far as I know he is still the 
 only living soul who could possibly have any in- 
 terest in these papers." 
 
 It flashed into his mind that if the Colquhoun 
 papers had disappeared, his strongest proof of 
 Robert Preston's motive for committing murder 
 had gone. 
 
 ' Then he was not at Truro after all ? " asked 
 Smithers, in considerable astonishment. 
 
 " No. That was another false scent, laid by 
 Mr. Anthony." 
 
 ' You don't say so ! All the same you can't 
 see Mr. Preston climbing up a ladder and breaking 
 a window to get into his own house ? " 
 
 " No," Margetson wondered for a moment if he 
 could not see Molly and Mrs. Beaumont doing it, 
 but he hesitated; this was not the work of an 
 innocent amateur. There was an atmosphere of 
 " the real thing " about it.
 
 134 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 *' Any good looking for finger-prints ? " asked 
 Smithers. " It's dusty enough." 
 
 Margetson went up to the bureau ; there were 
 some marks on the polished desk, where the papers 
 had been thrown aside. He produced a magni- 
 fying glass out of his pocket. 
 
 " Gloves," he said, " oh, yes, that settles it, I 
 suppose, no amateur." 
 
 *' You never know," said Smithers. " Everyone 
 reads such a lot of detective stories in these days, 
 it might be the first thing they'd think of. They'd 
 have to put on gloves to get a hand through that 
 broken pane." 
 
 But Margetson was standing, with a transfixed 
 expression of countenance, looking at a paper 
 that had been pushed on one side among the 
 others. 
 
 " I think that I had better go through the lot," 
 he said. 
 
 . 
 
 That evening he wrote to Oliver Preston, ex- 
 plaining what had happened, and why he had had 
 to return so unexpectedly to Greystones. 
 
 " I think we are on the track of the real murderer 
 now," he wrote. " There is no reason why Mr. 
 Preston should not come home if he chooses." 
 
 No doubt Anthony would recognize a bit of real 
 human nature in the next sentence, " I know that 
 Mr. Preston is not at Truro, and that he was not 
 my fellow-passenger in the Z.I7." 
 
 It gave Margetson considerable pleasure to 
 refrain from saying how he had come by that know-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 135 
 
 ledge. If they liked to think that he had recognised 
 Anthony so much the better. 
 
 All the same he might have been astonished if 
 he had seen Anthony and Oliver with their heads 
 together over his letter. " Is it only a ruse to get 
 my father back ? " asked Oliver. 
 
 " Rather a clever ruse," said Anthony, " perhaps 
 we ought to wire to Ely to tell R. P. what has 
 happened at the house, and suggest that he should 
 continue to lie doggo." 
 
 It appeared that though Mr. Preston had not 
 " taken cover " in one bishop's palace, he had gone 
 to another, and was staying at Ely. The Bishop 
 of Ely was his cousin and great friend. It was 
 " a good wide zig-zag," as Oliver said, " after 
 escaping to Lyme Regis to fetch up at Ely." 
 Oliver had told no one, not even Anthony, where 
 his father was, until Margetson's letter arrived. 
 
 A reply to their telegram came the next morning. 
 " Mr. Preston left palace Wednesday no address his 
 lordship away. Gough." 
 
 Anthony knew that Gough was the butler at the 
 palace. 
 
 " Now where the devil has my father gone ? " 
 asked Oliver.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE day that the telegram from Ely was received 
 at Devonport, Anthony, Molly and the faithful 
 Wilkins once more, in nautical language " sailed 
 and proceeded " to Ely.* 
 
 It was a long journey; they arrived late and took 
 refuge in an hotel. The next morning, as early 
 as they dared, Anthony and Molly went to the 
 palace, which Anthony knew very well. They 
 found that it was practically shut up, but the 
 Bishop's chaplain, who was also his secretary, was 
 there and welcomed them, though, Anthony 
 thought, with a certain reserve. The Bishop was 
 unmarried, and it was supposed that he left all 
 household management to his chaplain, Mr. Under- 
 wood, and his wife.f 
 
 Mr. Underwood was a middle-aged man, a little 
 overwhelmed by his own importance, inclined to 
 stand on his dignity, also unfortunately inclined to 
 be fond of the sound of his own voice, which made 
 him repeat himself at frequent intervals. He had 
 a somewhat long red face, a long nose, and a thin 
 
 * A ship is still said to " sail," even in these days of unmitigated 
 mechanism ; she always " proceeds," and never " goes " anywhere. 
 
 t Ely is only a geographical expression. No Bishop anywhere 
 ever had a chaplain like Mr. Underwood. 
 
 136
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 137 
 
 neck, slightly blue, which had an inclination to 
 fold under the chin. Molly, with her modern 
 youthful disrespect of persons, said afterwards that 
 he reminded her of a turkey-cock, full of pretentious 
 gobbles, but with no chin and no fight in him. 
 " No chin ? " said Anthony, " I thought he had 
 quite a number of chins." 
 
 " The Bishop," said Mr. Underwood, " sailed 
 in the Montarabia for the Canaries some days ago, 
 yes, some days ago. He had been ailing all the 
 winter, and his doctor prescribed a sea-voyage. 
 Yes, yes, a sea-voyage. Perhaps you saw the 
 announcement in the Morning Post ? The Bishop 
 told me that Mr. Preston would find it convenient 
 to remain here for a time, so Mrs. Underwood 
 and I did our best to make him comfortable. Yes, 
 yes, we did our best. He was very independent 
 for his age, and liked going out alone to visit his 
 old acquaintances in the Close, but he seemed 
 fidgety, yes, yes, and if I may say so, a little irritable. 
 Mrs. Underwood thought so too, yes, yes, she 
 thought so too. We had to go away for a couple 
 of nights, to visit our son at school, and when we 
 came back, we heard that Mr. Preston had left the 
 palace, yes, he had left the palace. He had 
 written a note for me, and did not say that he 
 was going home, but he gave no other address, 
 so we concluded that he had returned to Grey- 
 stones." 
 
 " But he is not at home," Anthony broke in 
 hastily, before the conclusion could be repeated 
 in Mr. Underwood's impressive manner, " and
 
 138 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 for business reasons it is important that I should be 
 able to communicate with him at once." 
 
 ** You began to talk just like Mr. Underwood," 
 Molly told her father afterwards, " as if you had 
 a plum in your mouth, and a poker down your 
 back." 
 
 " I am grieved to hear that you have any diffi- 
 culty in communicating with him," said Mr. 
 Underwood, looking apprehensive, and with the 
 blue shade of his neck invading his cheeks, " but 
 I can assure you, yes, yes, I can assure you that 
 I am totally ignorant of Mr. Preston's where- 
 abouts." 
 
 " Well, but look here," said Anthony, " surely 
 Gough would know, or one of the servants ? It is 
 very unlike my father to go off without leaving an 
 address." 
 
 Mr. Underwood gobbled a little, and then 
 coughed, he seemed rather at a loss. " Shall I ring 
 the bell ? " asked Molly innocently. 
 
 " I think," said Mr. Underwood, looking 
 thoroughly startled, and drawing in his chin, which 
 did not require it, " that if anyone in this house 
 knows, I should know. The Bishop left me in 
 charge with complete authority yes, yes, complete 
 authority over the household staff. If anyone is 
 to ask the servants, I should prefer to do it myself 
 or Mrs. Underwood, of course, Mrs. 
 Underwood." 
 
 " Mrs. Underwood evidently wears the breeches," 
 thought Anthony, vulgarly. 
 
 " I am very sorry to be troublesome," he said,
 
 A WILDCAT SCHEME 139 
 
 " but if you or Mrs. Underwood would not 
 mind finding out one or two details for me, I should 
 be infinitely obliged." 
 
 Molly said " gobble-gobble-gobble " under her 
 breath, and her father turned his back on her, but 
 she could see his shoulders shake. 
 
 " Details ? " said poor Mr. Underwood, " de- 
 tails ? Really I don't know. What details ? " 
 
 "It is a shame to bother you," Anthony was 
 getting quite sorry for the man ; he envisaged Mrs. 
 Underwood as a very masculine and hectoring 
 lady, " but I must find out somehow where my father 
 has gone. He is an old man, you know. Did he 
 go by car or by train ? Gough could tell us that 
 anyhow, couldn't he ? Naturally it would not have 
 interested you or Mrs. Underwood." 
 
 " If he went by car," said Molly, " he may have 
 had an accident. He may be lying unconscious by 
 the roadside now." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Mr. Preston ! What a ter- 
 rible idea ! Certainly, certainly, ring the bell, 
 my dear young lady, by all means ring the bell." 
 
 In a few moments Gough opened the door, but he 
 was not told to come in and answer questions, he 
 was sent to ask Mrs. Underwood to come down to 
 the library. 
 
 " I hope you have no objection," said the Bishop's 
 chaplain to Anthony, " but in all household matters 
 I always er consult Mrs. Underwood." 
 
 Anthony expected to see a modern Mrs. Proudie, 
 a managing woman, and he was, in his turn, startled, 
 when a very delicate-looking, shrinking little figure,
 
 1 40 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 dressed in speckled uncertain garments, as if she 
 apologized for having to be dressed at all, appeared, 
 and almost ran to her husband, apparently for pro- 
 tection against possibly heartless strangers. 
 
 He introduced his visitors, and with much re- 
 petition of any favourite turn of speech, he told her 
 what they wanted to know. " Did you hear 
 anything, my dear ? Did the servants mention 
 the er manner, yes, the manner, of Mr. Preston's 
 departure ? " 
 
 " No, no, indeed. I asked no questions. They 
 said he had gone. I suppose our the Bishop's 
 car took him to the station." 
 
 " Of course, of course, no doubt, no doubt. 
 Well, Mr. Preston, I don't think we can tell you any 
 more. The Bishop's car took him, no doubt, to 
 the station." 
 
 Mr. Underwood drew himself up, thrust one hand 
 into his trousers pocket, smiled benevolently, and 
 evidently believed that the trouble was over. 
 
 " Perhaps the Bishop's chauffeur could tell us 
 what ticket he took," said Molly, seeing that her 
 father was apparently stricken dumb. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Mrs. Underwood, and then with 
 a sudden access of volubility, " perhaps not. You 
 know he cannot leave the car at the station, he has 
 to stay with it. Dear Mr. Preston no doubt found 
 a porter, he could not have carried his own luggage, 
 though he had so little with him. His washing 
 was really a question, but we have a laundry here in 
 the palace and I think we managed fairly well 
 for him, gentlemen's shirts you know, so difficult
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 141 
 
 to get up, and the Bishop and Mr. Underwood 
 don't wear them " 
 
 " Don't wear shirts ? " said Molly, " isn't it very 
 uncomfortable ? Grandpapa wouldn't like that. 
 Do they do it as a religious penance ? " 
 
 Mrs. Underwood giggled shrilly and feebly. 
 " Oh, dear, what have I said ? So like me ! No ; 
 I mean evening shirts, dear, you know, with stiff 
 fronts, shiny, Our laundry maids are not accus- 
 tomed to them, though they do the Bishop's collars 
 and cuffs very well. I think Mr. Preston bought 
 some more shirts in the town. He and the Bishop 
 bought them together. The dear Bishop was 
 quite excited, said he had not done such a thing 
 for years. Gough orders all his clothes for 
 him." 
 
 " I expect Gough would have made a better hand 
 of the shirts," said Anthony, wondering why in the 
 world they were talking about shirts. It was like 
 his father to insist on dressing punctiliously for 
 dinner at the palace, though he generally con- 
 tented himself with an old velvet smoking-coat at 
 home. 
 
 Suddenly, while poor Mrs. Underwood and 
 Molly maundered on, Anthony understood ; Gough 
 was the deus ex machina. These two feeble souls 
 were perhaps figureheads, but Gough did the work. 
 It was like Harold Moxon, the Bishop, to maintain, 
 probably out of his private means, at a good salary, 
 an inefficient ass like Underwood, because he was 
 sorry for him. Anthony began, also in a flash, 
 to understand why his father had run away.
 
 142 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " After a week of Underwood I should have 
 turned into a poor gabbling thing like his wife," 
 thought Anthony, " but my father is made of 
 sterner stuff." 
 
 He made up his mind to follow the excellent 
 parental example, " Good-bye," he said, " sorry to 
 have bothered you. We must go and make en- 
 quiries at the station." 
 
 " But but " Mrs. Underwood evidently 
 
 struggled with emotion too deep for words \ her 
 husband came nobly to the rescue, ' Won't you 
 and Miss Preston stay for lunch ? We generally 
 lunch at one o'clock, yes, at one o'clock." 
 
 ' Thank you very much, no, we must get on. 
 I have a great deal to do. Good-bye many 
 thanks no, don't trouble to come out. I know 
 the way, used to stay here as a boy. Good-bye, 
 come along, Molly." 
 
 They found themselves in the hall at last, without 
 the Underwoods, and Gough, with a myrmidon at 
 the door, was holding Anthony's coat. 
 
 " I want to have a word with you, Gough," 
 said Anthony, " old times and all that, you know. 
 When can you come round to the Royal Dane ? 
 Miss Preston and I are staying therej but we have 
 to be off this afternoon." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Gough; he found some- 
 thing in his hand besides Anthony's coat collar, 
 " I'll be down in half an hour." 
 
 " Good for you," said Anthony. 
 
 " I call that a cowardly flight," said Molly, when 
 they were well on their way and she had stopped
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 143 
 
 laughing, after comparing Mr. Underwood to a 
 turkey cock and Mrs. Underwood to a turkey hen. 
 " A turkey hen moves her head and gobbles and 
 giggles just like Mrs. Underwood," Molly said. 
 '* Figure to yourself, Daddy, that you and I, two 
 strong competent human beings, with a fair share of 
 brains between us yes, I know you have the larger 
 share, don't argue about it we have been defeated, 
 routed, put to flight, by a turkey cock and hen 1 
 They did not tell us one single thing we wanted 
 to know." 
 
 " I found out, though," said Anthony, with 
 conscious pride, " that Gough could tell us." 
 
 ' The Underwoods are probably congratulating 
 themselves at having got rid of us without having 
 to question Gough in our presence. It must be 
 awful to feel like that." 
 
 " Like what ? " asked Anthony. " Underwood 
 feels all right. He has complete authority over the 
 household staff, and he always consults Mrs. 
 Underwood on domestic matters. What more 
 would you have ? " 
 
 " It must be awful to have an inferiority complex 
 about your own butler. I wonder what the turkey- 
 chick at school is like ? " 
 
 " I don't care a brass farthing what he is 
 like." 
 
 ' You might just as well have said a bloody 
 curse," said Molly, " much more expressive than a 
 brass farthing. I shouldn't have minded, and the 
 Underwoods wouldn't hear. Just think how they'd 
 gobble if they did 1"
 
 144 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " I wish you would mind," said her father. " It 
 is one of my arguments with your mother. She 
 likes beauty about her, people, clothes, furniture, 
 good Lord, yes ! They cost a pretty penny, and 
 she is welcome to them all, but why not have 
 beautiful language too ? Why does she let you talk 
 what she calls modern slang ? " 
 
 * You don't set us a very good example, darling," 
 said Molly, demurely, taking his arm, " and 
 language does not cost anything." 
 
 Anthony groaned. " No, it comes out of the 
 gutter." 
 
 " You are rather a dear," said Molly. " I'll say 
 gobble gobble if you like. What are you going to 
 ask Go ugh ? " 
 
 After all Gough, when he arrived at the hotel, 
 could only tell them that it was not the Bishop's 
 car that took Mr. Preston away. Mr. Preston 
 had hired a car in the town, quite suddenly, in the 
 morning of the day when Mr. and Mrs. Underwood 
 were expected back in the afternoon. 
 
 " Do you know the garage ? " asked Anthony. 
 ' Yes, sir, Fitzwilliam's in Northover Street." 
 
 " Mr. Preston did not give you any address for 
 his letters ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I took it for granted that he was going 
 home, and I knew the Greystones address, but he 
 did tell me to open any telegram that came for him, 
 and answer that he had left the palace, if the tele- 
 gram required an answer. I was not to forward 
 it. He left me some money for replies, but you 
 prepaid your answer, sir,"
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 145 
 
 " Quite so. I suppose he did not mention any 
 reason for going ? " 
 
 " No, sir except he was quite happy while 
 his Lordship was here, but afterwards " 
 
 " Well, afterwards ? " 
 
 " He seemed well a bit bored, sir, I should 
 say. ... I think he wanted to get home, if I 
 might say so, sir." 
 
 " But he has not gone home," said Anthony, 
 " that's the trouble. I am dreadfully afraid that 
 he may have had an accident, and that no one knows 
 his address." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Anthony was a good deal 
 relieved to hear of his father's provision for tele- 
 grams, it made him much less anxious than he had 
 been before. Possibly the old fellow had thought 
 it a good move. No one should know where he 
 was, not even his own sons. 
 
 " Well, sir, Fitzwilliam's might tell you. The 
 car may be back by now." 
 
 Anthony turned the conversation, talked about the 
 Bishop, asked after Mrs. Gough and the youngsters, 
 and was very affable and friendly, as Gough himself 
 would have said. 
 
 After the man had gone, Anthony said to Molly, 
 " Gough is the perfect servant. Did you notice 
 that we never once mentioned the Underwoods, 
 and his eye did not even twinkle when he said that 
 my father was bored. Poor old boy ! No wonder ! 
 I can't think how he stuck them out so long." 
 
 " Where can he be ? " asked Molly, a trifle 
 anxiously. " Let's go at once to Fitzwilliam's.
 
 146 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 I feel as if ' life would be never the same again', 
 as your old song says. Grandfathers ought to be 
 always available, in the chimney corner. If you 
 don't know where your grandfather is, what do you 
 know ? I expect to hear that Mummy has vanished, 
 and then I shall commit hari-kari in sheer despair. 
 Chimney corners ought not to move." 
 
 " I suppose you don't look on me as a chimney 
 corner ? " asked Anthony, discontentedly. 
 
 Molly laughed. " I don't hope that you, or if 
 you come to think of it, Mummy, won't move," 
 she said. 
 
 Fitzwilliam was only a little more helpful. Mr. 
 Preston had taken the car for a week, a Daimler 
 saloon, with one of their best drivers. No, the car 
 was not back yet, he did not expect it for a day or 
 two. Besides, Mr. Preston had said he might 
 require it a little longer. Yes, he had given them 
 a cheque for the week ; it did not much matter, 
 they knew he was staying at the palace. The num- 
 ber of the car ? Oh, yes, of course. A girl bending 
 over a card index in the background gave them the 
 number, wrote it on one of the Fitzwilliam bills, 
 and that was all. 
 
 " No, the chauffeur has not communicated with 
 us," this was in answer to Molly, with a smile. 
 " He wouldn't, unless Mr. Preston wanted to hire 
 the car for another week." 
 
 " I suppose you heard no instructions about the 
 road they were to take," asked Anthony. ' We 
 are anxious, because Mr. Preston has not written, 
 and if there were an accident "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 147 
 
 " We should have heard of an accident, I think, 
 certainly," was Fitzwilliam's opinion, " but we were 
 not told where Mr. Preston was going." 
 
 However, half-way down the street as they went 
 away, a girl's voice was heard calling after them, 
 " You left your bag in the garage, Miss," she had 
 it in her hand and gave it to Molly, " and, oh, 
 please, Miss, I heard you asking about our number 
 five Daimler. The chauffeur, George Green, he's 
 engaged to me," she looked quite pretty as she said 
 it, " and I had a letter from him last week. They 
 were at Cambridge then, and were going on to 
 London, after that he did not know." 
 
 Both Anthony and Molly thanked her warmly. 
 The return of the bag was an excuse for more 
 material gratitude, addresses were exchanged, she 
 would let them know if she heard again. 
 
 " But after all," said Anthony, as they went on, 
 " she hasn't told us anything. London is no clue 
 at all. I am beginning to feel for Margetson." 
 
 Molly stopped short. " Margetson ! Of course 
 he is the man ! He does not want to find Grandpapa 
 on his own account now, but he may as well find him 
 for us. The police aren't much good if they can't 
 find a car when they know the number. We must 
 send him that number at once ! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ANTHONY thought that it might be worth while to 
 go to London and enquire for news at his father's 
 club, also from the Charltons, with whom Robert 
 Preston generally stayed when in Town. 
 
 Meanwhile, Anthony had a curious conversation 
 with Margetson on the telephone. They fenced 
 with each other a good deal, and Margetson was 
 exceedingly stiff and unbending in his manner and 
 speech. He refused to say any more about the 
 latest event at Greystones, but Anthony at last 
 made him believe that none of the family knew 
 where Robert Preston had gone. " I must leave 
 it to you," Anthony said at last. " I understand 
 that you withdraw your charge against my father, 
 owing to the fresh evidence that has now come be- 
 fore you. I refrain from saying, ' I told you so,' 
 but I will give you the number of the car that he 
 took from Ely, and suppose that you can set the 
 proper machinery in motion to find out where that 
 car is now. No doubt I could also get a message 
 to my father broadcasted ? He is fond of listening 
 to the wireless wherever he is. I should like to 
 let him know that there is no further object in his 
 keeping away from his own house." 
 
 148
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 149 
 
 Margetson then spoke urgently and hastily : 
 " No, no, nothing must be broadcasted. I will do 
 anything that I can, through Scotland Yard, about 
 the car, but for heaven's sake advertise nothing. 
 You don't know how important complete secrecy 
 is at this moment." 
 
 " I could word it so that no one else would 
 know ? My father would certainly miss the 
 agony column, or I might try that." 
 
 " For God's sake, no, No, NO ! " cried Marget- 
 son, much perturbed at the other end of the line. 
 " Don't give the smallest hint to any living creature, 
 beyond yourself and your brother, that I am not 
 still hunting for Mr. Preston. I will make the 
 country hum to find his car, but that does not 
 matter. It is rather a good thing. It will look as 
 if the police were still after him. I can't tell you 
 how much depends on secrecy. Shall I meet you 
 in London, if you can't come down here ? I have 
 to go up to-morrow to make enquiries. I might 
 give you a further hint then of the direction my en- 
 quiries are taking. But I can't tell you by telephone, 
 though I am speaking from Calverstoke on the police 
 station line now." 
 
 " I wonder what on earth he is after," thought 
 Anthony, but he consented to wait while a search 
 was made for the car from Ely, or at all events until 
 he could interview Margetson in London. 
 
 To Anthony's great astonishment, Margetson 
 began by insisting on driving out, in Anthony's car, 
 to a Surrey common, near Ashstead, before he 
 would say anything at all. " There must be
 
 150 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 absolutely no chance of our being overheard," 
 he said, and would not allow the car to be stopped 
 until they were on a by-road at the top of a hill 
 with heather stretching away on each side of it, 
 and the deep silence that means isolation hemming it 
 in. There was little wind, the sky was blue and 
 sunny, and in so treeless a place, not even a bird 
 twittered. The main road was a mile away, and 
 there was barely even a gorse bush within sight, 
 only the soft, clean, undulating stretch of heather, 
 not very high, and freshly green with the young 
 shoots of May. 
 
 It was a lovely spot, and certainly as lonely a 
 spot as could be found on a summer's day within 
 easy reach of London. All this precaution was 
 inclined to make Anthony laugh. He thought, 
 as he had never thought before, that Margetson 
 was nervous. What the devil was the man going 
 to tell him ? Was this only some curious method 
 supposed to impress Anthony himself with the need 
 for secrecy ? 
 
 The story that Margetson told was strange 
 enough indeed, though part of it was already known 
 to all the world. In the spring of that year, almost 
 immediately after the time that Eleanor Went- 
 worth was murdered, great public excitement had 
 been caused by a raid carried out by the police on 
 the premises of" Arcos, Limited," a Russian trading 
 company in Soviet House, London, in order to 
 discover confidential documents, said to have been 
 obtained by secret agents from certain British 
 Government Offices; documents which contained
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 151 
 
 highly confidential official information. The search 
 warrant for the raid was granted when it became 
 known that one particular document had undoubted- 
 ly been conveyed to Soviet House by means which 
 were yet untraced. 
 
 The document in question was not found, though 
 others of almost as incriminating a character were 
 discovered, but the Arcos Company, the Russian 
 Trade Delegation, and the Soviet diplomatic officials 
 all made great capital of the fact that the paper 
 which caused the search to be instituted was not 
 discovered, neither itself nor any of the photostat 
 copies that were supposed to be made of all import- 
 ant papers and forwarded to Moscow. It seemed 
 to be a most vital question whether the Soviet 
 Government had received the information con- 
 tained in that document, or not. 
 
 Margetson spoke in so low a whisper that 
 Anthony could hardly hear him, " I found that 
 paper in Miss Wentworth's room." 
 
 Anthony turned and stared at the man sitting next 
 to him with much the same incredulity that he had 
 felt when Margetson suggested that Robert Preston 
 was the murderer of Eleanor. He wanted again 
 to laugh. Why did the man always go off at such 
 impossible angles, and with such preposterous 
 solemnity ? 
 
 ' You found it ? But how or why ? Why 
 didn't you say so before ? Of course I don't know 
 exactly what the paper was, but I do know that my 
 cousin had nothing whatever to do with any current 
 work at the Foreign Office. ..."
 
 152 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " Hush-sh-sh ! " said Margetson. He was evi- 
 dently exceedingly nervous. 
 
 " But no one can possibly hear us," said Anthony 
 impatiently. " I can tell you about the current 
 work as an undoubted fact. Also, I can tell you 
 for another undoubted fact that she never, in the 
 whole course of her existence, took away official 
 documents from the office. I was in a Government 
 Office for a bit towards the end of the war and I 
 know that it has been done, by officials who have 
 urgent work in hand. They take it home with 
 them. I don't pretend to criticise, but Eleanor 
 had principles, rooted principles; she thought it 
 wrong, nothing would have persuaded her to do 
 anything of the kind. She would have preferred 
 to stick in that little room of hers, scribbling for 
 dear life, all day and all night, rather than carry 
 anything out of the office. You can take that from 
 me as a fact. She was like that, rather over- 
 conscientious. I told you something of her earlier 
 life, she was made that way, I suppose. Perhaps 
 it was partly nervousness she would have been 
 afraid." 
 
 " But she had work with her ; she was doing some 
 official work that night ? " 
 
 " You and I looked at her papers. There were 
 only notes in her own writing, nothing of any 
 importance whatever. She was putting together, in 
 chronological order, communiques on various sub- 
 jects, already published. She had a lot of news- 
 paper cuttings if I remember right ? " 
 
 " So I thought. Certainly this paper was not in
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 153 
 
 the library when I went through her things the day 
 after her death." 
 
 " Then I don't understand why you think now 
 that she had it ? " 
 
 " It was there in her room after the thieves, 
 or whoever they were, had broken into it the other 
 night." 
 
 " Where is it now ? " 
 
 " At Scotland Yard." 
 ' You are sure it is the missing paper ? " 
 
 " Perfectly sure. Scotland Yard had the whole 
 description of course, and directly after Miss 
 Wentworth's death they sent me the number, 
 because she had been working at the Foreign 
 Office/' 
 
 " But how was it that you did not find it 
 before ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I went through everything in 
 her bedroom. It must have been hidden in some 
 remarkably ingenious way." 
 
 " But if that was what was wanted by the man 
 who killed her, why did he again leave it behind ? " 
 
 " I conclude that he was disturbed by Pratt and 
 Crutcher, or that in his haste he did not see it, 
 though he must have discovered the hiding place. 
 Undoubtedly he was in a great hurry. The 
 papers were scattered pell-mell all over the room. 
 My immediate suspicions were that you or pos- 
 sibly young Harper were after the Colquhoun 
 papers. I could understand that you might wish to 
 remove all trace of any possible motive that Mr. 
 Preston might have had for such a crime."
 
 i 5 4 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " It is the most incredible thing I ever heard 
 except your suspicions about my father." 
 
 " I can tell you something else. That docket 
 was actually in Miss Wentworth's hands a few 
 days before she left Town." 
 
 Anthony looked at the hard expressionless face 
 next to him with considerable suspicion. Had 
 Margetson taken leave of his senses ? Did de- 
 tectives sometimes get a case " on their nerves " ? 
 Was he inventing all this story to " save his own 
 face," because the case against Robert Preston 
 could not be proved ? Could it be possibly a very 
 ingenious put-up job to get hold of Robert 
 again ? It was a fact that if they had known 
 where he was, his sons might have advised him to 
 go back to his own house. 
 
 " Can you be sure of that ? " Anthony asked. 
 
 " You can be sure of it yourself, by the evidence 
 of your own eyes," said the detective, a little sullenly. 
 He knew that Anthony was finding it hard to be- 
 lieve a word that he said. " If you like to come to 
 Scotland Yard with me, I will show you Miss 
 Wentworth's signature on the jacket or docket 
 outside the document, following a minute in her 
 own writing, dated, as I say, a few days before she 
 went to Greystones." 
 
 " Do you mind telling me in what capacity she 
 saw the paper ? " 
 
 " I can't show you the document itself. You 
 know how papers are circulated in a Government 
 Office, and minuted on the docket. There was a 
 question I am not at liberty to explain it but
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 155 
 
 a reference to another paper more than twenty 
 years old was required, and it happened to be among 
 those on which Miss Wentworth was working. 
 She was asked to verify the reference, and minuted 
 the docket, giving the number, date, and so on of 
 the original." 
 
 " Presumably it was passed on to someone else ? 
 Who minuted it after she had it ? " 
 
 " No one," said Margetson, briefly. " There 
 is no record of its having passed through other 
 hands." 
 
 " I would bet my bottom dollar," said Anthony, 
 slowly, " that someone else took that document 
 to Greystones, not Eleanor." 
 
 " My dear sir ! " said Margetson, " why should 
 they ? " 
 
 " Have you seen her people at the Foreign 
 Office ? " 
 
 11 I have indeed. I interviewed her superiors 
 in the Office and they declared the same complete 
 confidence that you have in Miss Wentworth, and 
 to prove it I was given every facility to cross-examine 
 her colleagues, her typist, her messenger, anyone 
 who might have taken that paper from her room. 
 They declared that as usual she left everything 
 very carefully locked up, no papers in her trays, 
 everything in order." 
 
 " I suppose the docket was marked to go to some- 
 one ? ' 
 
 '* Yes, in the ordinary course it would go back to 
 the higher official who had asked the question, but 
 he never received it. I gather that before her death
 
 156 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 they had begun to have suspicions and decided on the 
 Arcos raid. If I remember right, Mr. Preston had to 
 fill up a form stating that at the time of her death 
 Miss Wentworth had no official documents in her 
 possession, but it was purely formal. No one 
 imagined for a moment that she had taken the 
 paper. When the raid was instituted it was supposed 
 to have been stolen on its way from her to Sir John 
 Davidson, who had sent it to her." 
 
 " John Davidson ? Oh, I know, the P.O. 
 cipher expert. But he never had anything to do 
 with Eleanor ? " 
 
 " No, as I tell you, the paper went to her merely 
 to be checked with the former paper that she 
 had." 
 
 " Are you watching any of these people ? " 
 
 " Of course, especially the messenger, but he is 
 a very decent fellow, a disabled soldier. He said 
 that he had not seen it, and supposed that she took 
 it back to Sir John herself. His secretary brought 
 it to her, not the messenger. Yes, I am having 
 the secretary watched, but he is a permanent official, 
 of some standing. I think he is practically above 
 suspicion. You see it is a damning fact that the 
 paper has been found actually among Miss 
 Wentworth's belongings." He did not add that 
 to his mind it was a very damning fact. He had 
 not yet satisfied himself that Eleanor was completely 
 beyond suspicion, in spite of the honour in which 
 she appeared to be held. She was dead, and men 
 have a superstitious horror of speaking evil of the 
 dead, so thought Margetson. He thought also
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 157 
 
 with his wide and cynical experience of human 
 weakness, that money is a powerful lever, and the 
 Soviet or Arcos agents had money to burn. 
 
 " A damning fact ? In what way damning ? 
 If she had the paper she seems to have defended it 
 with her life." 
 
 " But she had it in her possession, that is what 
 I mean," Margetson hesitated, and then went on, 
 " To tell you the truth, at first I suspected that you 
 had found the paper, and by way of preserving Miss 
 Wentworth's reputation for being utterly trust- 
 worthy, you had concealed it, not realizing its 
 importance. Then when all this business about 
 Arcos came to light, you thought it might be the 
 key to the mystery of her death, and therefore 
 shuffled it back under cover of another break into 
 the house, hoping also in that manner, no doubt, 
 to divert attention from Mr. Preston." 
 
 " I wish you would not be so ingenious," said 
 Anthony, holding his head with both hands, " it 
 is such tortuous reasoning ! Even if Eleanor had 
 had an official document with her, I should not 
 have thought it criminal, though I should have been 
 greatly surprised. As you say, I might have 
 suspected that it gave a clue to the mystery, but that 
 would have been no reason for me to conceal it, 
 rather the contrary." 
 
 " I know, I apologize, but you are rather ingen- 
 ious, you know." 
 
 " My ingeniousness is very simple," said 
 Anthony, " rather of the schoolboy type. . . . Yes, 
 I realize that you find it hardest of all to excuse the
 
 158 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Z 17, but go on ! Why have you changed your 
 mind ? " 
 
 " Because I know that you and Miss Preston 
 were at Devonport that night, also your brother 
 and Wilkins. Pratt and Crutcher are 'not clever 
 enough to have brought off the housebreaking in 
 the professional manner in which it was done. 
 I took steps to find out your whereabouts at once. 
 I discovered that you and Wilkins drove straight 
 back to Devonport, after you landed from the Z 1 7. 
 You knew that you would have nothing to fear 
 from such a poor crumpled-up remnant of a man 
 as I was that night. Since then I have discovered 
 further evidence. No, I can't explain at present 
 what it was. This is not a matter only of the 
 murder of a private individual, however regrettable, 
 it is mixed up with important public affairs. Some- 
 times I fear that we shall never get to the bottom of 
 it. These international rogues are practically be- 
 yond our reach. We have put the Government 
 secret service fellows on to it now, but I have very 
 little hope." 
 
 " I thought that Scotland Yard had a private 
 searchlight turned on to every creature in the 
 country with a drop of Russian blood in his veins 
 or even Russian boots on her feet shall we 
 say ? " 
 
 " Perhaps ! It would be a bigger job than you 
 think, but we have no searchlights powerful enough 
 to show up all the employe's and agents who work, 
 perhaps indirectly, for the Soviet. A number of 
 them are no more Russian than you or I. Half
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 159 
 
 the wretches who get hold of Government papers, 
 God knows how, have no idea who wants them. 
 Perhaps you will now understand why I don't wish 
 my information to be broadcasted ? " 
 
 " I give it up," said Anthony, " though, especially 
 after your aspersions on my father's character, I 
 shall be deeply disappointed if the real murderer 
 is not discovered. I have always felt what a cursed, 
 callous brute he was. It would give me enormous 
 satisfaction to give him the fright of his life, the 
 damned scoundrel ! " 
 
 " Vengeance," said Margetson, slowly and heavily, 
 "is " 
 
 " Go on," said Anthony, " vengeance is ? " 
 
 " Very disappointing," the other man answered, 
 " though I should have enjoyed inflicting the third 
 degree on all of you in the Z 17." 
 
 " It was rather a shame ! The M.O. doctored 
 your drink with a bit too heavy a hand." 
 
 " Doctored my drink on purpose ? Oh, that 
 was it, was it ? I wondered. That boy said it 
 was something to cure sea-sickness. The brute ! 
 
 I was not sure what an M.O. was Good God 
 
 Preston what is that moving in the heather over 
 there ? " 
 
 " A Slav, no doubt," said Anthony coolly, as 
 he started the car ; " if we are going to discuss 
 naval doctors I vote that we go on " 
 
 But Margetson refused to do anything of the 
 kind. He had to find out what was shaking the 
 heather, and until he had marked down a crouching 
 hare, on her way to her form in the nearest wood,
 
 160 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 he would not allow himself to be restored to 
 equanimity. 
 
 " He has got it on his nerves," thought Anthony. 
 " I expect he ought to be relieved from the case. 
 He is in as bad a funk as even poor Eleanor was. 
 Of course he knows that these Bolshevik fellows 
 stick at nothing. I wonder if he will ever discover 
 anybody or anything. He is ready to shy at his 
 own shadow.'* 
 
 Margetson did not tell Anthony that he had 
 been making intensive enquiries about Eleanor 
 Wentworth, in every sort of direction and going a 
 long way back. You never knew, he considered, 
 who might be preying on a solitary woman. Against 
 his will, almost, he had been forced into a sort of 
 respect for a feminine type hitherto completely 
 outside his experience. In his private life he had 
 little to do with the other sex; it was a long time since 
 he had come to the conclusion that if he meant to 
 make a success of his profession he must eschew 
 the company of women. He had married young, 
 chiefly as a matter of business, his wife had died after 
 a few years, leaving no children, and he had prac- 
 tically forgotten her. All his interests were bound 
 up in his profession. There was no softening or 
 disturbing influence in his life. 
 
 It was only to be expected that a man so concen- 
 trated and one-ideaed as he was should find such a 
 woman as Eleanor Wentworth unusual and almost 
 incomprehensible. She had lived a life practically 
 in three watertight compartments, which encroached 
 on each other very little, if at all. He had known
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 161 
 
 men, but never before a woman, who could do it. 
 She seemed to be as entirely devoid of emotional 
 or sexual complications as he was himself. Through 
 what deep waters she had passed to arrive at that 
 stage he could not find out, beyond the few hints that 
 Anthony had given him, but he guessed at their 
 existence. He was convinced that she had not been 
 without attraction for men, yet certainly for the last 
 fifteen or twenty years of her life, probably since 
 she was thirty or thereabouts, she had lived a self- 
 contained existence, working very hard, as it were in 
 two dimensions. In her official life, she did im- 
 portant, laborious historical and archival work, and in 
 her literary life, she seemed to find rest and amuse- 
 ment in writing novels, memoirs, reviews, even 
 poetry, a considerable output for one whose days 
 were spent in tireless work of a different nature. 
 Although, unlike Anthony Trollope, whose official 
 labours had not been tinged with literary effort, 
 her historical research was not without a literary 
 character. 
 
 The third division of her life had been given up 
 to her friends and relations. It was true that her 
 nearest and dearest no longer lived to claim her 
 devotion, but she clung to those who, though less 
 closely linked, were yet her own people. 
 
 Margetson found that her relations, and even her 
 closest friends, hardly realized the different sides 
 of her life. She resisted no claims on her time or 
 attention that she could possibly meet, and though 
 not secretive, she was naturally reserved, very in- 
 dependent, and apparently she confided in very
 
 1 62 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 few. In all her relationships she was essentially 
 robust. She was sympathetic but not sentimental, 
 and she " consumed her own smoke." The friends 
 of her literary life were not her official colleagues, 
 and they all seemed to be practically unconscious 
 of any aspect of her character which did not come 
 within their own purview. 
 
 In fact the Mrs. Danvers whom she had made her 
 literary executor was practically the only friend 
 who knew and understood her from every angle. 
 It may be imagined that Margetson had driven 
 poor Mrs. Danvers almost out of her mind by his 
 enquiries and suggestions. He had been originally 
 astonished by the varying sources from which sprang 
 the notices of Eleanor's life and work that had been 
 published after her death. A distinguished his- 
 torian had written of her careful, scholarly, accom- 
 plished work for history, known only to a few. 
 More than one well-known critic had mentioned with 
 appreciation and understanding her other work 
 and her literary gifts, and her own family had been 
 rather naively astonished. None the less they had 
 been ready to sing praises of the affectionate, 
 sympathetic Eleanor that they had known, her 
 humorous enjoyment of life and small amusements. 
 As an example of this attitude Anthony had told 
 Margetson about her official job, but had rarely 
 mentioned her literary interests. 
 
 ; Margetson could not exactly call her mysterious, 
 but he felt certain that there was some key to 
 her whole life on which he could not lay his 
 hands. He resented both her versatility and her
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 163 
 
 reserve ; it gave him so much trouble to rake up 
 any fact that might shed a light on the mystery, 
 not merely of her death, but of this extraordi- 
 nary complication with the missing official docu- 
 ment. 
 
 If he could discover that she needed money 
 urgently, desperately, for herself or another, it might 
 offer some explanation of her possession of the 
 incriminating paper. The man who had proved 
 to be her murderer might have intended to buy 
 the document, and when she refused to let him have 
 it, had killed her in a moment of ungovernable 
 anger, possibly also in self-defence, thinking that 
 she would rouse the household or telephone to the 
 police; but he had failed to find the paper 
 he wanted. 
 
 That sounded plausible, and accounted for the 
 second effort, but not for the fact that the paper had 
 remained in her possession. If she meant to sell 
 it, why had she refused at the last moment ? Why 
 had it been necessary for the Arcos agent to break 
 into the house where she was staying ? If she had 
 not meant to sell it, why had she brought it away 
 with her, and how did the murderer know that she 
 had it ? 
 
 It had occurred to Margetson, though he did not 
 confide the suspicion to Anthony, that the man 
 who had come for that paper found her already 
 dead, killed by her uncle, as the detective had 
 originally supposed ; but he hesitated, the long 
 arm of coincidence seemed to be stretched 
 too far, and it was impossible even to the in-
 
 1 64 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 grained suspiciousness of the detective's mind, to 
 imagine that Robert Preston was in league with 
 Arcos ! 
 
 Again he went back in his mind to Eleanor, 
 trying to find the motive that might be the key to 
 the whole affair. Her means were small money 
 was certainly the most obvious motive, he could not 
 think of any other but she earned enough to live 
 a simple frugal sort of life in a modest flat, with one 
 old servant, who seemed absolutely crushed by her 
 death. She had, evidently enough, refined and 
 cultivated tastes, which she could not indulge, but 
 her extravagances were not of a kind to require 
 drastic efforts to meet. She had involved herself 
 in the affairs of no one else, no promises to pay for 
 the extravagance or misfortunes of another, no 
 foolish speculations, or gambling, not even any sort 
 of literary venture that might have led to expense. 
 She did not even play bridge. Probably she would 
 have made a greater success if she had ventured 
 more. As Anthony had said, she always played for 
 " safety first," she was afraid nervous and 
 that again seemed to queer the pitch, thought 
 Margetson. He knew very well that for anyone of 
 Eleanor's mentality and experience to sin against 
 the " Official Secrets Act " required courage of a 
 higher order than the bravery of the ignorant, as 
 well as a preponderating motive which he could not 
 find out. 
 
 There was absolutely nothing that Margetson 
 could discover to account for the fact that a docu- 
 ment, of which the loss had apparently caused in-
 
 A WILDCAT SCHEME 165 
 
 ternational complications, had been in her private 
 possession. 
 
 He thought of all this, as he and Anthony drove 
 back to London, but he could form no conclusions.* 
 
 " Have you found any trace yet of my father's 
 car ? " Anthony asked. ' That is apparently going 
 to be as great a mystery as the other. To tell you 
 the truth I am beginning to get the wind up about 
 it." 
 
 " We will go to Scotland Yard on our way back 
 if you like, and ask. I have not heard anything yet. 
 There are quite a few cars in England you know, 
 and their numbers can only be traced with diffi- 
 culty." 
 
 Anthony grunted. " I have lost my childhood's 
 faith in most things," he remarked, " but I still 
 believed in the police . . . until now. Are you going 
 to tell me that an old man, over eighty, with a crocky 
 heart, can evade them, all by himself, with this 
 astonishing facility, though they know the number 
 of his car and the date of the letter that his chauffeur 
 certainly posted at Cambridge ? " 
 
 Margetson laughed. " Hunting for a car now- 
 adays is a great deal worse than hunting for a needle 
 in a haystack. Of course I've had the roads from 
 Cambridge to London watched ; there are several 
 ways that you can come, but we were probably 
 too late. The chauffeur's letter was two days 
 old when we heard about it. I know you have made 
 your own enquiries at likely places in London. 
 
 * The whole of this story of the missing document is pure fiction.
 
 1 66 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 But we have no clue at all to his road out of Town. 
 If the car is in a private garage and not on the roads 
 we shall have great difficulty in tracing it." 
 
 They arrived at Scotland Yard, and Anthony 
 followed the detective through labyrinthine passages 
 to an ordinary sort of office room, lofty and airy, 
 overlooking the river, full of desks, at which clerks, 
 some in plain clothes, sat working, surrounded by 
 filing cabinets, ingenious pigeon-holes, telephone 
 receivers. From a door at one end of the room 
 came the sound of clacking typewriters, and at the 
 other end they passed into a smaller room, where a 
 man, who seemed to be of greater importance than 
 the industrious clerks, got up to greet Margetson, 
 and saluted him with the conscious smile of success. 
 
 " We have found the car, sir, AT 5091. It is 
 garaged at a place called Blanesburgh in Lincoln- 
 shire, arrived there two days after you sent us the 
 number. Party is staying at the Rectory, but they 
 hadn't room for the car." 
 
 " Blanesburgh," said Anthony, " why the devil 
 should he go there ? I have never heard of it 
 before. Who is the Rector ? Do you know his 
 name ? " 
 
 The superintendent turned over a small file of 
 papers, already on his desk. * We had most of it 
 by telephone," he said. " Yes, here it is the Rev. 
 Arthur Lambert." 
 
 " The car is still there, I suppose," said Anthony, 
 " and presumably Mr. Preston is still at the 
 Rectory ? " 
 
 " Mr. Preston ? Wait a bit, that was not the
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 167 
 
 name given. No, Mr. and Mrs. Archer James 
 Archer and daughter." 
 
 " My last illusion gone ! " cried Anthony, in a 
 tone of not unreasonable exasperation. ' You 
 have tracked the wrong car." 
 
 1 We have tracked the number you gave us," 
 said the superintendent.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE garage at Ely repeated obstinately, when rung 
 up by Scotland Yard, that AT 509 1 was the number 
 of the car in which Robert Preston had departed 
 from the hallowed precincts of the Bishop's palace. 
 
 " They would, of course," said the superinten- 
 dent, " no garage would admit that it had given a 
 wrong number." 
 
 " But that girl," said Anthony, " must have 
 known the number of the car that her young man 
 was driving? " 
 
 He had already explained how he had heard that 
 his father had, in the first instance, gone to 
 Cambridge. 
 
 ' The thing would be to get hold of the girl, on 
 the quiet, outside the garage," suggested the 
 superintendent. 
 
 " It must have been her mistake," said Anthony ; 
 " she gave us the number." He took out of his 
 pocket a letter case in which he found the original 
 Fitzwilliam bill-form with the number of the car 
 on it in the young woman's writing, and below that 
 her address, added by Anthony himself when she 
 gave it to him afterwards. 
 
 " Perhaps the chauffeur put her up to it. What 
 
 168
 
 A WILD-CAT: SCHEME 169 
 
 was his name ? " asked the superintendent, with his 
 pencil poised ready for the answer. 
 
 " George Green," said Anthony, rather unwil- 
 lingly; he found that he had taken a great dislike 
 to the process of having all his remarks entered in 
 a notebook. It occurred to him that the publica- 
 tion of a notebook compiled by a superintendent 
 of police might cause more scandal and excitement 
 than even the most indiscreet and racy of Society 
 diaries. He then gave, also unwillingly, the name 
 of the girl clerk, Clare Entwhistle. 
 
 " I suppose you think they are agents of Arcos 
 or something of that kind," he said to Margetson, 
 as they went down in the lift. 
 
 " Very likely," said Margetson, laughing, as at 
 a good joke, but directly they were in Anthony's 
 car again, he said peremptorily, " For God's 
 sake, Preston, don't talk casually about Arcos in 
 public places, as if it had any connection with 
 our business. There were two strangers in the 
 lift with us. You don't seem to understand that 
 they have spies or agents, if you like that word 
 better everywhere . ' ' 
 
 " Even in Scotland Yard ? You amaze me," 
 said Anthony, but his tone was contemptuous. 
 
 " All the same, why should that young woman 
 have given you the wrong number ? " 
 
 * Well, it is rather a habit of young women to 
 give one the wrong number," laughed Anthony, 
 who had recovered his temper, " and when enwrapt 
 in love's young dream, some people are remarkably 
 absent-minded."
 
 170 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Margetson, " a fiver from some 
 agent ' as you call them, produces a convenient 
 absence of mind, far more readily than any amount 
 of love's young dream." 
 
 " Is that the answer of experience ; were you 
 ever in love, Margetson ? " asked Anthony, with 
 a twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Not with a Russian, anyhow," said the detective. 
 ' You don't mean that this mystery about my 
 father has anything to do with a Russian ? " 
 
 " I should not be surprised," Margetson 
 answered. 
 
 " I should, emphatically," said Anthony, and 
 began to laugh again, " you don't think that he has 
 eloped with a Russian ? " 
 
 ' More likely that a Russian has eloped with 
 him," said Margetson. " I must say it seems as if 
 the wrong number were deliberate." 
 
 He looked frowning and intent. " I don't like 
 it," he said at last. " I know what you thought 
 of me because I suspected Mr. Preston of the 
 murder, but I don't want any harm to happen to 
 him." 
 
 ' You only did your damnedest to get him 
 hanged," said Anthony. " I thought that I or 
 rather he had not a leg to stand on in court that 
 day at Calverstoke. They'd have committed him 
 for trial all right if he'd been there." 
 
 " That was purely professional. This is per- 
 sonal. I hope he has not met with any foul play." 
 
 " I can't see any motive for it. No one could 
 connect him with Eleanor's official documents."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 171 
 
 " Someone may have thought that he knew 
 where the document was. Very few women are 
 so detached as Miss Wentworth seems to have 
 been. An old man alone is much at the mercy 
 of his chauffeur." 
 
 " Good God ! " said Anthony, " you make me 
 very anxious. What can we do about it ? Suppose 
 we advertise for George Green ? " 
 
 ' That would give the show away at once. I 
 don't suppose for a moment that his name is George 
 Green. It sounds like an assumed name anyhow, 
 too thoroughly infantile and simple. No, we. must 
 get hold of that girl. The so-called Green has 
 probably posted Mr. Preston's letters in his own 
 pocket. He has done very well, as far as that 
 goes. We have completely lost sight of Mr. 
 Preston." 
 
 " You give me cold shivers," said Anthony. 
 " Do you remember that my father is eighty ? 
 He is not fit to struggle with Bolshevik chauffeurs 
 in uncertain quarters of the globe ... or even of 
 this our England ... I know 1 I will go to his 
 bankers. The oldest and best or the youngest 
 and most Bolshevik of us can't do without 
 cheques." 
 
 Margetson eyed him coldly, " I did that long 
 ago. He paid the garage by cheque, and cashed a 
 cheque for himself for forty pounds the day before 
 he left Ely, and he has had nothing since then." 
 
 ' That is more than a week ago. Forty pounds 
 won't last long if he is staying at hotels with a car 
 and a shover."
 
 172 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " No, but if he has transferred himself to another 
 bishop's palace, it might last some time ? " 
 
 " I guess that he is fed up with bishops' palaces, or 
 at all events with their chaplains and their chaplains' 
 wives," Anthony answered. " Let me think, where 
 would he be likely to go ? I know he is not with 
 my sister or with any near relation. In fact I have 
 had already to tell a few lies about him to some of 
 them." 
 
 " Old friends ? " suggested Margetson, hopefully. 
 
 " We must remember that he thinks he is still 
 fleeing from justice ; not that he ever took that 
 very seriously. We have cousins down in Corn- 
 wall, Evan Day, you know, but the Days bore him 
 more than a bit. He would not go from Scylla 
 to Chary bdis." 
 
 " But if you don't think he takes his flight from 
 justice, as you call it, very seriously, why did he 
 leave Ely ? I imagined that he got frightened 
 there, saw someone who looked like me, per- 
 haps. . . ." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. The chaplain bored him. 
 There you have it in a nutshell, my father all 
 over . . . and a saint would be bored by that fellow 
 Underwood." 
 
 " I gather that the Bishop puts up with him ? " 
 
 " Harold Eliensis is a saint, if ever there was one. 
 He dwells in a world apart. Appeal to his love or 
 his pity, and you couldn't bore him if you tried for 
 a hundred years. For some reason or other he 
 is sorry for Underwood they were at Winchester 
 together, I believe but my father, well, after all,
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 173 
 
 why should he permit himself to be rubbed sore by 
 Harold's particular form of sackcloth next the skin? 
 I have my doubts if his doctor did not send even 
 Harold to sea to free him from his old man on 
 land." 
 
 " Can you think of anyone else that Mr. Preston 
 might like to visit ? " 
 
 " He has one cousin, who lives abroad, to whom 
 he has always been devoted. She is very much 
 attached to him yes, that is just her way of putting 
 it. By Jove ! It would be rather sporting of him ! 
 Perhaps he has gone out to her. She lives in 
 some remote spot near one of the smaller Italian 
 lakes." 
 
 " If the garage at Ely isn't playing a double game, 
 they'd know if he had taken their car out of England 
 licence, insurance, passport for the chauffeur 
 I can find out what cars have been shipped to 
 Italy in the last week, if you think it is worth 
 while ? " 
 
 Anthony sighed. " He would never take all 
 that trouble. I know he wouldn't, not for any 
 amount of pursuing justice. Well there are my 
 mother's people ; one of her nephews has a place 
 in Scotland, Berwickshire. That's the ticket 1 
 My father is rather fond of Rowley Maxwell. 
 Someone had better get into touch with him at 
 once." 
 
 " You can do that, send him a wire. That 
 won't give anything away. But haven't you any 
 more ecclesiastical relations nearer at hand, any 
 more bishops or deans ? "
 
 174 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Anthony laughed, but that evening he sent off 
 a sheaf of telegrams, without telling Margetson; 
 in fact he was " getting the wind up " more than 
 he allowed. This independent proceeding was so 
 extremely unlike his father. Suppose those blighted 
 Arcos people imagined that he had gone off 
 with the incriminating document ? It was only at 
 that moment Anthony remembered that after all 
 he had not seen the document at Scotland Yard. 
 
 Why had Margetson omitted to show it to 
 him ? 
 
 The next morning he went off by himself to Ely, 
 leaving Molly to open the reply telegrams, and to 
 let him know if there were any news. 
 
 He arrived at Ely in the afternoon, and went 
 straight to Fitzwilliam's, where the owner recog- 
 nized him, and was ready to be sympathetic about 
 his failure to trace Mr. Preston's car. 
 
 *' The week's just up," said Fitzwilliam, " we 
 ought to hear from Mr. Preston or Green shortly." 
 ' What is the slip-up about the number ? " 
 asked Anthony. " Scotland Yard traced the number 
 you gave me, and it proves to be a private car 
 belonging to a Mr. Archer." 
 
 " I know, they rang me up yesterday. I think 
 the mistake must be theirs. I can show you my 
 ledger." 
 
 But as it happened, Anthony never saw that 
 ledger, because the girl clerk who had originally 
 given him the number, suddenly came into the 
 office, with a telegram in her hand, shaking like a 
 leaf. In the midst of his own preoccupation
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 175 
 
 Anthony was sorry for her. She was so evidently in 
 desperate distress. " Oh, sir," she said to Fitz- 
 william, " Oh, sir ! " and then choked, as she held 
 out the telegram to him. 
 
 Fitzwilliam frowned at her. The private griefs 
 of his clerical assistants ought to be under better 
 control. " Not now, Miss Entwhistle," he said, 
 waving her away, " I have business with this 
 gentleman. You can come in later." 
 
 " I can wait," said the father of daughters. 
 " Miss Entwhistle has a telegram urgent bad 
 news I am sorry." 
 
 " It is about George," she said, gasping, as she 
 recognized Anthony. " Oh, sir, have you heard ? 
 He was with Mr. Preston." 
 
 A freezing wave of fear flowed over Anthony; 
 all that his father had ever meant to him seemed to 
 rise in his mind at once. What could the girl mean 
 an accident ? " Let me see the telegram," he 
 said, as Fitzwilliam took it rather grudgingly from 
 the young woman's hand. 
 
 " I ought to have heard about an accident," 
 Fitzwilliam complained, as he looked at the flimsy 
 bit of paper and passed it on to Anthony, shrugging 
 his shoulders. It ran : 
 
 " Green, 7 Court Street, Ely. Come at once, 
 your son dangerously ill, fear consequences. 
 Medical officer, county hospital, Calverstoke." 
 
 " Mrs. Green George's mother brought it. 
 She wants me to go with her. Please, sir, may I 
 go ? There's a train at six. We must go to- 
 night."
 
 176 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 She was fighting pluckily for self-control, and 
 Anthony, impulsive as ever, caught her hand. 
 " Steady ! " he said, " I am in this too. If it was 
 an accident, what has happened to my father ? 
 I'll take you you and George's mother. I have 
 my car here. It's a long way, but we can get there 
 to-night. Hurry up, get what you want, and tell 
 Mrs. Green that I will come " he looked at the 
 telegram " to Court Street in half an hour." 
 
 " Calverstoke now what the deuce are they 
 doing at Calverstoke ? " he thought, but said 
 nothing to show his wonder. 
 
 Fitzwilliam nodded to the girl and she went away, 
 murmuring shy gratitude. Evidently he did not 
 like being hustled, but probably he was not really 
 hard-hearted, and there was something about 
 Anthony that no one could gainsay. 
 
 ' That for your A.T. 5091 at Blanesburgh ! " 
 Anthony observed, and watched Fitzwilliam. Was 
 the man a rogue in the pay of Arcos, as Margetson 
 had suggested ? But Fitzwilliam's perfectly ordin- 
 ary blunt countenance remained unmoved. "There 
 was a mistake somewhere," he said, as if it were a 
 matter of little consequence. He went and looked 
 at the card index, and came back again and looked 
 at a ledger. Then his face lightened, " It's 
 Miss Entwhistle's writing that's done it. It ought 
 to be A.F. 5091. She makes bad F's, they look 
 like TV 
 
 ' Well, upon my soul ! " said Anthony. He 
 remembered that the girl had given him only the 
 written number, she had never said what it was.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 177 
 
 He could not complain bitterly, though it would 
 have relieved his feelings, because he was sorry 
 for the idiotic girl, whose mistake might have cost 
 her lover's life. If the police had found the car 
 sooner, possibly they might have cut short its 
 journey and prevented the accident. Anthony, very 
 naturally, had made up his mind that there had been 
 an accident. His only hope was that possibly his 
 father had escaped, or had not been in the car at the 
 time. Fitzwilliam was inclined to think that an 
 accident was impossible, because the police would 
 have let him know, before anyone else could 
 hear. 
 
 All the same he could not explain why George 
 Green should be lying in a precarious state in the 
 Calverstoke hospital. ' That was a good car," he 
 muttered, as Anthony turned to go away, " a very 
 good car. It belonged to Sir James Molyneux ; 
 I bought it because her ladyship wanted a Rolls; 
 good as new it was. Sir James was very particular 
 about his chauffeurs, no lick and promise there. 
 They had to look after their cars as if they was 
 alive, or they heard about it you bet yer life they 
 did. Sir James wasn't mealy-mouthed, not by any 
 manner of means. That was a beautiful car. I 
 will say for Green that he was a good driver too, 
 slick but not too slick, he was careful, but not 
 nervous. I'd have trusted any car with Green. 
 It wasn't his fault, I'd put any money on that . . . 
 if there was an accident." 
 
 " I will let you know," said Anthony, coldly. 
 
 Of course the man was thinking of the insurance,
 
 i 7 8 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 not of the safety of life or limb of anyone in the car, 
 passenger or driver, but his attitude was intolerable 
 to the man to whom insurance meant nothing, the 
 safety of the passenger everything. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Fitzwilliam. 
 
 Apparently it did not occur to him to express 
 gratitude for the help offered to Miss Entwhistle, 
 but something in Anthony's face made him repeat 
 again, " I don't believe there was an accident." 
 
 " Good day ! " said Anthony. 
 
 " Rather a high-handed gent," thought Fitz- 
 william, and decided to ring up the police at Calver- 
 stoke. He gave the right number of the car, and 
 asked if there had been any accident in the district 
 during the last few days, but he could not get much 
 out of them. They would make enquiries and let 
 him know. 
 
 Anthony had not thought of consulting the local 
 police, but he rang up Molly when he got back to 
 his hotel, and asked for news. 
 
 She could only tell him that all his telegrams had 
 drawn blank. " Where can Grandpapa be ? " she 
 asked, with more than a suspicion of tears in her 
 voice. Molly was beginning to be rattled. 
 
 He did not like to tell her such news as he had, 
 because of his apprehension of the tragedy that 
 might lie behind it. He only said that he was 
 going to Greystones and would ring her up again 
 next day. 
 
 ' Why are you going all that way ? " she asked 
 anxiously, " don't get lost too, Daddy, oh Daddy, 
 don't ! "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 179 
 
 " No fear," said Anthony contemptuously. 
 " Bye-bye, ducky," and rang off. 
 
 As he said that he was going to Greystones, 
 he understood what his father had been doing at 
 Calverstoke. Regardless of pursuing "justice," 
 he was on his way home.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN the years to come Anthony looked back on that 
 long and weary expedition from Ely to Calverstoke 
 as one of the most exasperating episodes in the night- 
 mare that had begun with the murder of Eleanor. 
 He was very sorry indeed, as who would not be 
 sorry, for Green's mother and the girl to whom he 
 was engaged, after the receipt of that most alarming 
 telegram, but Anthony was accustomed to the gener- 
 ation of women who had sat tight-lipped and dry- 
 eyed under the heavy rain of blows they had 
 received during the war. He did not expect 
 poor Mrs. Green to be a Lady Frederick Cavendish, 
 ready at once to acknowledge that the Prime Minis- 
 ter, who was also her own uncle, had done right in 
 sending her husband to Ireland and his death. 
 But he was not prepared for Mrs. Green's state of 
 tears and collapse, varied only by anger and a steady 
 stream of lachrymose abuse of Fitzwilliam. Cer- 
 tainly Fitzwilliam had not shown himself of a sym- 
 pathetic disposition, he thought more of his property 
 and his insurance than of his driver. He had hardly 
 told Miss Entwhistle that he was sorry, although 
 accident or no accident, the unfortunate George 
 was apparently dying, but under no circumstances 
 
 180
 
 A WILDCAT SCHEME 181 
 
 could any responsibility for his condition be attri- 
 buted to Fitzwilliam, as far as Anthony could see. 
 
 Mrs. Green evidently thought otherwise. All 
 through that dreary afternoon, and it rained a steady 
 grey drizzle all the way, taking every atom of light 
 and colour out of the countryside, she wept and 
 sobbed, and had to be revived with smelling salts 
 and salvolatile, which Miss Entwhistle mercifully 
 had with her. Anthony thought of offering her some 
 brandy that he had in the car, but was afterwards 
 glad that he had refrained, because it might have 
 excited her still more. When she felt better she 
 gave vent to a steady outpour of vituperation of 
 Fitzwilliam. Sometimes she seemed to be cursing 
 him, his ancestors, his family and his belongings 
 in an almost patriarchal manner. Evidently she had 
 some old, old grievance against him. It was not 
 only the present misfortune that she laid at his door. 
 Yet Fitzwilliam had most pointedly praised young 
 Green, and refrained from any reflection on his 
 character as a driver. Of course that might be 
 only with a view to obtaining damages it there had 
 been a collision with another car, thought Anthony. 
 
 About half-way to Calverstoke, at the little 
 village of Asterley, which Anthony happened to 
 know, he had to stop for more petrol, went to the 
 inn and sent the two women to have some tea. 
 
 In ordinary circumstances Anthony would not 
 have minded having tea with them himself, but 
 Mrs. Green was too much for his patience. Some- 
 how or other her acid revilings had suggested that 
 Fitzwilliam in some mysterious way had inveigled
 
 1 82 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 young Green into nefarious doings, and had then 
 " turned upon him." The upshot, as far as could 
 be made out, was that Green was driving for 
 Fitzwilliam at much too low a wage, because of the 
 " hold " that he had on the young man. Anthony 
 once more began to think very uncomfortably 
 about Arcos. 
 
 After tea Miss Entwhistle slipped out by herself 
 and spoke to Anthony as he stood by the car waiting 
 for his passengers. 
 
 " I hope you don't mind her, sir," she said. 
 "I'm very sorry you've heard all this, sir, but it is 
 nothing. She's fair dazed with grief. George is 
 her only son, her only child. She don't know what 
 she is saying. George would be angry if he could 
 hear her. I've given her some aspirin now." 
 
 " All right," said Anthony, " but look here, 
 Miss Entwhistle, what is her grudge against 
 Fitzwilliam ? Has he injured George in any 
 way ? " 
 
 He asked bluntly, although it was not his busi- 
 ness, and he would not have asked but for that 
 lurking suspicion ; he was getting as bad as 
 Margetson, he thought, seeing everything in a 
 distorted light. 
 
 She shrank away from him a little. " It does not 
 matter really. It is only a society he's joined 
 and Mrs. Green doesn't like it ; she does not think 
 it's respectable. . . . Here she is, sir, ought we 
 to be getting on ? " 
 
 ^Mrs. Green spoke more quietly. " It is very 
 kind of you, sir. I am sore distraught, but you've
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 183 
 
 children of your own, sir, and I've only the 
 one." 
 
 She sighed heavily as she climbed into the car 
 again. Anthony saw that she was well wrapped up, 
 told her to shut her eyes and perhaps she would 
 get a sleep, and so they drove on. She did not 
 talk any more, possibly she did go to sleep, but 
 poor little Miss Entwhistle cried, in a quiet snivel- 
 ling fashion that drove Anthony to almost worse 
 distraction. She had been very self-possessed 
 while she tried to soothe the frantic mother, and 
 when she attempted to apologize for Mrs. Green 
 to Anthony by the inn door. He knew that she 
 did not want him to hear that she was crying. He 
 thought of the tears in Molly's voice that he could 
 hear even on the telephone, " Oh, Daddy, don't 
 get lost too ! " These young creatures attempted 
 to be aggressively self-reliant and hardy, but in the 
 end life was too much for them. He never 
 could bear to hear his children cry, and this girl 
 was only a child. He was not much moved by 
 Mrs. Green's girnings. 
 
 He found himself wondering what Margetson 
 would do under the circumstances and what sort 
 of sheerly cynical deductions he would make. 
 " Has George joined a trades union or a secret 
 society ? I suppose Margetson would find out 
 that it was Russian, or the Third International, or 
 something thoroughly ' Red.' ' 
 
 He decided to take a short cut that he knew, 
 off the main road as they approached Calverstoke, 
 but it was rather rough going, and of course one of
 
 1 84 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 his tyres exploded with a loud bang. There was 
 no help for it; his passengers had to wait in such 
 patience as they might, while he put on the spare 
 wheel. It was getting dark when he had finished, 
 and he was sorry that he had turned off the main 
 road. By the time that he drove up to the hospital 
 it was nearly ten o'clock. The night porter recog- 
 nised Anthony; took the telegram that the medical 
 officer had sent to Mrs. Green, and came back 
 with a broad smile, " It's all right, sir, George 
 Green is asleep and doing well. Please come this 
 way." 
 
 Anthony knew the hospital very well, because 
 his mother had always taken a great interest in it, 
 and the night sister who appeared to interview them 
 was not a stranger. She said that Green was 
 asleep. Yes, of course, if they wished, Dr. Medwin, 
 the medical superintendent, would see them. He 
 had sent for Mrs. Green, because her address 
 had been found in her son's pocket, and when the 
 telegram was dispatched it was uncertain whether 
 Green would live through the night, but there was 
 no danger now, he was all right. 
 
 ' Was it an accident ? " Anthony was seething 
 with impatience, and could wait no longer, he had 
 to ask. 
 
 The sister looked surprised. " An accident ? 
 Well, I suppose you might say it was." 
 
 Then a nurse appeared, and asked Mrs. Green to 
 go to Dr. Medwin's room. Anthony followed her, 
 but Miss Entwhistle remained with the sister. Dr. 
 Medwin, who looked like the " doctor in boots "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 185 
 
 of the old hunting song, greeted them with further 
 reassurance, " Green is quite all right now. I am 
 sorry I frightened you," he said to Mrs. Green, 
 " but it was touch and go. I was not sure that we 
 should pull him through." 
 
 " Was it an accident, sir ? " Poor Mrs. Green 
 asked the question this time. 
 
 " Well it might have been. We can't tell 
 yet." 
 
 " How was he injured ? " asked Anthony, who 
 could not understand this uncertainty " it might 
 have been." 
 
 " Injured ? He would have died if we had not 
 got him here in time." 
 
 " Can I see him, sir ? " asked Mrs. Green. 
 
 " I think not, to-night better not. He is 
 sleeping now, naturally and quietly. I don't want 
 him to wake up. He has had a rotten time, poor 
 lad ! " 
 
 Mrs. Green, of course, began to cry, and to say 
 that she had come all that way to see George sniff 
 and now she wasn't allowed to see him sniff 
 it couldn't hurt him to let his mother sniff see 
 him. She wouldn't wake him up sniff 
 
 Beyond sniffing she did not make a noise; 
 Anthony waited for Fitzwilliam's name to be brought 
 into the complaint, and Dr. Medwin looked worried. 
 Then he spoke through a telephone on the table, 
 " Ask Nurse Bodley to come here." 
 
 He turned to Mrs. Green, " Can you keep quite 
 quiet ? Don't cry or make a sound ? Nurse Bodley 
 will take you to have a peep at him. You will see
 
 1 86 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 that he is quite comfortable. To-morrow you can 
 come and he will be able to talk to you." 
 
 Nurse Bodley, when she appeared, was given the 
 same directions, accompanied by some cabalistic 
 signs from the doctor, which she evidently under- 
 stood perfectly ; so did Anthony, and probably so did 
 Mrs. Green, who turned off her tears as if by a tap, 
 and with a slightly less crushed appearance, you 
 could hardly call it a triumphant air, followed the 
 nurse out of the room. 
 
 " I don't want her to wake him," said Dr. 
 Medwin, " but these women are more sensible 
 than you'd think. She'll probably only talk to him 
 as if he were a baby, and tell him to go to sleep 
 again." 
 
 " You know more of the genus than I do," said 
 Anthony, " but I've driven that woman all the way 
 from Ely, and I haven't discovered a grain of sense 
 in her yet." 
 
 " That was very good of you," said Dr. 
 Medwin, " May I ask if you know the family 
 well ? " 
 
 " I've never seen Mrs. Green till to-day, and I've 
 never seen Green at all." 
 
 Anthony rather enjoyed mystifying the burly 
 doctor, who stared at him with some astonishment. 
 " Did you just pick her up on the road ? " he 
 asked. " She was not trying to walk here, poor 
 wretch, was she ? " 
 
 " No, I know something of the girl who is en- 
 gaged to Green, and I happened to be at Ely when 
 your telegram came. I'll explain presently, but I
 
 A WILD -CAT SCHEME 187 
 
 want to hear how Green was hurt was it an 
 accident ? " 
 
 " Hurt ? The fellow had an overdose of sleeping 
 draught. This morning I thought it a fatal over- 
 dose. I'd sooner have died myself than go through 
 all we put him through. Do you know what a 
 stomach pump is like ? " 
 
 " Good Lord, yes, don't describe it to me. I was 
 in hospital once or twice during the war. But 
 sleeping draught where was he ? " 
 
 " At the Thorell Arms. You know, just round 
 the corner. Old James, the landlord, said he was a 
 chauffeur, but we couldn't stop to find out anything 
 about him. We had to get him here in double quick 
 time. James had the sense to send for me and a 
 stretcher at the same time. It wasn't worth while 
 to send the ambulance." 
 
 " Do chauffeurs often take sleeping draughts, or 
 do you think it was foul play ? " 
 
 Dr. Medwin thought that Anthony was extra- 
 ordinarily interested almost moved by this story. 
 He took it so seriously. 
 
 " I don't know. I telephoned to the police, 
 as a precaution, because I thought the chap was 
 going to die. I haven't heard what they found 
 out." 
 
 " Do you think he will be able to tell you himself 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Probably, if he can remember. Sometimes 
 they can't, in these cases, after a strong go of the 
 stuff." 
 
 " What was the dope ? "
 
 1 88 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 The doctor gave him a Latin name which con- 
 veyed little to Anthony. 
 
 " Opium, I suppose ? Rather dangerous ? " 
 
 ' Yes, it's a preparation of opium. We don't 
 use it much here. It's French it ought to be very 
 carefully measured. I should say he wasn't used 
 to it, and took a double dose. It's quite tasteless. 
 I don't know how he got it. People will play 
 tricks with these things." 
 
 " I feel a bit rattled," Anthony confessed, 
 " because the fellow was driving for my father." 
 
 " Your father Mr. Preston of Greystones ? 
 Well, upon my word ! I thought he always had 
 his own chauffeur what's his name his wife was 
 here not long ago Wilkins ? " 
 
 " My father has been away, staying at Ely, with 
 his cousin, the Bishop. He hired a car to drive back 
 from there. Of course, I suppose " Anthony 
 wondered what he did suppose he wasn't going 
 to give away anything to Dr. Medwin, known as the 
 greatest gossip in the county, outside anything to do 
 with his own profession, " I suppose my father had 
 dismissed him, and the fellow was on his way back 
 to Ely." 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Dr. Medwin, a little un- 
 comfortably. Stories may be kept out of the local 
 rag, but they can't be kept off local tongues. Dr. 
 Medwin had heard a great deal more than all 
 about the scene in court when Anthony had 
 " represented " his father. It would have been in- 
 credible to Anthony, but the thought did flash 
 into the doctor's mind that old Preston had
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 189 
 
 been accused of one murder, was this an attempt 
 at another ? 
 
 Anthony explained, " You will understand why 
 I was alarmed when I saw your wire at Ely. Natur- 
 ally I thought that there had been an accident. 
 You did not say what was the matter with Green. 
 I was confoundedly anxious about my father. He 
 is an old man, you know." 
 
 " I hope he is all right," said the doctor, " anyhow 
 there was no accident on the road." 
 
 " Had Green garaged his car at the Thorell 
 Arms ? " 
 
 " I don't know. The police could tell you." 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the door, and 
 Nurse Bodley appeared. " Mrs. Green and the 
 young woman are ready to go," she said, " but they 
 wanted to see Mr. Preston first, if he did not mind. 
 They don't know where to go for the night. It is 
 rather late. No, sir," to the doctor, " Mrs. Green 
 did not wake her son." 
 
 Anthony looked aghast. The difficulty had not 
 occurred to him. He was blessed if he was going 
 to take them to Greystones; he knew very little 
 about them really. 
 
 " You'd better take them to the Thorell Arms" 
 said Dr. Medwin. " Old James knows you. He'll 
 probably have a room. It's quite a respectable 
 place." 
 
 Anthony thanked him, and having collected the 
 two women, now in a much calmer and more hopeful 
 frame of mind, he drove them round to the Thorell 
 Arms.
 
 190 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 But it was not so easy as Dr. Medwin had sug- 
 gested. The Thorell Arms was in darkness, every- 
 one had gone to bed, and it was a long time before 
 there was any answer to their knocking and ringing. 
 Old James himself at last put his head out of a 
 window. " No good," he said, in answer to 
 Anthony's shouted request for a room, " I'm full up. 
 I couldn't take in a man nor a mouse, much less two 
 ladies." 
 
 " Just come down for a minute, will you," said 
 Anthony, " you might tell me where to go. You 
 know me, James, Anthony Preston Greystones." 
 
 The name had some effect, for James came down, 
 and after considerable fumbling, opened the door. 
 Anthony went into the house and talked to him, 
 told him who the women were, and asked what he 
 knew about Mr. Preston. 
 
 James knew nothing. Green had said that his 
 " boss " was staying in the town, and that he was 
 going on next day. James had not even heard that 
 Green was driving Mr. Preston. The man in 
 charge at the garage said that Green had come in 
 very early that morning, had paid what was owing 
 at the garage, and had taken away the car. It must 
 have been some other man, because a little later, the 
 boots, who had been told to call Green, found him 
 insensible in his bed, and James had immediately 
 sent for Dr. Medwin. 
 
 " No, I can't take in anybody, very sorry, sir," 
 when Anthony offered to pay in advance, " I'd 
 do it to oblige you, sir, if I could, but I've even got 
 two men sleeping in the bar-parlour."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 191 
 
 " Where can I take the poor things ? " asked 
 Anthony. " I can't very well disturb my friends in 
 Calverstoke at this time of night." 
 
 James suggested another inn, and rather doubt- 
 fully, a lodging house, in a different part of the town. 
 
 The nightmare, as it seemed to Anthony, con- 
 tinued. The smaller inns, and the lodging house 
 suggested by James, were all full, or all suspicious, 
 he was not sure which, but naturally, most of the 
 people did not know him. He only knew James by 
 chance, because the Thorell Arms had a good garage, 
 where they sometimes put up the Greystones car. 
 
 It seemed to him that they had been driving about 
 for hours and hours, when all at once he saw that the 
 big hotel of the town, the Red Lion, was still lighted 
 up. There was a dance or some other function 
 going on. The hotel people would know him. It 
 would be expensive, but that could not be helped. 
 After all, he took the two women to the hotel, 
 ordered some sort of supper and a room for them, 
 and took a room for himself, before midnight. It 
 had been a long day. He felt that it was too late 
 to get back to Greystones, and too late to telephone 
 to ask if his father had arrived. It would be better 
 to wait till the next morning, when Green would 
 probably be able to talk. At least that was what 
 he hoped. He trusted that the disappearance of the 
 car meant only that it had been stolen, but there was 
 evidently some mystery, which he could not fathom, 
 and he slept badly. 
 
 The next morning he tried to ring up Greystones 
 on the telephone, but for a long time he had no
 
 1 92 A WILD-CAT SCHEME- 
 
 answer but intermittent buzzing, and at last the 
 exchange kindly informed him, ' ' We can't get 
 through line out of order." 
 
 Anthony swore; then remembered to ring up 
 Molly, and told her where he was. " I was too late 
 to get to Greystones last night," he said, " but I 
 am going on there directly. No, no news of R.P. 
 yet. . . . Oh Molly, the right number of the car 
 is A.F. not A.T. 5091. You might let Margetson 
 know that." 
 
 He did not want to tell her any more, though he 
 had a suspicion that events were thickening about 
 him. Something was going to happen. He could 
 not make out where his father was. He must be 
 staying somewhere in the town. Anthony had 
 enquired tentatively at the Red Lion, but no one had 
 seen Mr. Preston for a long time. 
 
 Anthony did not want to go to the police if he 
 could avoid it. He went to the hospital first. Yes, 
 he could see Green, the matron told him, but only 
 for a few minutes, the young man was still very weak. 
 
 He found that Green was in one of the smaller 
 wards, which happened to be otherwise empty at 
 the moment. The young fellow was lying with his 
 eyes shut, looking white and worn. The nurse 
 who came with Anthony only said, " Mr. Preston 
 has come to see you, Green," pointed to a bell- 
 push in the wall, and went away. 
 
 " Hullo, Green, how do you feel this morning ? " 
 Anthony greeted him in as unconcerned a manner 
 as he could. Green opened his eyes, and answered 
 with an attempt at vivacity. " Good morning, sir,
 
 % WILD-CAT SCHEME 193 
 
 I'm very sorry " then he stopped with a look 
 of utter bewilderment and disappointment, " Oh, I 
 thought nurse said it was Mr. Preston ? " 
 
 ' I am Anthony Preston. I understand that 
 you have been driving a car for my father. I am 
 sorry to hear that you have been so ill." 
 
 " Yes sir, thank you. How is Mr. Preston, 
 sir ? " 
 
 1 Well, that is rather what I want to hear from 
 you. Did you leave him at Greystones ? I tried to 
 ring him up there, but the line seems to be out of 
 order." 
 
 " No sir, Mr. Preston meant to go there yester- 
 day, but I was too ill to go. I don't know what 
 he did." 
 
 Green tried to raise himself on his elbow, but fell 
 back. " I feel as weak as a kitten," he said. 
 
 ' What about this sleeping draught ? You seem 
 to have overdone it a bit this time ? " 
 
 ' The doctor's bin asking me. I've never taken 
 a sleepin' draught in my life, not to my knowledge." 
 ' Who can have doped you ? Have you any 
 idea ? " 
 
 " I had supper with a fellow I'd met at Cambridge. 
 I suppose he hocussed me and stole the car. Perhaps 
 I did gas a bit about it. He was a chauffeur too. 
 I thought he was straight enough. The doctor 
 asked at the garage, but they were queer. They 
 said I'd taken the car out myself in the morning. 
 I can't have done that. I was as sick as a dog here 
 all the morning." 
 
 " Well " Anthony would have liked to ask a
 
 i 9 4 A WILDCAT SCHEMA 
 
 great deal more, but the young man's sickly pallor 
 seemed to intensify as he talked. Anthony thought 
 he was going to faint and rang the nurse's bell. 
 " Don't bother about it," he said, " I'll let you know 
 later. It is not your fault. I am very sorry for all 
 this." 
 
 " You're very kind, sir," but the nurse came in, 
 and Anthony was glad to go, though he had not 
 gained much information. Green had not even told 
 him where his father was staying. 
 
 He went back to the Red Lion, and found a 
 message from Molly, asking him to ring her up. 
 
 " Well, child, what is it ? " he began as soon as 
 he could. 
 
 " Mr. Margetson has gone out of town. I 
 thought you'd like to know. I could not give him 
 the right number of the car." 
 
 " That's a pity. But you might ring up Scotland 
 Yard, ask for Superintendent Watts, and tell him 
 I haven't found the car yet, but it was at Calverstoke, 
 at the Thorell Arms the night before last." 
 ' With Grandpapa ? " 
 
 ' Yes, but he must have gone home some other 
 way. I tried to ring up this morning, and the dashed 
 line was out of order. I shall go there myself now, 
 as soon as I can." 
 
 " Can't I come too ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, later. I'll let you know when I get 
 there. I still want a liaison officer in town, you 
 know." 
 
 Molly gurgled agreeably through the telephone, 
 " Not much liaison, when I can't connect you with
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 195 
 
 the other end ! I don't know where Mr. Margetson 
 is." 
 
 Anthony did not know either, but guessed 
 Greystones. Had Margetson, for some extraordi- 
 nary reason, which would only occur to the distorted 
 mind of a detective, disconnected the telephone ?
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ANTHONY was perfectly right in his judgment of his 
 father's motive for " running away " from the 
 Bishop's palace at Ely. Robert Preston really dis- 
 liked intensely being anywhere but in his own house, 
 though at times he derived some pleasure from ful- 
 filling a duty when he stayed with any one of his 
 three married children. They were disappointed 
 because his sojourns with them were " like angels' 
 visits, few and far between," and they were still 
 young enough to misunderstand. They thought it 
 was rather tiresome and selfish of him. They could 
 not yet realise that the one safeguard of old age is 
 serenity, a serenity that can seldom be maintained 
 apart from accepted and familiar surroundings, in 
 the pursuance of a comfortable routine. Jolts and 
 jerks, and sudden excursions hither and thither, 
 which cause pleasure and excitement, or even pain 
 and fatigue, are the breath of life to the young, who 
 look upon movement and variety as a right, and any 
 sort of dullness and monotony as a wrong. It has 
 yet to be seen whether the constant bustle and hurry 
 of this generation will tend to prolong life, or rather 
 to shorten it. Rest is perhaps as essential to our 
 nervous and highly-strung generation as it was to 
 the savage, who followed Nature's way, and slept 
 
 196
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 197 
 
 when he could in the daytime, as well as at night. 
 It is true that he had naturally the variety and spice 
 of danger in hunting for his food, that we all seem 
 to seek artificially in constant movement. 
 
 In the back of his mind Robert had always 
 looked upon his flight from Greystones as one of 
 " Anthony's wild-cat schemes." It was practically 
 impossible to a man of his age and standing to 
 realise the position into which Margetson's sus- 
 picions had forced him. Away from Anthony's 
 arguments and Margetson's unaccustomed presence, 
 which he felt was inimical and resented accordingly, 
 he began to forget any unpleasant consequences 
 that might accrue to himself if he went home, at 
 least he only remembered them at rapidly-increasing 
 intervals. It can hardly be said that he blamed 
 Eleanor for having been murdered in his house, but 
 it is true that he thought more than once that if 
 Eleanor had only married in a suitable and common- 
 place fashion, or had been content to lead the life 
 conventionally assigned to the unmarried women of 
 Robert's own generation good works and a 
 nebulous place in the background nothing of the 
 kind would have happened. There were other 
 moments when he felt that he would give anything 
 to have her murderer brought to justice; moments 
 of tenderness and kindness when he was haunted 
 by the thought that he had been unable to protect 
 her from so untoward a fate. The remembrance of 
 her intense terror at the moment of her death he 
 put out of his mind. It is part of the armour of self- 
 preservation, the strongest instinct in the human
 
 198 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 race, to put away at once and for ever thoughts that 
 tend to be unbearable. 
 
 When the Bishop had left his cousin by himself 
 at Ely, he had asked no questions about the reasons 
 that seemed to make it desirable for Robert to stay 
 away from home, but he guessed, without much 
 trouble, that Eleanor's murder and the police pro- 
 ceedings afterwards might tend to make Greystones 
 uninhabitable at all events for a time. The Bishop, 
 therefore, asked no questions, welcomed his cousin, 
 and went away for his sea voyage, begging Robert to 
 remain in the palace as long as he liked. There 
 was a moment when the older man thought of 
 undertaking the sea voyage in the Bishop's company, 
 but his courage failed. He had never been a good 
 sailor, he dreaded illness, and he said good-bye to 
 the Bishop without qualms, though he knew quite 
 well that a younger man would have hailed the 
 opportunity as a good line of retreat. But in his 
 own mind the bare idea of retreat was preposterous. 
 He was sure that he had never run away from any- 
 thing in his life. He was innocent of the charge so 
 ridiculously brought against him and well he 
 would not leave England. 
 
 So he remained in the pleasant precincts, the 
 grey, old cloisters, the budding rose-garden of the 
 Bishop's palace, very comfortable under Cough's 
 able ministrations, with every reasonable luxury at 
 his command and the Underwoods. But even 
 princesses have to put up with crumpled rose- 
 leaves. 
 
 A week of the Underwoods was enough. Mr.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 199 
 
 Underwood put it very mildly when he said that 
 Mr Preston was inclined to be irritable and fidgety, 
 and poor little Mrs. Underwood became even more 
 dithering than usual, and wilted visibly under the 
 muttered ejaculations that sometimes escaped from 
 her guest, though, to do him justice, he generally 
 made them under his breath. 
 
 Finally he gave vent to two words in Latin, which 
 the chaplain unfortunately overheard and under- 
 stood, " Dixit insipiens" after some particularly 
 inept and sententious remark made by Mrs. 
 Underwood, and from that moment relations be- 
 came more than a little strained. Strained relations 
 with the Underwoods meant an amount of what 
 Molly would have called " gobble gobble," that 
 proved to be the last straw. They went off to their 
 son's school at mid-term, and the day that they were 
 expected to return, Robert took to his heels, or 
 rather to the car that he hired at the Fitzwilliam 
 garage. After all his brave thoughts, he could not 
 deny that this time he was running away. 
 
 The only thing he said to Gough, when he asked 
 for his clothes to be packed, was, " Never forget 
 that your master, the Bishop, is a saint. I am 
 afraid that I am only a miserable sinner." 
 
 Gough said, " Yes, sir, there aren't many like 
 his lordship." 
 
 With that meagre allowance of reproof or sym- 
 pathy, whichever it was, Robert had to be content. 
 Although he had taken the car for a week, he had 
 intended, more or less, to go straight home, but first 
 he had a long consultation with the chauffeur,
 
 200 A WILDCAT SCHEME 
 
 George Green, who seemed to be a civil, amiable, 
 young fellow, and Robert laid great stress on the 
 sort of driving that he liked, very steady, no excess 
 of speed, nothing sudden, a quiet even pace, and 
 above all things, smoothness, he hated to be shaken 
 or bumped. Green said that he understood, and 
 made some sensible suggestions about cushions, 
 showing Robert that a certain amount of packing 
 prevented concussion. 
 
 " I used to drive a gentleman who had sciatica," 
 he said, " he'd cry like a baby, he would, if you 
 bumped him, so we had to learn how to keep him 
 steady in the car." 
 
 " You're evidently the right man for me," said 
 Robert, " though I warn you that if I am bumped, 
 I don't cry, I swear, and you'll know it." 
 
 " You shan't be bumped, sir, the car has good 
 tyres, anyway, not if I can help it, I promise, but I 
 can't get you to Calverstoke in one day, not at the 
 speed you like." 
 
 Robert had insisted that he could not stand going 
 at more than twenty miles an hour. 
 
 " Let me see the map," he studied it, first through 
 his spectacles and then with a magnifying glass. 
 " We'll go first to Cambridge, and put up at the 
 University Arms" 
 
 " Very good, sir," Green touched his cap, and 
 Robert approved of his manners. They drove away 
 " like a funeral," as Green said afterwards to a pal 
 of his own. 
 
 Near the station, Robert, to the chauffeur's 
 surprise, stopped him. " Do you see that man
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 201 
 
 over there, with a beard, carrying a coat over his 
 arm ? " 
 
 4 Yes, sir." 
 
 " Just go down the street and see where he goes, 
 and then come back to me." 
 
 Green touched his cap again ; he began to wonder 
 if the old gentleman were " a bit balmy." 
 
 " You needn't speak to him," said Robert. 
 " I only want to know if he is going to the palace, 
 if so, I may have to go back there to see him." 
 
 Of course Robert thought that the bearded 
 stranger was Margetson, and had not the faintest 
 intention of going to see him, but he wanted to 
 make sure. " Hast thou found me, oh mine 
 enemy ? " he said to himself, almost childishly 
 pleased to think he had got away before the detective 
 arrived. 
 
 Green came back to say that the stranger had 
 gone into the Bank. The ubiquitous Barclay had 
 a branch in the High Street, and a good many people 
 from the country round about banked there. 
 
 " All right," said Robert, settling himself among 
 his cushions. ' You can go on, and er what is 
 your name Green ? Green, you can drive a little 
 faster, but nothing extreme you know, nothing 
 extreme." 
 
 Green was thankful for the order; what is the 
 good of driving a Daimler saloon if you mayn't get 
 out of a walk a crawl as the young chauffeur 
 indignantly called it ? At the same time he was 
 rather astonished, especially as later in the day 
 Robert twice told him to put on speed. " You'd
 
 202 A WILDCAT SCHEME 
 
 almost have thought he was running away from that 
 gent with the burberry over his arm," he said to 
 himself, " and I believe it was only Mr. Cordwain 
 from Northover Street. Anyhow, I don't mind as 
 long as we can shove along a bit." 
 
 The sight of the detective as he believed hot 
 on his trail, rather shook Robert. So they were 
 still looking for him ? Oliver had said something 
 of the kind in his last letter, the usual sort of advice 
 that they all gave to him. " Better sit tight and keep 
 out of the way, until Margetson finds out his 
 mistake, or the real culprit is discovered." 
 
 " Sit tight ? I'd like to see Oliver, or Anthony 
 either for that matter, sitting tight with the Under- 
 woods. Two more abject nincompoops it has never 
 been my ill-fortune to meet, but if that confounded 
 policeman is still hunting for me, how is the real 
 culprit to be discovered ? I don't keep him in my 
 pocket." 
 
 So thought Robert, not without reason. All the 
 same, he was very glad that he had told Gough that 
 he was going home he had not told anyone as it 
 happened, but he thought that he had it would put 
 Margetson off the scent. He would not go home 
 just yet. He thought of such business as he had 
 to do at home, his bit of shooting, his cows and his 
 cowman, his garden and his gardeners, his books, 
 the Bench at Calverstoke, some meetings he ought 
 to attend they could all wait. 
 
 In the brilliant days of his own youth, Robert 
 had been at Oxford, but he had a few old friends at 
 Cambridge; the Master of one college, who was
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 203 
 
 almost a contemporary of his own; two Fellows of 
 another college, who had been at Eton with Anthony; 
 the grandsons of another contemporary who were 
 undergraduates at a third college. Robert felt 
 himself always in touch with that strange mixture 
 of distinguished learning and youthful frivolity 
 which is the charm of every university, except 
 perhaps in America where we are told that everyone 
 is serious all the time. Shakespeare has said that 
 " Crabbed age and youth cannot live together," but 
 he would not have said so at Oxford or Cambridge, 
 where they meet and mingle happily, though youth 
 is often far more crabbed than age. No one re- 
 members his Varsity only as a shifting succession of 
 half-baked undergraduates like himself, he likes to 
 remember a more stable background, Chancellors 
 and Vice-Chancellors, Deans and Masters, Provosts 
 and Presidents, Fellows and Dons, Tutors and Proc- 
 tors. If the authorities were at times remarkably 
 odd, not to say laughable, to undergraduate eyes, so 
 much the better. The general effect of learning 
 and ignorance, dignity and impudence, holding 
 hands in a captivating if often provoking fashion, 
 repeated from one generation to another, can never 
 be forgotten. 
 
 All that happy tradition belonged to Robert 
 Preston, was part of him, he was at his ease in that 
 atmosphere, so he decided to stay on at Cambridge, 
 looked up his friends of three generations, and 
 enjoyed their company. 
 
 With a touch of bravado, slightly reminiscent of 
 a freshman enjoying unexpected liberty from the
 
 204 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 trammels of school, he decided that no one should 
 know where he was, not even his own sons and 
 daughters. If it were necessary for him to hide, he 
 would hide completely. He told Green that he would 
 probably go on to London shortly, but meanwhile, 
 he remained at Cambridge, living by himself at the 
 hotel, after refusing an invitation from his old friend, 
 the Master, and resisting a lurking temptation to 
 send for Molly to come and enjoy his recreations 
 with him. Somehow or other he felt that so long 
 as no one knew where he was, he was safe. It did 
 not occur to him that anyone would be alarmed or 
 apprehensive about him. Some characteristic en- 
 joyment of bachelor freedom sustained him. He 
 even drank the Master's port, and did not refuse 
 lobster a rAmericaine at an undergraduate's lun- 
 cheon party. 
 
 These juvenile liberties were all very well, but a 
 moment came when age and failing strength claimed 
 their revenge. 
 
 Robert had a bad night two bad nights he felt 
 shaky, and he did not know any of the doctors at 
 Cambridge. His temper became badly ruffled, 
 which was a sign, that his own family would have 
 recognised, that he was not very ill, but Green was 
 alarmed. He went to the Master and implored him 
 to persuade Mr. Preston to see a doctor. It was 
 part of the fastidious almost feminine side of 
 Robert that he could not bear to " expose his 
 weakness " as he called it, to strangers, and he 
 refused to call in any doctor (qualified by several 
 undeserved adjectives) at all, but as his friends and
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 205 
 
 Green all seemed to make a point of it, he stayed in 
 bed for a couple of days, which was about all that 
 any doctor would have prescribed for him. 
 
 He had a supply of books, various people came 
 to see him, his room was comfortable, the hotel 
 servants were very attentive, he was quite content. 
 No one imagined that he was not corresponding 
 with his family, and so the time went on, while the 
 police hunted for the wrong car, and Robert himself 
 had practically forgotten that no one knew where 
 he was. The Master cashed a cheque for him, and 
 put the cheque itself into a drawer and forgot it, 
 so his bank received no news of him. John Fleming, 
 one of Anthony's friends, rather wondered why none 
 of his family seemed to think it necessary to look 
 up the old man. Fleming had stayed at Greystones, 
 and knew that Robert as a rule was not so completely 
 autonomous, but something of a more personally 
 interesting nature occurred in Fleming's own life, 
 and he did not remember to ask Robert what his 
 family were doing. 
 
 After a couple of days Robert rose from his bed, 
 said that he was better and was taken for a drive by 
 Fleming in the afternoon, but they went too fast for 
 his taste. He did not appreciate Fleming's really 
 skilful driving, and in the evening he felt less well, 
 and even rather perturbed about himself. 
 
 Without taking into consideration any risk of 
 being arrested by Margetson in fact, he forgot all 
 about it Robert decided to do what seemed to him 
 the obvious thing. He was ill, he ought to see a 
 doctor. He refused to consult any stranger, there-
 
 206 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 fore the only alternative was to go and see his own 
 doctor, who understood his health, and had attended 
 him for years. He felt a sudden craving for 
 Calgarrie's familiar cheerful countenance and sym- 
 pathetic, if sometimes abrupt manner. The fact 
 was perhaps that Robert understood his doctor. 
 There was nothing about his health that any 
 ordinarily qualified general practitioner could not 
 have tackled quite satisfactorily, but Robert was 
 determined his children would have said obstinate 
 when he had made up his mind. 
 
 He decided that he would start the next day, go 
 straight to Calverstoke and see Calgarrie. He did 
 not think particularly about going back to Grey- 
 stones. It was a commonplace corollary after visit- 
 ing Calgarrie. 
 
 Of course it was one of the strange contingencies 
 of the case, that Green's letter to his fiancee had 
 entirely diverted attention from Cambridge. Mar- 
 getson and Anthony both took it for granted that 
 the car for which they were searching had gone to 
 London. Green had not written again, because he 
 did not write easily, but he always told Clare 
 Entwhistle when he changed his address, and he 
 hoped every day that they would leave Cambridge. 
 He did not care for the short afternoon expeditions 
 that sufficed for Robert, and he had put forward 
 tentative suggestions that they should go for a 
 night or two, here and there, but Robert had dug 
 himself in, and paid no attention. Then he took to 
 his bed, and Green was in despair. Lounging about 
 was no pleasure to the chauffeur, and it seemed to
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 207 
 
 him that everyone in Cambridge drove their own 
 car; there was not much congenial company for 
 him. He liked talking motor gossip and occasion- 
 ally playing cards with men of his own calling. Of 
 course there were some garages where cars were 
 let out on hire, but there Green had a sort of pro- 
 fessional jealousy, he liked to be thought in private 
 service. Unless Clare Entwhistle was with him, 
 the " movies " bored him. He was no reader, did 
 not care for watching cricket or tennis, of which he 
 could have had his fill, and naturally, the beauties 
 of fine architecture, the interest of history and 
 tradition, appealed to him not at all. He thought 
 only that the streets of Cambridge were as ill- 
 adapted for motoring as those of most old towns, 
 and he would not have been sorry to turn his back 
 on the twists and turns and awkward corners, 
 generally crowded, and much too full of bicycles for 
 his liking. You had to be always changing gear or 
 jamming on your brakes. There was no credit to 
 be had for driving in a place like that. He liked new, 
 open roads, smooth with tarmac, and a good curb on 
 each side to keep the foot passengers out of your 
 way. In Cambridge you never knew where you 
 were, no one even attempted to keep on the pave- 
 ment, if there were a pavement. 
 
 He supposed that Clare would enjoy such sights 
 as the boats and punts on the river, the cute little 
 bridges, the great smooth lawns, the trees and 
 flowers abloom everywhere. It was all very pretty 
 no doubt, and the young gentlemen in their funny 
 little black gowns, or in flannels and blazers and
 
 208 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 brilliant pullovers and scarves, made things hum a 
 bit, but give him the road, or some decent machines 
 to look at. George Green was a specialist, of the 
 same order as Paul Hardy, or as Margetson himself ; 
 he had not much room to spare for outside interests. 
 
 However, there was at last considerable excite- 
 ment when the Prince of Wales arrived on his way 
 from somewhere else to somewhere else, after the 
 manner of modern princes, to whom the stately 
 progresses of their ancestors are unthinkable. He 
 slept at Trinity for one night, to the joy and bewilder- 
 ment of the townspeople, who turned out in their 
 thousands to see him. A good many other people, 
 with cars not always driven by themselves, were 
 attracted to Cambridge, and Green found some 
 kindred spirits, and had some " real sprinters " to 
 look at. He was not in the least interested in 
 Royalty, and turned up his nose at the Prince's 
 car, because it was not the most powerful on the 
 market. 
 
 It will be understood that he was not sorry to 
 receive his marching orders. In fact he had told 
 several of the chauffeurs he had met that he was 
 " fed to the teeth " with Cambridge. 
 
 " You must not go fast this time," Mr. Preston 
 told him, " I am not feeling quite up to the mark, 
 and I can't start early. I must have my break- 
 fast comfortably." 
 
 " I am sorry, sir, do you wish to go to London ? " 
 
 " London ? Certainly not. Calverstoke in 
 Dorsetshire. What earthly reason is there for 
 me to go to London ? "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 209 
 
 Green had grown accustomed to his master's 
 manner, and had also grown rather fond of the old 
 gentleman, whom he no longer regarded as a harm- 
 less lunatic, but as certainly to be humoured. He 
 laughed, " I don't know, sir, you mentioned 
 London before." 
 
 " Probably you want to go to London yourself ? 
 I can't oblige you this time. Look up Calverstoke 
 on one of those invaluable maps of yours, will you, 
 and tell me how long it will take to get there at my 
 pace, mind, at my pace. I am not going to be 
 bumped to bits for anyone." 
 
 Green consulted his maps and shook his head. 
 
 ' You can't do it in a day, sir, you'd arrive about 
 
 midnight, even if you drove at twenty-five instead of 
 
 twenty miles an hour, even if you started very early." 
 
 " I told you that I would not start early, and I 
 can't call on my doctor at midnight." 
 
 ' You are going to see your doctor, sir ? Then 
 you'd want to get there what is his consulting 
 hour, sir ? " 
 
 " He is generally at home between two and three." 
 
 Green looked at the map again, frowned and bit 
 his finger. " If you'd start from here after lunch, sir, 
 dine and sleep the night at Edenhurst, there's a 
 good hotel there, I'd get you into Calverstoke in 
 time to lunch before you go to the doctor." 
 
 " Edenhurst ? Where is that ? " Green showed 
 him on the map. It was a small country town. 
 
 ' You are sure there is a decent hotel ? Good beds 
 and no chance of being poisoned, or anything of 
 that sort ? "
 
 210 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " No, sir. I've stayed there with customers, 
 driving west, fairly often. They've always been 
 satisfied. It's an old town, what they call pictur- 
 eskew." 
 
 Robert smiled at the " pictureskew," he knew 
 that any taste of that kind was entirely alien from 
 Green. He would have much preferred Birmingham 
 and motor-works. 
 
 " Well, if it can't be helped, I daresay that would 
 be the best plan. I can lunch early. We will start 
 at 2.30 to-morrow." 
 
 They started, as arranged, the day before Marget- 
 son told his strange story to Anthony on the common 
 at Ashstead. 
 
 After spending a night at the comfortable little 
 hotel at Edenhurst, which he found to be an old- 
 fashioned fishing centre, and at the moment taken 
 up by several men who had arrived with the may- 
 fly, Robert felt better, but still thought that the 
 visit to Calgarrie was necessary. They drove off 
 the next morning, and meant to go straight to the 
 doctor's house a little way out of Calverstoke. 
 Robert intended to ask Mrs. Calgarrie for some 
 lunch. 
 
 So far, so good ; they started later than Green 
 had planned, because Robert felt better, and 
 thought he would like to have a look at the trout 
 stream and the " pictureskew " town before he left 
 it. Then a tyre punctured, of course, and they 
 were delayed, and then to their horror discovered 
 that it was market-day, and that every kind of beast 
 and vehicle seemed to be coming out of Calverstoke
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 211 
 
 and meeting them on the road. They had to go at 
 a foot's pace and several times had to stop altogether 
 and wait for cattle to be driven past the car. Robert 
 fumed and fidgeted, but nothing could be done. 
 It was past four o'clock when they arrived, to find 
 Dr. Calgarrie out, but expected back shortly. 
 
 Robert had tea with Mrs. Calgarrie who was 
 an old and tried friend, not at all of the Underwood 
 type. She concealed her surprise at his arrival, 
 though inwardly consumed with curiosity. It was 
 dinner time before the doctor arrived, to find, with 
 astonishment, which he did not make the smallest 
 attempt to hide, his old patient, waiting for him, as 
 if it were the most natural thing in the world for him 
 to be there, controlling his impatience very badly 
 because Calgarrie was late.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 DR. CALGARRIE, who had heard the bare facts 
 from Anthony, though nothing about the official 
 paper that had been discovered, explained the new 
 development of affairs at Greystones to Robert, 
 who was to a certain extent gratified, but at the same 
 time offended and disgruntled by this second out- 
 rage, as he called it. The Calgarries persuaded him, 
 not without difficulty, to stay the night with them, 
 and ring up Mrs. Crutcher to say that he would 
 arrive the next morning. 
 
 " You must have your bed aired," said Calgarrie, 
 " very dangerous if you don't, especially after the 
 rain we have had lately. Besides, the servants are 
 as nervous as cats on hot bricks. If you arrive at 
 night, suddenly, probably they won't let you in, 
 or something idiotic of that description, which 
 would be very bad for you. Moreover, you know 
 yourself, you don't like motoring in the dark. You 
 must dine with us now, and it will be dark before 
 you get home." 
 
 The last argument probably had the greatest 
 effect. Robert was inclined to think that Dawson's 
 successor would have kept his bed aired, and he 
 pooh-poohed the existence of nerves in his servants. 
 
 212
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 213 
 
 " Tempers, no doubt, but nerves my dear fellow 
 they are country people with excellent digestions ! 
 They eat like wolves and sleep like dormice; such 
 people have no nerves." 
 
 " They have cowardly dispositions then," laughed 
 Dr. Calgarrie, " and the police keep them on the 
 jump. Mrs. Crutcher can't get over the fact of 
 being called up before dawn because there were 
 robbers, as she calls them, in the house. She told 
 me that she understood the Litany much better now, 
 when she prayed to be delivered from battle, murder 
 and sudden death." 
 
 " Tut tut," said Robert, impatiently, the fact 
 being that he did not like to be reminded of such 
 things. " I don't suppose that we could get back 
 before dark, though the days are long " 
 
 At last, after numerous apologies to Mrs. 
 Calgarrie for this sudden tax on her hospitality, 
 he consented to stay, asked that Dr. Calgarrie's 
 secretary might telephone to warn his own house- 
 hold of his arrival, and ordered Green to come for 
 him at eleven o'clock the next morning. 
 
 Dr. Calgarrie advised Green to garage the car 
 and take a room for himself at the Thorell Arms. 
 
 Punctually at eleven o'clock the next morning 
 the car arrived, and Robert with his luggage was 
 packed into it, in the usual friendly country fashion, 
 with the Calgarries themselves and a considerable 
 proportion of their household in the porch to see 
 him off. 
 
 Robert had had a good night, he was glad to 
 have his " indisposition " treated as a small and
 
 2i 4 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 passing matter, he felt refreshed, and beyond all 
 things very happy to be on his way home. 
 
 They had driven a fair distance before he hap- 
 pened even to glance at the back of his chauffeur's 
 familiar linen coat in front of him, and then for some 
 reason that he could not explain, it occurred to him 
 that it was less familiar than usual. Had Green 
 got a new coat, and was he sitting on a cushion, he 
 seemed to be taller than he had been before ? 
 
 Robert was in a comfortable and idle frame of 
 mind. The idea came and went, but as he drove on 
 he remembered that he had not spoken to Green 
 that morning. Green had not left his seat before 
 they started, but that was not remarkable, because 
 Dr. Calgarrie's man had put in the luggage and had 
 arranged the rug and cushions for Robert. So many 
 people had been crowding round the door that 
 Green was hardly called upon to take any part in 
 the proceedings. He was not like Wilkins, who 
 would have known them all. Green was driving a 
 little faster than Robert liked. The car bumped 
 over some obstruction in the road, Robert swore, 
 and thought that his cushions were less comfortably 
 arranged than usual. He put out his hand for the 
 speaking tube, but before he spoke, it dawned upon 
 him that the man who was driving him was not Green. 
 
 Robert's first instinct was to shout to his un- 
 known driver to stop, but another instinct, it could 
 hardly be called reasoning, prevailed. He sat still, 
 and replaced the tube. Without being exactly 
 frightened, he was puzzled. Why had Green sent 
 another man to drive him without a word of ex-
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 215 
 
 planation ? Had the fellow been making a night of 
 it, and was not in a condition to drive ? Had he had 
 an accident ? In any case he must have sent this 
 man, who had brought the car to Calgarrie's punctu- 
 ally and had driven off on the right road without any 
 orders. Robert was surprised. Green had excellent 
 manners, like a gentleman's servant, not like one 
 of those damned mannerless, ill-bred chauffeur 
 fellows that you sometimes picked up at a garage 
 so he thought. It was surprising that Green had 
 sent no message of apology. 
 
 Then the sight of a ladder against a house on the 
 road reminded Robert of the late occurrence at his 
 own house, as described by the doctor. There was 
 a great deal yet to be explained. What possession 
 of Eleanor's could these crooks he supposed they 
 were crooks want ? It annoyed him very much 
 that apparently on two occasions people had managed 
 to break into his house and get away without being 
 caught. Such a thing ought not to be possible. 
 Apparently Anthony had been rather cryptic with 
 Calgarrie, but he had stated clearly that nothing 
 had been stolen. Evidently, Calgarrie had said, 
 the thieves had not found what they wanted. 
 
 Robert knew that he was nearly at home again, 
 as the road led across a great heath that had once 
 been very bare, as he remembered, but was now 
 rapidly turning into a forest of self-sown fir-trees. 
 He looked steadily at the chauffeur's immovable back 
 in front of him; the close-cropped hair at the man's 
 neck was darker than Green's, yes, it was certainly 
 darker, though very little of it could be seen between
 
 2i6 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 the wide, white collar of his coat and his cap, also 
 with its white cover. 
 
 Why was Robert being driven back to his house 
 by this unknown man, who evidently did not want 
 his employer to notice that he was not Green ? 
 When they bumped on the road or turned a corner 
 sharply, at the next possible quiet moment, Green, 
 driving slowly, had got into a habit of giving a 
 quick look round to see if things were all right 
 inside the car, but this man was like an auto- 
 maton, a robot, he might have been part of the 
 machinery. 
 
 Then a touch of Robert's natural shrewdness 
 came to his rescue. This fellow wanted to get into 
 the house. He was one of the gang that was looking 
 for something that had been in Eleanor's possession. 
 It says much for the clearness of Robert's conscience 
 that he never once thought of the Colquhoun papers. 
 He considered. Calgarrie had mentioned police 
 in charge of the house. The fellow was possibly 
 trying only to steal the car, but if that were the case, 
 he might be half-way to London by this time, in- 
 stead of driving steadily to Greystones. 
 
 The best thing to be done was to continue to 
 treat him as Green, get him into the house, and tell 
 those confounded useless policemen to take him 
 into custody. They should justify their existence 
 somehow. 
 
 No doubt he was prepared with a yarn to spin if 
 Robert recognised that he was not Green, a yarn 
 that must be accepted at its face value, if he had to 
 be recognised, but Robert hoped to avoid the
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 217 
 
 necessity, because it would put him on his guard. 
 No one else in the house would be aware that he 
 was not Green. 
 
 Robert's suspicions were further confirmed be- 
 cause the driver turned in at the open gate of Grey- 
 stones without waiting for any direction. So the 
 fellow knew the house ! Green would not have known 
 it. His representative had not got up his brief very 
 well, Robert thought, being unaware of Green's 
 weakness for posing as a chauffeur in private employ- 
 ment, who would never own that he had not seen 
 his " boss's " house. 
 
 The drive turned a little sharply up to the house 
 and every chauffeur naturally sounded his horn at that 
 point. It was enough. Wilkins, Crutcher, Mrs. 
 Crutcher, West the parlourmaid, appeared as if by 
 magic in the porch. There was no question of any 
 attention being paid to Green, true or false. Robert 
 had a slightly shy and self-conscious sensation of 
 being welcomed like the prodigal son, but it was a 
 pleasant enough sensation. Later he would laugh 
 about it. He got inside the door at last, shaking 
 Mrs. Crutcher's hand, and declaring somewhat 
 testily that he was quite well, testily, because there 
 were signs of Mrs. Crutcher's " turning on the 
 waterworks," and that, though touching as a sign 
 of her devotion, was embarrassing. Then he said, 
 without actually looking at the chauffeur, who was 
 now standing irresolutely, with his back to the porch, 
 and was certainly taller than Green. " Oh, Green, 
 come in, I shall have something for you. You have 
 driven me very well indeed. I shall write to Fitz-
 
 ai 8 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 william but come in, and Mrs. Crutcher will give 
 you some dinner. Just wait in the hall a minute, 
 will you ? Wilkins, come in to the study with me, 
 I want to change my boots." 
 
 He and Wilkins went through the swing 
 door under the stairs, to the study. The other 
 servants disappeared, and the pseudo-Green came 
 into the house and was left standing alone in the 
 hall. 
 
 It would have surprised everyone concerned if 
 they had seen him make a rapid dash for the tele- 
 phone; apparently he barely touched it, but he 
 came back to his position of attention by the table 
 with a satisfied expression on his clean-shaven face, 
 certainly a darker, less pleasant face than Green's 
 had been. Meanwhile, in the study Robert was 
 giving orders to Wilkins. 
 
 " That fellow in the hall is not Green. I don't 
 know what he wants here. We have some con- 
 stables about the place I understand ? " 
 
 ' Two plain-clothes men, sir, yes." Wilkins 
 was admirable. He showed no surprise, and asked 
 no questions. 
 
 " Let Mrs. Crutcher give the fellow some dinner, 
 don't rouse his suspicions, but keep an eye on him, 
 and tell them to arrest him on a charge of attempting 
 to steal the car." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Wilkins. 
 
 Robert pulled some treasury notes out of his 
 pocket. " Give these notes to him now, and say 
 I'm not very well, but I want to see him before he 
 goes."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME a 19 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Let me know when he has been arrested." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Wilkins vanished, and found the so-called Green 
 standing by the window in the hall, looking at his 
 car as it stood outside. Wilkins gave his master's 
 tip and his message pleasantly enough. 
 
 " We're just going to have dinner," he said. 
 " Will you come along ? Mr. Preston don't seem 
 very grand. I shall have to go back to him." 
 
 " He hasn't been very well," said the would-be 
 Green. ' This is a fine house. Mr. Preston's 
 told me quite a lot about it." 
 
 He had tumbled very quickly to the fact that 
 he was only a temporary hireling in spite of the real 
 Green's attempts to " show off." " Can I put the 
 car under cover somewhere," he asked, " or can 
 it stand where it is till I go ? " 
 
 " Oh, it is all right there," said Wilkins, carelessly. 
 " Come along, or dinner will be cold." 
 
 He took the man into the servants' hall, made him 
 over to Mrs. Crutcher's hospitality, had a look 
 at the car, and disconnected something in it, with 
 an air of satisfaction equal to that of the other man 
 when he had tampered with the telephone. 
 
 He knew where to find the constable on 
 duty, who was actually watching the front 
 gate. 
 
 " Let the poor chap have his dinner," said that 
 worthy, who was much too kind-hearted for his job. 
 " Don't frighten the maids. I'll catch him as he 
 comes out. You'd better be near, Wilkins, I've
 
 220 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 got some darbies, but he may try to make a run for 
 it." 
 
 " I've put his car out of action for a bit anyhow," 
 said Wilkins grimly. But he did not try to make a 
 run at all. At dinner he talked to the maids about 
 the house and the late attempt at burglary. 
 
 ' You might show me the room," he suggested 
 to West, the parlourmaid. " It's interesting you 
 know, to say you've seen the place." 
 
 " D'you mean the room where Miss Eleanor was 
 murdered ? " asked Elsie, who still took a gruesome 
 delight in the fact. Mrs. Crutcher broke in. 
 " You get on with your dinner, Elsie, and don't 
 speak till you're spoken to." 
 
 " A murder 1 " cried the supposed Green. 
 " Now, I'd heard nothing of that. Mr. Preston 
 only said there' d been a burglary lately, but the 
 burglars were disturbed and took nothing. Was the 
 lady murdered a hundred years ago, and does her 
 ghost walk ? This looks like a house where a ghost 
 might walk." 
 
 Mrs. Crutcher looked at him severely, Elsie 
 and Kate were already regarding him with their 
 mouths open. A ghost they hadn't thought of 
 that. Might they see Miss Eleanor's ghost ? Mrs. 
 Crutcher knew what that meant. Screams and 
 shrieks when they put up the shutters, hysterics 
 when they went to bed. She wasn't going to have 
 " none of that nonsense." 
 
 " No," she said. " A very sad story, not very 
 long ago, we don't talk about it, Mr. Green, if that's 
 your name. I daresay Wilkins '11 show you the
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 221 
 
 window where the robber got in, if so be you want 
 to see it. It's morbid, all that going after scenes of 
 burglary and such-like, I think. I wouldn't have 
 anything to do with them if I was you." 
 
 " I'd rather like to see the room though," per- 
 sisted Green. " Mine's a dull life, driving, generally 
 old ladies and gentlemen who don't like to go at 
 any speed. You don't know how tired one gets 
 of being ordered to go steady and slow, as if one 
 was driving a hearse. Burglaries seem to me a sort 
 of excitement. I always read about 'em in the papers, 
 sort of romantic yes ? " He was making eyes at 
 West, a personable woman, as he mentioned the 
 word " romantic." Presumably this Mr. Green 
 had a way with him, and generally got what he 
 wanted through a woman. Evidently he wanted to 
 see that room. 
 
 Wilkins came in, as they were all getting up, 
 after one of the best dinners that Mrs. Crutcher knew 
 how to cook. She had made it extra good that day 
 as a sort offcast in honour of Mr. Preston's return. 
 Any excuse for a feast is good enough for a cook 
 who takes a pride in her work. 
 
 " Will you come now, Green," said Wilkins. 
 " Mr. Preston wants to see you before you go,and 
 he's rather tired, he means to take a nap this after- 
 noon." 
 
 The door of the servants' hall opened into a fairly 
 wide lobby with a stone floor, lighted only by the 
 window of the back stairs ; it was not very light. As 
 Green went out, he turned a languishing glance on 
 West, which said plainly enough, " I should like
 
 222 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 to see you again," but he only remarked to Mrs. 
 Crutcher, " I'll come back presently," evidently 
 meaning to be polite. 
 
 Wilkins shut the door rather sharply behind him, 
 and almost at the same moment Green found him- 
 self seized by the arm on each side, Wilkins on his 
 right, a strange man on his left. " Come quietly 
 now," said the man on his left. " I charge you with 
 stealing that car you've been driving to-day." 
 
 So after all Mr. Preston had recognised that he 
 was not Green ! 
 
 He struggled for a moment, then stood still. 
 " That's all nonsense," he said. " I can explain 
 that directly." 
 
 ' You'll have lots of time to explain," said the 
 policeman, who was holding his left arm. 
 
 There were several doors in the lobby. Green 
 looked round and then attempted a break-away. 
 He was very strong and as lithe as a cat, but the 
 odds were against him. The doors were all locked 
 except the swing door under the stairs, and out of that 
 loomed the stocky figure of Crutcher. Wilkins 
 wasn't going " to take no risks," though the police- 
 man had been inclined to laugh at his caution. It 
 was not long before the so-called Green, still 
 struggling, found himself hand-cuffed securely. 
 
 " Now, you're a stupid fellow," said the police- 
 man, almost sympathetically. " If you'd come along 
 quietly, we shouldn't have had to do this." 
 
 The prisoner cursed volubly. " If you'd only 
 listen," he said. " I didn't steal the bloody car. 
 I drove it to oblige a friend. My name's not Green.
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 223 
 
 Green's in an hotel at Calverstoke. I'd have told 
 the old gentleman if he'd asked me, but you don't 
 suppose I'm going to let myself be nabbed for 
 nothing ? " 
 
 " No," said the policeman. They had got the 
 prisoner on to the floor, and Crutcher had muffled 
 his legs in a sack. Now they hauled him up and 
 put him on a chair; it was easier to hold him like 
 that. 
 
 " Ring up Calverstoke, will you," said the 
 policeman to Wilkins, " and ask for a conveyance ? 
 I'd better take this chap to the police station at 
 once." 
 
 " I'll drive you in save time " said Wilkins. 
 " You and Crutcher can come to make sure. Mr. 
 Preston won't object. Pratt can run up here this 
 afternoon." 
 
 The prisoner cursed again. 
 
 At that moment someone banged at the door of 
 the servants' hall, which Wilkins had locked, as he 
 had locked them all, except the swing doors guarded 
 by Crutcher. Wilkins shouted to the imprisoned 
 household. " All right, just coming." 
 
 " We'll get this fellow away first," he said. 
 
 " You are treating me damned badly," said the 
 infuriated prisoner. " I can explain everything. 
 Green was ill, and asked me " 
 
 Mrs. Crutcher 's voice was at last heard above 
 the turmoil. " Wilkins ! Wilkins ! The front door 
 bell is ringing and ringing." 
 
 Wilkins looked round wildly, he did not like to 
 lose sight of his captive.
 
 224 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " You go,*' said the policeman, " he'll be all 
 right/' 
 
 Wilkins went out and opened the door ; there 
 to his great astonishment stood Margetson.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MARGETSON had heard, through Scotland Yard, 
 that another attempt was to be made to secure the 
 secret paper that was lying safely locked up in the 
 Chief Commissioner's safe. 
 
 It had transpired that the people who wanted it 
 did not know where it was. They believed, appar- 
 ently, that it was still at Greystones. The informa- 
 tion available did not go so far as to say in what 
 manner the attempt was to be made. Margetson 
 had been to Calverstoke, and had brought over two 
 more plain-clothes men as a reinforcement. It can 
 be imagined that his surprise was great when he 
 was taken immediately into the kitchen lobby and 
 brought face to face with a man in chauffeur's 
 livery, already handcuffed, with his feet tied together 
 in a sack, guarded by three men, as if he had been 
 very turbulent and violent. 
 
 " What was the fellow doing ? " he asked, in 
 great excitement. Was it possible that they had 
 already caught the Arcos agent who was out to 
 find that paper ? 
 
 Wilkins and the policeman together gave him 
 a jumbled version of what had happened. Marget- 
 son was distinctly disappointed. 
 
 " You'd better get him over to the police station 
 225 p
 
 226 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 at once. We can easily find out if his story about 
 Green can be authenticated. Where do you say 
 Green is ? " he asked the prisoner, but the man 
 only turned his head away and did not answer. 
 He looked extremely sulky. 
 
 " You can take him back in the police car that 
 brought me here," said Margetson. ' You needn't 
 go, Wilkins. Did you say that Mr. Preston had 
 returned ? I should like to see him." 
 
 As the pseudo-Green, though still hand-cuffed, 
 was allowed to walk to the car between the policeman 
 and Wilkins, he came into a better light, and though 
 he was holding his head down, Margetson could 
 see his face, and suddenly had the impression that 
 he had seen the man before. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, as the police car 
 drove away, unable to connect the impression with 
 anything else. " An ordinary crook," he thought ; 
 " professional car-stealer, I shouldn't be sur- 
 prised." 
 
 The maids were coming out of the servants' 
 hall, which Crutcher had unlocked, and Mrs. 
 Crutcher stopped in amazement as she saw Marget- 
 son. " Did you know Mr. Preston was here, sir," 
 she asked in very natural bewilderment. She 
 had been told by Wilkins that " that there Marget- 
 son had come to his senses, and Mr. Preston could 
 come home when he liked," but she felt less con- 
 fident when the detective arrived thus rapidly on 
 the heels of her master. 
 
 Margetson laughed. " I know now," he said, 
 " but you need not be apprehensive. I acknowledge
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 227 
 
 freely that I was mistaken about Mr. Preston. 
 It is someone else that I am after now." 
 ' That chauffeur fellow, sir ? " 
 
 " No, no, he's only a common crook, a car- 
 stealer." 
 
 ' Well, sir," broke in West, the parlourmaid, 
 who resented the idea that a common crook 
 had been making eyes at her all through dinner, 
 " he was very anxious to see Miss Eleanor's room." 
 
 Margetson turned upon her, almost with a shout, 
 " To see Miss Eleanor's room ? What did he want 
 there ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir. Just to see it, out of curiosity 
 like, he said," Mrs. Crutcher answered, because 
 West looked a little frightened. " I told him it was 
 a morbid taste, but he didn't know about Miss 
 Eleanor only about the burglars breaking in." 
 West was an honest woman if a trifle vain ; she 
 turned pink, " I think it may have just been an 
 excuse, sir, to get a gossip with me, sir." At 
 that moment a bell rang, and West hurried away 
 to answer it; she re-appeared almost immediately. 
 " Will you come into the study, sir," she said 
 to Margetson, " Mr. Preston would like to see 
 you." 
 
 Margetson followed her into the hall. " I think 
 I'll just telephone to the police-station first," he 
 said. It did not take him very long to discover that 
 he could not get through. That was puzzling, 
 but might have been only an annoying coincidence, 
 nevertheless he began to feel that the " chauffeur 
 fellow " might be of more importance than he had
 
 228 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 imagined. He remembered that there was some- 
 thing he had recognised in the man's appearance, 
 and suddenly it occurred to him that the pseudo- 
 Green had not spoken at all in his hearing. 
 
 Robert Preston after the manner of the Prestons, 
 who were always surprising Margetson greeted 
 him like an old friend and with an air of considerable 
 triumph, " I think I've caught the criminal for you," 
 he said. ' That fellow took Green's place I don't 
 know how he disposed of Green because he wanted 
 to get in here." 
 
 Margetson stared at him. ' The fellow was only 
 trying to steal the car," he said. " I've seen him 
 before somewhere, probably under the same sort 
 of charge." 
 
 " Sit down, won't you ? " Robert was very 
 genial. " It is rather a long story, but if that chap 
 wanted only to steal the car he could have been 
 well out of our reach by this time. No, he wanted 
 a chance to get into this house. I don't know why." 
 
 " Your telephone is out of order," said Margetson 
 abruptly, " I must go to the post-office. I'd like 
 to get through to Smithers at Calverstoke." 
 
 " Out of order ! I always said that the damned 
 thing was no use," said Robert irritably. " Oh ! 
 that fellow waited in the hall while I spoke to 
 Wilkins. I suppose it is fairly easy to disconnect ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you know how to do it," Margetson 
 
 was thoroughly roused, he could hardly keep still. 
 
 * Tell me about him quickly, will you ; they'll 
 
 take half an hour to get to Calverstoke. I'd like 
 
 to ring up before they arrive."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 229 
 
 " The fellow brought the car for me this morning 
 to Calgarrie's house. I had been staying there 
 for the night. I did not recognise that he was not 
 Green, the chauffeur I'd taken with the car, until 
 we were half-way here. I was just going to stop 
 him and ask what the devil he meant by it, when 
 it occurred to me that he wanted to get into this 
 house. There could be no other reason. If he had 
 wanted only to steal the car, he could have been 
 in London by the time we started, or half-way to 
 Southampton if he meant to get out of this country. 
 Now, I don't know much about the last attempt here, 
 but my son told Calgarrie that the thieves must 
 have been looking for something that belonged to 
 my niece, and that they had taken nothing. I 
 conclude whatever it was that they could not 
 find it. Therefore I supposed that this fellow was 
 one of the gang ; he meant to get into the house and 
 try once more to find it. I can tell you definitely 
 that he knew the way here, and knew the house. 
 We are not quite in the village, and I should have 
 had to direct Green. That is my story. I don't 
 say that the fellow murdered my niece, but I have 
 no doubt that he wanted to get into the house, and 
 didn't need to be shown the way here. He had 
 been here before. It looks as if he had discovered 
 where the telephone is, too ! " 
 
 " I must speak to Smithers at once. They ought 
 to search the prisoner thoroughly, the moment he 
 arrives. . . ." Margetson was out of the room 
 and half-way up the drive before Robert could 
 get out another word.
 
 230 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 He shook his head. " Margetson is very smart 
 all at once, but he did not catch the fellow 1 
 did ! " His face broke into smiles ; for the first 
 time since Eleanor's death, he felt that he was once 
 more master in his own house; he had vindicated 
 his character. 
 
 " Anthony's wild-cat schemes indeed," he said 
 to himself contemptuously, "these affairs want 
 nothing but common sense to get to the bottom of 
 them." 
 
 Margetson telephoned from the post-office to 
 Smithers at Calverstoke, and directed that the 
 chauffeur charged with stealing a car at Greystones 
 should be searched and put under special super- 
 vision the moment that he arrived at the police 
 station. It was necessary to give the inspector 
 some inkling of the possible underlying seriousness 
 of the affair, and to ask that the story about Green 
 should be investigated at once. Smithers was in- 
 clined to be sceptical. He thought the link very 
 thin. " I expect you'll find that there's nothing in 
 it. What's the difference between one hired 
 chauffeur and another ? It isn't as if Green were 
 Mr. Preston's own servant." 
 
 " Have him searched anyhow," said Margetson, 
 " and if he has any sort of fire-arms on him, lock 
 him up till I come. I've seen the fellow before, 
 but can't remember when or where." 
 
 Smithers promised to go to the Thorell Arms 
 and find out about Green, but afterwards he decided
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 231 
 
 to wait until he had seen the man under arrest. 
 Smithers, like Anthony Preston, thought that 
 Margetson " had the wind up " over this case. 
 For the life of him the inspector could not see 
 any possible connection between Miss Went- 
 worth's murderer and the hired chauffeur very 
 understandably picked up by Mr. Preston at 
 Calverstoke. 
 
 Smithers had been considerably impressed by 
 the discovery in the murdered lady's bedroom of 
 the official document about which the newspapers 
 had made so much noise, and he supposed that the 
 agents of Arcos might still be trying to find it, but 
 a chauffeur from the Thorell Arms seemed to 
 be altogether too familiar to be connected in any 
 sense with the sinister agents of a foreign country. 
 Smithers thought that he would probably recognise 
 the man as one of the usual employes at the garage, 
 and that it would be foolish to exaggerate the 
 importance of very hazy suspicions. If he were a 
 local man it would account for his knowledge of the 
 way to the house. 
 
 In fact, it was very much in Mr. Smithers' mind, 
 if the prisoner told a plausible story and gave an 
 address in the town, that he would not lock up 
 the fellow, though someone might be told to keep 
 an eye on him. After all he had not stolen the car, 
 which was still at Greystones, and so far the charge 
 against him was only one of attempted theft. The 
 fact that he had stayed and eaten his dinner in a 
 friendly fashion with the other servants at Grey- 
 stones, was an additional proof of the innocence of
 
 232 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 his intentions, at all events in Mr. Smithers' mind. 
 It was possible that Green had made a night 
 of it, and the other man did not want to give his 
 fellow chauffeur away. It was merely ill-advised 
 of him not to have explained the position to Mr. 
 Preston. Smithers knew that the old gentleman was 
 inclined to be what he called " cranky " in a car, 
 and it seemed credible that Green had warned his 
 representative that his employer was easily fright- 
 ened. To most people one professional chauffeur 
 was as good as another, but Mr. Preston was capable 
 of becoming nervous about a strange driver. 
 
 ' These fellows don't want to lose their jobs," 
 thought Smithers. He was quite prepared to show 
 that he could rise superior to Scotland Yard, when 
 Scotland Yard was evidently in a blue funk. 
 
 The fact was that the week before Smithers, as 
 police inspector, had made a mistake, in charging 
 and keeping in custody for several days a perfectly 
 innocent man, accused of stealing his neighbour's 
 wheelbarrow, whereas his neighbour's wife, who was 
 a " saucy piece," had required some earrings, 
 pawned the said wheelbarrow, visited Woolworth's, 
 and accused a perfectly honest and respectable man 
 of the theft. Sir John Elgin happened to be in the 
 chair on the day that this man was brought before 
 the Bench, and had rather sharply criticised 
 Smithers. The inspector did not want to have 
 another case of " wrongful detention " laid to his 
 charge. On occasion Sir John had a somewhat 
 cutting edge to his tongue. 
 
 Therefore Smithers made up his mind to deal
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 233 
 
 very leniently with the man accused of stealing Mr. 
 Preston's hired car; in fact to give him the benefit 
 of the doubt, just because Margetson and the rest 
 of them at Greystones were in a state of nerves over 
 the business. Smithers had never thought much of 
 Margetson's evidence against Mr. Preston, having 
 known that gentleman for a number of years, both 
 on the Bench and off it. ' There aren't such a lot 
 of men as you'd go bail for that they wouldn't 
 commit a murder," Smithers considered, " but I'd 
 have staked my last ha'penny on Mr. Preston. 
 I don't know as I'd have said as much for some of 
 the others on the Bench. His Lordship, with a drop 
 of drink on board, might have done most things, out 
 of mere silliness like, and Sir John has a kind of 
 cold rage about him sometimes. I shan't forget 
 in a hurry what he was like when his son was killed. 
 I know he was just cursing like hell in his own mind. 
 I wouldn't have given a brass bob for any conshy 
 who got in his way just then, and yet he was cold, 
 like a bit of frozen iron or something that takes the 
 skin off you if you touch it, and my word, I don't 
 want no more of his dashed remarks, like I had 
 over that wheelbarrow. He knows how to say 
 things that cut like a knife he does . . . now Mr. 
 Preston he's peppery if you like, and as clever and 
 impatient as they make 'em, but soft-hearted . . . 
 that sort don't commit murder, bless 'em, not they. 
 But Mr. Margetson thinks Scotland Yard knows a 
 damned sight better than anyone else. I expect 
 all this excitement about the chauffeur's pure gas. 
 He must be after somebody. Well, it's his job,
 
 234 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 I suppose, and he didn't seem even to have asked 
 the fellow's name. I might have known if 
 he was one of the usual crowd at the Thorell 
 
 Smithers was going through the ordinary routine 
 work in his office, and expected to have the accused 
 man brought in to him in the usual manner, but all 
 at once he heard a most extraordinary noise, clatter 
 and shouting, outside the police station. He did 
 not connect it with the Greystones case it sounded 
 like a very noisy " drunk and disorderly " but he 
 got up and went out to the door, followed by the 
 constable on duty. A struggle of almost unpre- 
 cedented violence was going on. It was the Grey- 
 stones prisoner, to whom Smithers had been pre- 
 pared to show mercy rather than justice. He 
 knew in a moment that this was no ordinary case of 
 attempted theft. The prisoner's strength was 
 evidently abnormal, securely handcuffed as he was 
 he had somehow taken Pierce by surprise and 
 knocked him down; he lay, apparently insensible, 
 in the gutter. The prisoner was shouting out a 
 stream of filthy abuse, relapsing at intervals into 
 words of some strange language. Smithers had 
 only once heard anything like it, when he took up 
 a foreign seaman who had ill-treated his wife, and 
 he had no idea what language or languages the 
 man had used, but it sounded extraordinarily evil 
 a devil's language anyhow thought Smithers, and 
 it was startling to hear it breaking the silence of a 
 sunny spring afternoon in the sleepy little town of 
 Calverstoke.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 235 
 
 By the time that Smithers had got to the door the 
 man had evidently nearly brought off his attempt to 
 bolt, swinging his long, powerful arms round 
 viciously to keep off his captors, but he had not been 
 quite quick enough. Wilkins, following him out 
 of the car, had caught him from behind by the 
 coat-collar, and was half-choking him, because his 
 chauffeur's livery coat buttoned up close round the 
 neck. He was kicking ferociously, trying to reach 
 Wilkins with his foot, but the constable, who had 
 been driving the car, had thrown a big heavy over- 
 coat at him, muffling his feet. Smithers and the 
 duty constable dashed out and seized him, one by 
 each arm, and Wilkins' strangle-hold began to tell. 
 They hauled him, struggling, biting, swearing, 
 kicking, into the police station, but it took the four 
 men all their time to hold him, handcuffed as he 
 was. Smithers was astounded. The fellow was as 
 strong as a bull. No question about it, Margetson 
 was right, the lock-up was the only place for him. 
 They got him tied up at last, still screaming and 
 swearing, and then searched him. There was a 
 revolver in his hip-pocket, loaded, and in another 
 pocket a small packet of white powder, which 
 Smithers concluded was poison, but it proved 
 afterwards to be only a French preparation of mor- 
 phia. Nothing else incriminating was discovered, 
 no letters or papers, beyond a leather case containing 
 Green's driver's licence. Wilkins was active in the 
 searching, his blood was up, as Smithers could see, 
 quiet man as he was normally. All at once he 
 produced out of the pocket where the revolver had
 
 236 A WILDCAT SCHEME 
 
 been found a tiny, much crumpled bit of paper, a 
 narrow blue strip with something written on it. 
 
 Wilkins exclaimed, " Miss Eleanor's writing ! " 
 
 He smoothed out the fragment; it was an ordin- 
 ary slip, about two inches wide, four inches long, 
 such as is used in most offices, with Eleanor Went- 
 worth's name, the address at Greystones and two 
 dates, written on it in her own hand. 
 
 The prisoner glared at it. ' These bloody 
 clothes belong to Green," he said. " I don't know 
 anything about it." 
 
 For the first time he stopped swearing, and 
 looked frightened hunted. 
 
 He could not guess that if he had allowed him- 
 self to be taken quietly into the police-station he 
 might have left it that same afternoon as a free man, 
 because Inspector Smithers meant to assert his 
 right to private judgment, and Detective Sergeant 
 Margetson had been delayed. 
 
 Margetson went back to Greystones House 
 quickly after he had telephoned to Smithers, only 
 to give instructions to the constables on special 
 duty, and to commandeer Wilkins to drive him 
 into Calverstoke. To his great annoyance and 
 dismay he could not find the chauffeur anywhere. 
 Crutcher at last informed him that Wilkins had 
 gone with the prisoner, though Margetson had 
 told him that it was not necessary for him to go. 
 The local public-house had a small garage and a 
 couple of cars that could be hired. Margetson 
 rushed hastily into the village, cursing the wounded
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 237 
 
 arm that prevented him from driving himself. 
 Both cars were out. 
 
 He came back to the house once more, raging, 
 and found that there was only one method open to 
 him to reach Calverstoke that night. He borrowed 
 Crutcher's bicycle. There was a bus, from about 
 half-way, Crutcher told him doubtfully, but probably 
 he would miss it. 
 
 Margetson had not ridden a bicycle for a long time 
 and he departed shakily and uncomfortably. It was 
 the only thing to be done. As he went, he racked 
 his brain to remember where he had seen the 
 pseudo-Green before. 
 
 All at once it came back to him. The man had 
 been in the lift at Scotland Yard the day that he 
 and Anthony were there.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WHEN Anthony and Molly arrived almost simul- 
 taneously at Greystones the next morning, they were 
 greeted by Robert Preston in a thoroughly com- 
 placent frame of mind, and Wilkins in a state that 
 can only be described as swaggering. 
 
 " I watched the fellow, sir, I did, like a cat with 
 a mouse, all the way to Calver stoke. I'd felt a 
 lump under the top of his trousers at the back, and 
 I knew what it was. If he could have got his hands 
 free he'd have made short work of us, and I do 
 believe as that gumph of a constable from Calver- 
 stoke would have taken off the darbies if I hadn't 
 been there, such a wheedling tongue the chap had. 
 Said he'd been wounded in the wrist during the war, 
 and having his hands tied together like that gave 
 him a hell of a pain, promised and vowed he wouldn't 
 move. ' How could I,' says he, ' with both of you 
 here ? ' 
 
 " ' That's true,' says Pierce the constable, a softy if 
 ever there was one. I had to speak out at last, ' Look 
 here, Pierce,' I says, ' the fellow's got a revolver in 
 his pocket. If you want to go to kingdom come 
 this evening,' says I, ' I can tell you I don't. If 
 you want to slip off those darbies you can stop the 
 
 238
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 239 
 
 car and I'll get out first. You'll probably never 
 know what Mr. Smithers'll say." 
 
 " Good for you, Wilkins," said Anthony. " So 
 you got him safely into quod ? " 
 
 ' Yes, sir, as it was, when we arrived he kicked 
 like the devil and nearly brained Pierce even with 
 his hands tied together, but Mr. Smithers was 
 there, and another constable. The gentleman took 
 some holding, I can tell you, sir ! He was as 
 slippery as an eel and as strong as a horse. I'd 
 lay my bottom dollar that's the bloke what did for 
 poor Miss Eleanor. He had this address in her 
 writing in his pocket. His face was like a devil 
 when he was fighting." 
 
 " I wish that I could have seen him," said Molly, 
 a little regretfully. " Grandpapa seems to have had 
 all the fun." 
 
 ' You have strange ideas of fun," said her 
 grandfather. " I wish you had had to stay with the 
 Underwoods." 
 
 Once more the magistrates at Calverstoke had 
 a man accused of the murder of Eleanor Went- 
 worth brought before them, and a crowded Bench 
 on this occasion was glad enough to remand him 
 in custody, until the police could complete their 
 evidence. The prisoner gave his name as Albert 
 Smith, and the address of a bank in the White- 
 chapel Road, where he said that he was known. 
 He seemed to have recovered himself, apologized 
 for having lost his temper and injured Pierce, but
 
 2 4 o A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 declared that he knew nothing whatever about 
 Greystones or the murder. 
 
 Margetson proceeded very carefully. The fact 
 that Smith had doped Mr. Preston's chauffeur in 
 a way that by the merest chance had not cost the 
 chauffeur's life, apparently in order to get into 
 Greystones House himself; the revolver, and the bit 
 of blue paper with the address in Miss Wentworth's 
 writing, found in his pocket; and last, but not 
 least, his remarkably violent behaviour at the 
 police station, formed the only undoubted evidence 
 against him. Nevertheless, as Margetson said, 
 it was evidence that called for further examination. 
 It was by no means certain that the man had given 
 his real name, and the police asked for a remand until 
 his identity could be proved. 
 
 The prisoner's defence was that Green had had 
 toothache, and after several disturbed nights, had 
 taken a sleeping draught himself, and had asked his 
 fellow chauffeur to drive for him the next morning. 
 Smith declared that he had had no intention to 
 deceive Mr. Preston, and would have explained 
 that Green was ill, if he had been asked. He 
 claimed, with great indignation, that he had been 
 very badly treated. When asked to say why he 
 carried a revolver, and a packet of the somewhat 
 unusual preparation of opium with which Green 
 had been dosed, he only shrugged his shoulders. 
 He had to drive all sorts of people, often in very 
 deserted places; the revolver was a precaution. 
 The drug and the bit of blue paper both belonged 
 to Green. He said that he had put on Green's
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 241 
 
 livery in order to look respectable for Mr. Preston, 
 as his own clothes were shabby, but it was very 
 quickly proved that he was not wearing Green's 
 trousers, boots or gaiters, which were all much too 
 small for him, and moreover they had all remained 
 in the room Green had occupied at the Thorell 
 Arms. Smith had taken only his linen coat, which 
 was very loose, and a cap-cover for his own cap. 
 All the suspected articles had been found in Smith's 
 own trouser-pockets, but he was quite ur moved, 
 and said that he had taken a handkerchief and the 
 other things out of the coat-pockets and put them 
 into his own pockets for safer keeping. 
 
 The next time that he appeared before the 
 Bench, one of the managers of the bank at White- 
 chapel appeared to say that Smith had been em- 
 ployed there as a temporary clerk chiefly because 
 he knew some obscure Russian dialects which were 
 wanted fairly often in the district, but he had other 
 jobs as interpreter and had been away lately for 
 some weeks. The manager said that Smith was 
 a good linguist. Anthony, who was present in 
 court, looked at Margetson. They both knew 
 that the man had been with them in the lift at 
 Scotland Yard, when Anthony, half in joke, had 
 mentioned Arcos. 
 
 Green also appeared, denied that he had ever 
 taken a sleeping draught or wanted one in his 
 life, and swore that Smith must have given him the 
 drug without his being aware of it. Further, he 
 denied that he had ever even heard Miss 
 
 Wentworth's name, or seen her writing. He had 
 
 o
 
 242 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 never been at Greystones. Robert Preston corro- 
 borated that statement. He had never mentioned 
 his niece or her tragic fate to Green, who could not 
 possibly have seen her writing. 
 
 It was practically the word of one chauffeur 
 against the other, though no one really suspected 
 Green of the murder, and witnesses had been 
 brought from Ely to prove not only his identity 
 and respectability, but that he had actually been at 
 Ely at the time of the murder. Still the case 
 seemed to hang fire, until the manager of the 
 Whitechapel bank suddenly volunteered the inform- 
 mation that Smith had been employed sometimes at 
 the Foreign Office as an interpreter in some of those 
 same obscure dialects which made him useful at the 
 bank. The manager evidently thought that he was 
 doing Smith a good turn by mentioning the fact, 
 as a voucher for his steadiness and reliability, but 
 the prisoner glowered at him. Margetson looked 
 triumphant, and observed that now they knew 
 where Smith had found the strip of blue paper. 
 
 Sir John Elgin was in the chair, and asked for 
 evidence from the Foreign Office itself before the 
 prisoner could be committed for trial. 
 
 So the case dragged on, but later Smith was 
 identified by two officials from the Foreign Office, 
 who also declared that he had been in the office 
 on the day that the docket, afterwards found in 
 Eleanor's room, had disappeared. He had an 
 open pass as interpreter, though he was only occa- 
 sionally employed. No one had suspected him, 
 but directly the paper was missed a strict super-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 243 
 
 vision over all visitors was instituted, and everyone 
 whether they had a pass or not was personally 
 identified and carefully watched. As it happened, 
 Smith had not been in the office after the loss of the 
 paper had been discovered. His services as inter- 
 preter had not been required, and no one had paid 
 any attention to his absence. He had been employed 
 off and on for some years, and there had been no 
 reason to suspect him. 
 
 The fact remained that the docket that had been 
 last in Miss Wentworth's hands had vanished, 
 and in some way or other Smith had become 
 possessed of her address. The slip was the sort of 
 thing that she usually gave to the correspondence 
 clerk of her section when she went away. The 
 dates on it were those of her last departure and the 
 day when she expected to return. The clerk 
 remembered that she had not given him a slip on 
 that occasion, she had looked into his room on her 
 way out and told him what her address would be, 
 and he had written it down himself. 
 
 It was no doubt chiefly on the evidence of that 
 bit of paper that Albert Smith was committed for 
 trial at the next assizes. 
 
 Anthony, however, came back to his father that 
 night very much dejected. "It is all so beastly 
 thin," he said. " The case against you was really 
 much better, because now everything depends on 
 Eleanor's having brought that infernal docket 
 down here, and I'd put my shirt on it that she did 
 not. Smith may have picked up that slip at the 
 F.O., but it would mean nothing, unless he knew
 
 244 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 
 
 that she had the docket. They all take it for granted 
 that she brought the beastly thing here, and some- 
 how or other in my bones I know that she did 
 not." 
 
 Robert, for all his impatient tendencies, could be 
 sympathetic. Moreover, he agreed with his son. 
 They were both well acquainted with that curious 
 streak of nervous conscientiousness in Eleanor. 
 There was no getting away from it. She used to 
 laugh and declare that she was very dull, as she 
 could never mention any subject connected with 
 her work, because, though she might be quoting 
 from the Daily Mai!, everyone would take it for 
 granted that her knowledge was official. No 
 one else in her position would have minded if they 
 did, but Eleanor was only too evidently nervous 
 about disclosing " secrets." 
 
 On the other hand if she had not the docket in 
 her possession there was no conceivable reason why 
 she should have been followed or murdered. 
 
 " Smith might have picked up that slip," said 
 Anthony, " if Eleanor dropped it, in the lift or 
 anywhere, and put it in his pocket without any 
 particular design. If he had said that, there would 
 have been little reason to doubt him, but he sticks 
 to the story that he took it out of Green's pocket 
 with a handkerchief, which is absurd. I think we 
 can rule Green out of the question." 
 
 Robert agreed. ' We need not bother about 
 Green. If that slip had not been found in Smith's 
 pocket we should not have been justified in bothering 
 about hinv but I still believe firmly that he wanted
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 245 
 
 to get into this house confound him ! The 
 docket was presumably here ; he could not possibly 
 know that the police had taken it away." 
 
 " He was in the lift at Scotland Yard the day 
 that I went there with Margetson to enquire about 
 your car." 
 
 ' Was he indeed ? Has Margetson found out 
 what he was doing there ? " 
 
 * Yes, oddly enough, it was in connection with 
 you. He came to inform the Yard that your car 
 was at Cambridge. That is all right. Green says 
 he made Smith's acquaintance at Cambridge." 
 
 " Then why did you go to Ely ? " 
 
 " Oh, the mistake about the number as usual. 
 The Yard did not think it worth while to tell me. 
 Margetson is trying to find out how Smith came to 
 be at Cambridge at all." 
 
 " I heard one rather odd thing from Wilkins 
 to-day," Anthony went on, " which I must tell 
 Margetson. You know we took your dog, Patch, 
 into Calverstoke to-day for the vet to see him. 
 Wilkins brought him down to the Court to meet me 
 afterwards, but we had all gone, and the police 
 were bringing out their prisoners. Wilkins says 
 that Patch made one bound for Smith, was all over 
 him in a moment, frightfully pleased and friendly. 
 Smith did not like it at all, swore hotly at the dog 
 he has some language at command, that fellow 
 especially when one of the warders said, * Well, he 
 seems to know you anyhow.' 
 
 " Smith said, ' I wonder who the hell he thinks 
 I am ? I've never seen the b y brute before
 
 246 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 and don't want to see him again.' Wilkins was a 
 good bit impressed. You know those two nights 
 that someone certainly got into the house, Patch 
 never barked." 
 
 " That is true," said Robert, " and Patch is not 
 everyone's friend. You can't deceive a dog." 
 
 " Wilkins was convinced that Patch knew Smith. 
 He said that the dog welcomed him ecstatically, 
 trembled all over, wagged his tail, and whined 
 his most affectionate whine." Anthony laughed. 
 " Wilkins declares that Patch never whines like 
 that for him or for anyone but Mr. Preston and the 
 butcher boy ! I hope you are flattered by the way 
 in which he divides his affections." 
 
 " I knew it before cupboard love cupboard 
 love he's not disinterested ; how many people are ? 
 Anthony it is important that man has fed Patch, 
 not once, but several times, and given him what 
 he likes to eat too." 
 
 Anthony groaned. " I shall have to tell Marget- 
 son. I can't stand talking to the fellow now, 
 because he will take it for granted that Eleanor 
 brought that docket down here." 
 
 " Someone brought it," said Robert, dryly, 
 " because undoubtedly it was here." 
 
 " I could believe more readily that Margetson 
 brought it himself." 
 
 " I don't suspect that Margetson murdered 
 Eleanor," said Robert, " although he did suspect 
 me." 
 
 " We go round and round in a circle," said 
 Anthony, gloomily.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 247 
 
 ' The first thing a detective has to discover," 
 said Robert, " is the motive for a crime. If there 
 isn't one, you must invent it. Criminals are always 
 logical, every detective story you read will tell you 
 that. Take away the docket, and there is no 
 motive for the murder of Eleanor." 
 
 " Except your dislike of her attitude about the 
 Colquhoun papers." 
 
 Robert laughed. " I think you would rather see 
 your father hanged than allow that Eleanor brought 
 that docket down here." 
 
 ' Well but I am just as certain that she didn't 
 as I am that you didn't," said Anthony. " The one 
 idea is as preposterous as the other." 
 
 " I should tell Margetson about Patch." 
 
 " It may be only that the fellow has a dog of his 
 own, whose aroma is agreeable to Patch." 
 
 " Tut ! " said Robert, " lots of people have 
 dogs. Patch is not so easily led astray. No, no, 
 Patch has made friends with the fellow, and the 
 one sure road to his affections is through his 
 stomach." 
 
 " Feed the brute ! " said Anthony, grinning. 
 " Well, that wasn't said of a dog, and you are 
 Patch's god, although you don't feed him." 
 
 Robert's shoulder went up. " I don't always 
 notice when he goes after a rabbit," he observed. 
 
 It was possibly the next day that a man came up 
 the drive with a basket on his arm, and Anthony 
 saw Patch gambolling round him, whimpering and 
 whining in the most ecstatic manner. 
 
 " Another friend of our guardian angel, Patch ? "
 
 348 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Anthony enquired of Crutcher, who was sweeping 
 the drive. 
 
 " Don't know much about angels," said Crutcher, 
 leaning on his broom, " that's the butcher boy. 
 There's only Mr. Preston and him for Patch, except 
 there was a gypsy fellow who was about here a day 
 or two afore Miss Eleanor died, selling baskets 
 he was, and I s'pose he sold cats' meat too, because 
 he gave Patch a bit more'n once. Mrs. Crutcher 
 saw him out of bedroom winder. The missus 
 can't abide gypsies, knows too much of 'em. She 
 wouldn't have none of his baskets and she sent him 
 off with a flea in his ear, but I saw him again, more'n 
 once. Patch knew him all right. I wondered 
 if he wanted to steal the dog." 
 
 " Would you know him again if you saw him ? " 
 asked Anthony, hopefully, but Crutcher shook his 
 head. " One gyppo's as like another as two peas," 
 he said, " there ain't a pin's point to choose atween 
 'em, to look at. I ain't Patch to reckernize the 
 cats' meat." 
 
 " So that was how Patch was silenced," thought 
 Anthony, " and he did recognise Smith." 
 
 The little link, insignificant as it might prove to 
 be, was duly imparted to Margetson, who still 
 seemed to be far from satisfied about the case. 
 " I can't get beyond Smith's landlady, with whom 
 he lodged when he was clerking at that bank. 
 I believe she knows more than she says, but she is 
 frightened of telling me. I don't believe that the 
 fellow's name is Smith, and I can't find out yet 
 why a bank-clerk, sufficiently well educated to
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 249 
 
 be employed as an interpreter at the Foreign Office, 
 should be doing odd jobs as a chauffeur at Cam- 
 bridge. If he was connected with the Arcos 
 company, I conclude that he was after the Prince 
 of Wales, who stayed in Cambridge for a night 
 before Mr. Preston left ; God only knows what 
 Smith thought he could find out. It is easy enough 
 to get taken on by a garage when there is a press 
 of work. The managers don't ask for much 
 reference, beyond a clean licence and some sort 
 of voucher that a fellow can drive different makes of 
 car. There are plenty of such men to be had. 
 A lot of them learnt to drive during the war. If 
 one doesn't suit, the garage can get another as quick 
 as they like. I suppose it pays, with tips and so 
 on, better than private work, and the men are more 
 independent." 
 
 Anthony still felt restless and dissatisfied. He 
 was sure that Margetson was taking another wrong 
 turning, because he would not, or could not, believe 
 that Eleanor had not brought that docket with her. 
 Two or three days later, Anthony and Molly came 
 down together to stay at Greystones, and Anthony 
 arrived in a state of excitement, hardly able to get 
 into the study where Robert was sitting, before he 
 began : " It is just what I always said. Eleanor 
 no more brought that docket down here than I did. 
 I've been to the F.O. to find out what was in that 
 blessed paper. It had absolutely nothing to do with 
 Eleanor or her work. She would no more have 
 wanted it here than the man in the moon." 
 
 " What was it ? " asked Robert.
 
 150 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 " Daddy won't tell me," said Molly, discon- 
 tentedly, " and Mr. Margetson becomes puce with 
 passion, or rigid with rage, if you ask him." 
 
 " I should have said he became tremulous with 
 tears," said Anthony. " A bare whisper of any- 
 thing so secret turns his bones to water." 
 
 Molly shrugged her shoulders, " Will you tell 
 Grandpapa if I go away ? " 
 
 " Yes, you minx, I will ! He won't repeat it to 
 every Tom, Jack and Harry of his acquaintance. 
 It isn't the only secret he will carry to his grave." 
 
 Molly made a face at her father, an entrancing 
 face, full of impudence, affection and contempt. 
 "As if Grandpapa had any secrets from me 1 " 
 she said, and curtsied to them both. " Fare you 
 well, reverend gentlemen, but if you don't tell me, 
 someone else will, a little bird, methinks." 
 
 Off she went, and the two men laughed. " I 
 don't suppose that wild horses would drag it out of 
 her if we did tell her," said Anthony, " but she 
 wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of saying 
 that she knew, and if that came round to Margetson 
 he'd get me locked up for lese majeste or contempt 
 of court, or something." 
 
 " I don't believe he will ever be satisfied until he 
 gets one of us locked up," said Robert. " Fire away, 
 my boy, what was it ? " 
 
 " The key to a cipher," said Anthony. " I 
 don't know what cipher, and I don't know the key." 
 
 " Why did it come to Eleanor ? She had nothing 
 to do with ciphers." 
 
 " Of course not I That is the point. It seems
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 251 
 
 that in order to bamboozle some of these inter- 
 national spies and people, it was decided to go back 
 to a comparatively simple form which had been 
 disused for fifty years or more. It is a double sort 
 of thing, like question and answer, rather ingenious, 
 so I was told, and quite unlike anything modern. 
 It seems that the Arcos people got hold of messages 
 sent in that cipher, but could not lay hands on the 
 key. Some important information had already 
 been sent in that form, which our people don't want 
 to have handed round, and they are particularly 
 anxious to know if Arcos could ever have had the 
 key. The police raided them to find out. You 
 can see how important it might be, not so much the 
 actual information, but who knows it ? " 
 " But what had Eleanor to do with it ? " 
 " Nothing at all ! She did not even know what 
 it meant. She happened to be working on papers 
 of the date when the cipher was first invented, and 
 a batch of them had just been sent to her. John 
 Davidson, who is one of the cipher experts at the 
 Foreign Office, merely sent the key to her to check 
 with the original key, which happened to be in that 
 batch. She never saw the cipher, and the key must 
 have been quite unintelligible to her. All that 
 they wanted from her was to see that the new form 
 was correct, and to give them the number and date 
 of the original paper for future reference. Davidson 
 sent the docket to her by his secretary, a fellow called 
 Stephens, who gave it to her himself. From that 
 moment no one knows what happened to it, until 
 it was found in Eleanor's room here. Stephens
 
 252 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 never had it again ; he says she wouldn't have sent 
 it by a messenger. She minuted it, merely to say 
 that the form tallied with the original form, and 
 gave the number and date that were required. She 
 signed the minute and dated it, the day before she 
 came down here. Of course, it wasn't quite usual. 
 They keep ciphers to one room as a rule, but the 
 thing had been disused for so long, and it was quite 
 a new idea to make it current again. It gives one 
 a bit of a shock, to think of Eleanor, working away, 
 checking that key, going through the usual routine, 
 and coming down here, without the slightest idea of 
 what was before her. I feel certain that she took 
 it to Stephens' room and it was stolen from there." 
 
 " And I was so angry with her," said Robert, 
 " I can't bear to think of it." 
 
 " Oh, don't think of it ! Eleanor wouldn't care. 
 She was devoted to you, and wouldn't mind what 
 you said, except that she would have been sorry 
 to displease you. But, don't you see, this docket 
 had nothing to do with her, or her work. She had 
 no reason in the wide world, no motive, for bringing 
 it here Margetson talks such a lot about motives 
 for crime, but why doesn't he consider motives for 
 other things as well ? Why should Eleanor take 
 the trouble to cart about a paper that was absolutely 
 useless to her ? It had no interest, a string of letters 
 and numbers, quite meaningless, unless you knew 
 the cipher. I understand that it was ingenious 
 in that way. The cipher of course meant nothing 
 without the key, or the key without the cipher. 
 Davidson says that together they were quite simple."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 253 
 
 11 I suppose that is like most ciphers, or codes," 
 said Robert, " but I am afraid it looks as if we know 
 that it is impossible it looks as if she had brought 
 it here to give to someone else to whom it would 
 be useful." 
 
 " That is Margetson's argument. Of course he 
 did not know Eleanor. You and I are as certain 
 as we can be of anything in this world that she 
 would have done nothing of the kind." 
 
 " Of course, of course, I don't doubt Eleanor, 
 but I am thinking of outside opinion the man in 
 the street, you know the bare fact that she could 
 want it for no other reason is embarrassing. How 
 did the fellow who came to look for it after her 
 death know that it was here ? " 
 
 Anthony got up and walked about the room. 
 " Was it here ? " he said.
 
 A FEW days later Anthony told his father that the 
 Grand Jury had returned a true bill, and that Smith 
 was to be tried at the Central Criminal Court, 
 before Mr. Justice Crayshaw, in the course of the 
 next few weeks. He was not to be kept waiting for 
 the next local assizes. 
 
 " Who is going to defend Smith ? " asked Robert, 
 rather wearily ; his " reserve of pugnacity " was 
 wearing thin. This long distasteful business was 
 beginning to tire him out. 
 
 " Lucius Barnaby, no one could have a better man, 
 brute, but able, very able, and not over-scrupulous." 
 
 " And against him, for the Crown ? " 
 
 " Sir Andrew Mallock, you have met him, 
 haven't you ? " 
 
 ' Yes, of course, his son was at Trinity last year, 
 wasn't he, when I stayed with you ? But think of 
 Eleanor why should her most lamentable death be 
 made a cause celebre ? I can't bear it. Barnaby 
 will try to drag her name in the dust. I know his 
 style. Someone said not long ago that Barnaby's 
 method generally left both plaintiff and defendant 
 with neither a scrap of character nor a rag of 
 reputation with which to cover their nakedness." 
 
 254
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 355 
 
 " I know it is only a shade worse to have him 
 against you than for you." 
 
 Anthony moved restlessly, the case was getting 
 on his nerves too, but it was useless to attempt to 
 talk of anything else. 
 
 " Let us thresh it out," he suggested. " We 
 have only three facts to go upon, the rest is all 
 guess-work. Margetson said that everything went 
 in threes." 
 
 I can only think of two the murder and the 
 docket." 
 
 ' You forget the slip of blue paper with Eleanor's 
 address, oh, yes, and we have a fourth fact now, 
 Patch's recognition of Smith. There were no end 
 of witnesses that day at Calverstoke, when Patch 
 fawned upon him, prison warders and policemen 
 and all kinds of people. It is no good for the man 
 to say that he has never been here before. Patch 
 is a native of Greystones, born and bred. He has 
 never been further afield than Calverstoke in his 
 whole existence. If Smith says he did not make 
 friends with him here, he's a liar. The dog has 
 never been anywhere else." 
 
 4 You can't take the dog into court, I believe," 
 said Robert. 
 
 " It wouldn't be much good. Patch would be 
 too busy trying to bite the rest of the company. 
 You know what he's like if we have any sort of 
 crowd here the flower-show or anything he 
 always has to be tied up. The thing won't fit. 
 I can't get at it myself. It is like a jig-saw puzzle 
 with a piece missing. What is the piece ? For
 
 256 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 the sake of argument let us agree that Eleanor 
 could only have brought the docket here to dispose 
 of it to someone else. The answer to that is firstly, 
 that she could have disposed of it much more easily 
 in London, and secondly, if she intended it for 
 someone else, why did he murder her ? You see 
 what an impasse it is. Margetson is beginning to 
 think that some third person is implicated, for whose 
 benefit she brought the docket here, and that this 
 fellow Smith is an outsider who came to steal it." 
 
 ;< Far fetched," said Robert. 
 
 " Out of the question," said Anthony. 
 
 ' We must see what counsel will make of it." 
 
 " An unholy mess, no doubt, about as far from 
 the truth as possible. By the by, Harman, the 
 solicitor who is in charge of the case for the 
 Crown, is coming down here for a night next 
 week." 
 
 " I know Harman," said Robert testily. " My 
 port isn't good enough for him; he will be seriously 
 prejudiced against us. No, I won't have the fellow 
 here." 
 
 " There are still two bottles of the 96," said 
 Anthony seriously. " But I thought they'd do to 
 drink the girls' healths when they get engaged to 
 be married just a bottle each." 
 
 " What do girts know about port, keep it for young 
 Tony." 
 
 '* I think Harman must have it. These fellows 
 require to be mellowed." 
 
 " Well, yes, he is about the age for that. Looks 
 as if he'd gone to sleep in the reign of George IV,
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 257 
 
 and waked up in surprise to find that George V was 
 on the throne." 
 
 Mr. Harman did come for a night, looking less 
 like Mr. Pickwick than might have been expected 
 from the foregoing conversation, and his first dis- 
 covery was made as they went up to dress for dinner 
 soon after his arrival. He announced it trium- 
 phantly. " Look here, Mr. Preston, the fellow 
 must have been hidden under the stairs ! The place 
 is positively made for it, among all those garden 
 chairs and things. You could hide there in the 
 dark for a week on end, and no one would be any 
 the wiser." 
 
 ' We do have it cleaned out sometimes," said 
 Anthony, apologetically. 
 
 That gave Harman his next clue, he asked to see 
 the servants, and in his rather pompous didactic 
 manner got under Kate's guard at once by taking it 
 for granted that she had come down the front stairs 
 in the early morning. He remarked as if he knew 
 all about it, " I suppose you heard a little noise and 
 thought it was the dog ? " 
 
 Kate stammered. " Yes, sir, but afterwards I 
 thought it was rats." 
 
 ' Why rats ? Are there any in the house ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Crutcher says so, sir." 
 
 " Did you tell Mr. Margetson about the rats ? " 
 
 " N-n-no, sir, he never asked." 
 
 " We have it all pretty pat now," said Mr. 
 Harman afterwards to Anthony. * The fellow 
 came here as a gypsy, fed Patch, got into the house 
 by the garden door while the party were dressing 
 for dinner, anyone can see that is not difficult, hid
 
 258 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 under the stairs, and was actually heard moving by 
 your housemaid in the morning. What was Marget- 
 son about that he did not find out as much as that ? 
 How could the fellow get away without being seen ? 
 I have been studying the plan you sent me, you 
 have two gates to the drive and a door in the far 
 corner of the kitchen garden wall. Then there is 
 the long walk by the tennis ground, which leads to 
 the coppice and the road. Of course on the opposite 
 side of the garden there is the farmyard and the 
 fields through which he might escape. I think you 
 said that you can get into the open country or the 
 churchyard that way, but he would have to pass in 
 front of the house, and your cowman is out early, 
 no doubt. I think we can rule that out. If he 
 went through the back door I gather that Kate 
 opened it first he would have been afraid of the 
 drive, because Wilkins and the gardeners arrive 
 that way. Could he get into the kitchen-garden, 
 anyhow ? " 
 
 ' Yes." Anthony took Mr. Harman out, and 
 showed him the little stone-paved courtyard on to 
 which the back door opened. Beyond it was the 
 large stable yard with the Crutchers' cottage, and, 
 turning slightly to the right, the wall of the kitchen 
 garden, with a door in the corner nearest to the 
 house, and Patch's kennel not far off. 
 
 " Do you lock this door at night ? " 
 
 Anthony shook his head. " I don't think so. 
 My brothers and I lost the key at some time or 
 other. Patch is supposed to look after it, and you 
 can see it from the Crutchers' cottage." 
 
 " Hum ! We quite understand the bribery of
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 259 
 
 Patch. I don't suppose he often gets raw meat. The 
 Crutchers were probably dressing sleepily and not 
 looking out of the window. It was evidently a well- 
 thought-out scheme. I should say there was some 
 organisation with brains behind this fellow. The 
 police will have to discover all that." 
 
 Mr. Harman went out and studied the garden. 
 The door through the wall in the far corner of the 
 kitchen garden opened into the road, but he was 
 told that that door was invariably locked at night 
 generally by the head gardener on his way home. 
 Sometimes he came in that way in the morning, 
 though more often by the drive. " It seems 
 obvious," said Mr. Harman, " that the fellow 
 escaped across the kitchen garden. The walls 
 on three sides kept him in, but there is no fourth 
 wall where the herbaceous border and the tennis 
 ground are. He could get away quite easily to the 
 gate at the end of the long walk, and keep out of 
 sight by pushing through the shrubbery on the road 
 side of the walk." 
 
 " The one thing necessary," said Anthony, " is 
 a motive. If the fellow were only a burglar, I can 
 hardly believe that he would tempt Fate a second 
 time. We have nothing of sufficient value for him 
 to steal." 
 
 " There was the document ! " said Mr. Harman. 
 " Everything seems to depend on that. The police 
 have to find out whether Smith is connected with 
 some organisation that would make it worth his 
 while, not only to commit murder in order to get 
 hold of it, but to run a very serious risk of dis- 
 covery by his second attempt."
 
 26o A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 ' That is where your puzzle does not fit," said 
 Anthony. " Not only my father and I, but the 
 professors for whom my cousin worked at the 
 Foreign Office, everyone in fact who knew her at all 
 intimately, are prepared to go bail for the fact that 
 she did not bring it here. We don't lay claim to any 
 superior virtue for her, she was just an ordinary, 
 sensible, honourable Englishwoman, but she would 
 have been too nervous, too frightened of conse- 
 quences. Fear is sometimes the ally of good as well 
 as of evil." 
 
 Mr. Harman shook his head doubtfully ; like 
 most men of his generation he distrusted the 
 independent woman. He went back to the house 
 and made Kate act her part. She was to come 
 down the stairs exactly as she had come on the 
 morning after the murder. Mr. Harman, who 
 was nothing if not thorough, concealed himself 
 under the stairs. Mr. Preston's absence, and other 
 reasons, had served to keep all the garden apparatus 
 in its usual place, indoors. Anthony and Molly 
 had talked vaguely of putting up the tennis nets, 
 but they had done no more, everything remained 
 just as it had been on the night of the murder. Mr. 
 Harman sat down on one of the garden chairs, with 
 his feet protruding a little beyond the recess formed 
 by the staircase. He asked Kate if she could see 
 them. By hanging over the banisters she could, but 
 as she explained, she had not looked. Anyone 
 hiding there might, however, have been afraid that 
 she would look. Mr. Harman drew them in, and 
 as he did so, touched the loose paper wrapping of 
 a box of tennis balls.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 261 
 
 Kate stopped on the stairs, and cried out in an 
 agitated voice, " That is the sound I heUrd, sir, just 
 like that like a bit of paper rustling." 
 
 Mr. Harman asked her to go on and show him 
 exactly what she had done. He offered no ex- 
 planation of the rustle. " Anything might have 
 caused it," he said. 
 
 She went through all the proceedings of that 
 fateful morning, quite exactly, because Anthony 
 had put up the shutters, bolted and barred the doors. 
 When she came back to the library Mr. Harman 
 had disappeared. She had not heard him go. 
 
 " I timed it," he told Anthony afterwards. 
 ' There was plenty of time to get out of the back 
 door before she had finished with the front door. 
 Why didn't you try all this before ? " 
 
 " Because Kate never allowed that she had heard 
 any sound at all. There was nothing to suggest the 
 stairs as a hiding place. For some reason Margetson 
 dropped the idea that anyone had got into the house. 
 The fact is, whoever it was, carried away no spoil. 
 Until that document was discovered, we had no 
 clue to any possible motive for the crime." 
 
 But the case remained a mystery up to the day 
 when the trial opened. Anthony and his father, 
 Wilkins, Kate and the Crutchers were subpoena-ed 
 to appear as witnesses, and Molly behaved very 
 badly, because she was not also called upon to appear. 
 Her father, for once in his life, acted the part of a 
 stern parent, and told her that she was not to attend 
 the trial, but Molly, being young and human, forgot 
 his injunctions, suborned a useful undergraduate 
 friend to go with her, and appeared among the
 
 262 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 spectators in the crowded court. Anthony saw her 
 at once, of course, and was very angry, though less 
 so than his own father, who recognised only the 
 usual rebellion of youth against duly instituted 
 authority. 
 
 " If she were my daughter/' he said to his son, 
 " I would drag her out by the hair, if necessary." 
 
 Anthony shrugged his shoulders. " Not enough 
 hair to hold on to," but he was disappointed. Molly 
 had never disobeyed him so flagrantly before. 
 He looked at her as if she were a stranger, made no 
 sign of recognition, and would not look at her again. 
 
 In less than a quarter of an hour, Robert, with a 
 chuckle, told him that Molly had gone, and Anthony 
 felt better able to tackle the serious business in hand. 
 The fact being that Molly could not enjoy herself 
 while she was being given the cut direct by her 
 father. There is something to be said for modern 
 methods. He had some influence after all. 
 
 ' The most important witness in the case is 
 Patch," said Anthony, " and I suppose his evidence 
 would not be accepted in a court of law." 
 
 Sir Andrew Mallock opened the case in the usual 
 dry fashion, traditional in prosecuting counsel, but 
 he made at once a somewhat unexpected statement. 
 The prisoner's name as charged in Court was Albert 
 Smith, but that, said Sir Andrew, was only one of 
 many aliases. " The police have discovered that 
 he was also Johannes Schmidt, Pierre Coude, and 
 other names which it is unnecessary to specify, the 
 last discovered, by which I propose to call him, is 
 Nicolas BrusilofF, but he may have adopted that 
 name because he had heard of the great Russian
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 263 
 
 general. I have little doubt that he has as much 
 or as little right to it as to any of the others, but 
 there is no actual crime in adopting different names 
 at different times, if your motives for so doing will 
 bear examination, and perhaps especially, as in 
 Brusiloff's case, if you don't know what your 
 patronymic really is. We have discovered also that 
 he was or we strongly suspect that he was, it is 
 not easy to prove in the employment of the Arcos 
 Company, and also at different times, in the employ- 
 ment of other companies, or associations, who traded, 
 as far as we know, only in official documents and 
 political information obtained by secret, and certainly 
 illegal means." 
 
 Then Sir Andrew told the story as Mr. Harman 
 had worked it out. " Brusiloff," he said, " had 
 gone to Greystones, on the instigation of one of these 
 companies, to find a document which they urgently 
 wanted, and believed to be in the possession of Miss 
 Wentworth. We shall have to take most of the 
 evidence about the document in camera, because it 
 is an official secret paper of great importance, but I 
 can tell you how their agent set to work about getting 
 it. He seems to have prowled about the country for 
 a few days, in the character of a gypsy tramp, selling 
 baskets, and incidentally cats' meat, with which he 
 fed and therefore made friends with and silenced, 
 Mr. Preston's watch dog. This was cleverly con- 
 ceived, as if he had poisoned the dog, suspicions 
 would have been roused." 
 
 Sir Andrew then described the recognition of 
 Brusiloff (or Smith) by Patch, outside the county 
 court at Calverstoke, and said he would call witnesses
 
 264 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 to prove that the dog had made friends with a gypsy 
 shortly before the date of the murder, certainly 
 during the time that Miss Wentworth was staying 
 with her uncle. ' The dog did not make friends 
 at all readily," said Sir Andrew, and the first burst 
 of " laughter in court " was provoked by his 
 perfectly serious explanation of Patch's former 
 attachment to two human beings only, both because, 
 like Jacob of old, they provided him with the meat 
 in his case uncooked that his soul loved. 
 " Mr. Preston, walking about with his dog, on his 
 own property, sometimes turned a blind eye when 
 Patch sought his meat after his kind, by chasing a 
 rabbit, and the butcher boy well, we all know how 
 the butcher-boy brings meat to our houses, though 
 most of us prefer to turn a blind eye on that process 
 also. 
 
 " The only other human being who gave the dog 
 raw meat, probably in what Patch considered a 
 tasty and gamey condition, was the gypsy, and 
 there can be no doubt that he recognised this third 
 friend of his when he flung himself on Brusiloff at 
 Calverstoke. Having in this manner silenced the 
 watch-dog, Brusiloff evidently got into the house 
 through the garden door, which was always left 
 unlocked in the daytime, concealed himself under 
 the staircase, a perfectly simple proceeding, as 
 witnesses who know the house will tell you. He 
 waited there until everyone had gone to bed, except 
 Miss Wentworth, who was writing in the library." 
 
 Sir Andrew paused, this was perhaps the inexplic- 
 able point in his case, and he knew that his " learned 
 friend " Mr. Barnaby was ready to pounce upon it ;
 
 A WILL-CAT SCHEME 265 
 
 the inexplicable point being that though he mur- 
 dered Miss Wentworth, he did not either then, or at 
 any time,obtain the document. 
 
 Sir Andrew continued, " I have explained how 
 Brusiloff got into the house, and I have told you 
 exactly how the opportunity was given to him to 
 murder a defenceless woman. His motive is not 
 hard to understand. He knew or thought he 
 knew that she had in her possession a document for 
 which he would doubtless receive a very splendid 
 reward if he could procure it. We can only con- 
 clude that she refused to let him have it. Probably 
 she attempted to give an alarm, either by ringing 
 the bell, or calling up the police on the telephone. 
 We can understand that he did not wish to fire the 
 revolver that he habitually carried, as the report 
 would possibly have roused someone else in the 
 house, therefore he snatched up the heavy book with 
 its brass-bound edges " Sir Andrew indicated 
 where it lay in view of the jury " and brought 
 it down on her head with such savage force as to kill 
 her. That was easy enough, and the look of 
 extreme, almost mad terror, of which we shall hear, 
 depicted on Miss Wentworth's dead countenance, 
 is not difficult to understand. Her lonely position, 
 Brusiloff's unprepossessing face convulsed with 
 rage mind you, he was disguised as a filthy tramp, 
 and he is a very big and powerful man she knew 
 that she was completely at his mercy. No doubt he 
 threatened her, we shall hear of his command of 
 appalling language, before the blow fell. Gentle- 
 men of the jury, this woman a nervous woman, we 
 are told, alone, out of reach of help, threatened in a
 
 266 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 manner to drive her almost out of her wits, yet 
 refused refused absolutely to give up the docu- 
 ment in question, which she possessed only through 
 her official position, and in fact, rather than betray 
 her trust we shall hear in what esteem she was held 
 as a confidential servant of the Crown she met 
 her death at the hands of this scoundrel." 
 
 " We know," Sir Andrew went on, " that Brusi- 
 loff did not obtain the paper from her, because he 
 made a second attempt to obtain it, and when that 
 failed, he made a third effort to force his way into the 
 house, evidently with the same end in view. The 
 paper was found by the police, among Miss Went- 
 worth's belongings, and is now, safe and intact, in 
 their hands." 
 
 Sir Andrew wound up his speech, although still in 
 a manner of studied calm, in a way calculated to 
 leave no doubt of the guilt of Brusiloff. 
 
 Mr. Barnaby's line, as he cross-examined the wit- 
 nesses for the Crown, was at first bewildering. To 
 the great astonishment of both the Prestons he was 
 apparently as determined as they were to prove that 
 the secret paper, which was the only motive for the 
 crime, had not been in Eleanor Wentworth's posses- 
 sion at all. He made not the smallest attempt to 
 blacken her character, on the contrary he displayed 
 great forbearance with her relations, and encour- 
 aged them to express their confidence in her, and 
 their absolute conviction that she would never have 
 attempted to carry away from the Foreign Office any 
 document at all. He received with apparent 
 pleasure the evidence of the officials who came to 
 express their complete confidence in her upright-
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 267 
 
 ness, and also to identify Brusiloff as an interpreter 
 whom they knew. 
 
 ' Take away the paper, and you remove any 
 incentive to crime on the part of his client," Mr. 
 Harman whispered to Anthony, " it's damned 
 clever. I think he wants to prove that Brusiloff 
 was not employed by anyone to produce the paper, 
 that Miss Wentworth never had it at Greystones, 
 and that it was only brought to the house when the 
 case against Mr. Preston had broken down, by the 
 only possible person who could have brought it 
 the detective." 
 
 " But that would not explain the murder ? " 
 
 ' That don't matter to him. It is not his busi- 
 ness to prove anyone's guilt, only his client's inno- 
 cence. I daresay he will try to set up an alibi for 
 Brusiloff, if he gets a shadow of a chance." 
 
 The first witness to feel any sharpness in Mr. 
 Barnaby's cross-examination was Kate Parker. She 
 had not hitherto suffered from her original conceal- 
 ment of evidence, because Anthony had forbidden 
 the other servants to talk to her about it, so she told 
 her story in court without much agitation, until Mr. 
 Barnaby began very brusquely, " What were you 
 doing on the front stairs ? " 
 
 He was himself astonished at the effect of so harm- 
 less a question, Kate burst into tears and said, " I 
 never did, sir." 
 
 11 Never did what ? " 
 
 " Come down the front stairs, only that morning, 
 because because " She collapsed altogether, 
 became incoherent, but was understood to say that 
 she was very sorry.
 
 268 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 Slowly and with difficulty, the truth was elicited 
 that the reason she had never mentioned before the 
 fact that she had heard that rustle under the stairs 
 was because she had no business to be there at all. 
 
 The end of her examination left the jury, or was 
 intended to leave them, under the impression that the 
 girl was a liar, a vain, flighty, empty-headed creature, 
 not worthy of any credence at all. 
 
 ' This is the real Barnaby ! " said Mr. Harman. 
 
 Crutcher, with his evidence about the gypsy 
 tramp and the dog proved a harder nut to crack. He 
 was not to be moved. Patch had made friends with 
 the gypsy, Crutcher had no doubt that it was through 
 the lure of raw meat. 
 
 No, he could not identify the gypsy and was not 
 going to try. 
 
 ' You tell me," said Mr. Barnaby, in his most 
 bullying manner, " that you saw this man, knew that 
 he was feeding your master's watch-dog, and did 
 nothing about it ? " 
 
 1 The missus did," said Crutcher. 
 
 " What did she do ? Why did you leave it to 
 her ? " 
 
 " Better ask her, herself, sir, if you don't mind," 
 said Crutcher, quite amicably, with a broad grin. 
 
 " Look at the prisoner in the dock, do you think 
 he is at all like the gypsy you saw ? " 
 
 " Can't say, sir, but Patch reckernised him all 
 right at Calverstoke." 
 
 ' You recognise him as the man who drove Mr. 
 Preston back to Greys tones ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But not as the gypsy ? "
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 269 
 
 " No sir. I didn't see the gyppo so close. I had 
 to hold on ter this feller, he struggled like the devil, 
 and " 
 
 " I know, you need not tell me about that. The 
 point is that you know Mr. Preston's dog was fed 
 by a gypsy, but you don't recognise the prisoner as 
 that gypsy ? " 
 
 " No, sir but I would take my Bible oath as he 
 is, because of Patch." 
 
 Mr. Barnaby shrugged his shoulders, " If Patch 
 recognised someone else, me, for instance, would 
 you suppose that I was the gypsy ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I should only reckon as you'd bin a 
 feedin' of 'im too." 
 
 The Court rocked with laughter, and the Judge 
 intervened. Mr. Barnaby, quite unruffled, appar- 
 ently slightly amused himself, waited for the next 
 witness, but Mrs. Crutcher, though more voluble, 
 was unable to say, any more than her husband, that 
 she recognised the prisoner as the gypsy she had 
 turned off twice from the back door at Greystones, 
 " and told him what I'd do if he came again," she 
 said indignantly, " whinin* to me about his 
 baskets." 
 
 " Barnaby is making his point," whispered Mr. 
 Harman. " You can't hang the fellow on the evidence 
 of his recognition by the dog alone." 
 
 Brusiloff himself, in the witness box, said very 
 little, apparently quite straightforwardly, gave an 
 account of his actions, declared that he had been 
 employed at the Whitechapel bank on the two dates 
 mentioned, and had been out with friends he 
 said, in the evening afterwards, on both occasions.
 
 270 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 He had never been at Greystones in his life before he 
 drove Mr. Preston there. The landlord at the 
 Thorell Arms had told him how to find the house. 
 He took an oddjob sometimes as chauffeur when he 
 wanted a holiday, that was how he came to be at 
 Cambridge; they wanted extra drivers at the garages 
 there while the Prince of Wales was being enter- 
 tained in the neighbourhood. He repeated what he 
 had said before about Green, and about the slip of 
 blue paper. He could not understand why Mr. 
 Preston's dog had seemed to recognise him, but dogs 
 always liked him, perhaps because he was fond of 
 them. He had never dressed up as a gypsy in his 
 life. He turned a blank face and impervious 
 denials to all Sir Andrew's questions and insinua- 
 tions about the Arcos Company ; he knew nothing 
 whatever about them. 
 
 Mr. Barnaby then produced three witnesses from 
 the bank at Whitechapel, who swore that Smith, as 
 they called him, had been on duty at the bank on the 
 day of Eleanor Wentworth's murder, and on the day 
 of the second burglarious entry into Greystones 
 House. 
 
 Sir Andrew cross-examined only one of these wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 " What time does the Bank close ? " 
 
 " Four o'clock, sir." 
 
 " What time did Smith get away ? " 
 
 " We were generally all out by five o'clock, 
 except one of the cashiers and a junior clerk. They 
 stayed and finished the correspondence or booking 
 up that was left over, until the night-watchman 
 
 came."
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 271 
 
 " Was Smith on duty as junior clerk on either 
 night ? " 
 
 ;< No, sir." 
 
 ' Thank you. It takes about three hours to get 
 to Calverstoke by train, and not much more by road. 
 If he had started by six o'clock he could have got 
 there before ten, when the garden door at Greystones 
 was locked. His presence in the bank till five 
 o'clock proves nothing, even if you are sure he was 
 there, and you own that his attendance was irregular 
 on account of his interpreter duties ? " 
 
 ' That is true, sir, but we have his signature, on 
 and off, in the attendance book, both days." 
 
 " Thank you," said Sir Andrew. 
 
 But no one was called who could prove where 
 Smith had spent those evenings after he had left the 
 bank, though the trial lasted for several days, and a 
 long string of witnesses, of somewhat varying 
 nationality, appeared, to vouch for the identity of the 
 prisoner under his different names, to describe the 
 sort of life he lived, the company he frequented. 
 Some of the evidence was in his favour, some most 
 decidedly not. 
 
 " Scallywags all ! I wouldn't trust a single one of 
 'em with a ha'penny change," said Anthony to Mr. 
 Harman, " as shifty and revolting a lot as ever I saw. 
 Your crew aren't a bit better than Barnaby's. If 
 that poor devil of a prisoner had sixpence to his 
 credit he could probably have produced any evidence 
 he wanted." 
 
 " That is the difficulty," said Mr. Harman, " and 
 we are supposed to have credit, so they come and say 
 what they think we shall like. Yet some of it must
 
 272 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 be true. It is a queer thing, but Brusiloff expects 
 some one or other to appear voluntarily on his side. 
 I know that by the way he looks round the court, and 
 his evident eagerness and as evident disappointment 
 every time a new witness is called." 
 
 Of course the real crux of that lengthy trial came 
 when counsel for the Crown had to prove Brusiloff's 
 connection with the employers, or " masters " as he 
 called them, in whose interests he was said to be 
 working, and who might be described, as a learned 
 judge described an analogous association at a later 
 date, as " the hireling agents of mere mischief, cor- 
 rupt and corrupting, trafficking in official secrets for 
 what they could get out of the traffic." 
 
 He drew a lurid picture of a gang of desperate 
 men, playing desperate games, hiring themselves out 
 as servants of any shady semi-political anarchical 
 society or association that would pay them. Men 
 of no home and no hope, practically of no nation- 
 ality, fierce degraded beings, able to speak in 
 practically any language up to a point, from the 
 argot of a thieves' kitchen in Paris to red-hot 
 Muscovite propaganda, or the windy stuff served 
 out in English to long-suffering listeners in the 
 parks of London. Men who had perhaps as 
 their highest ideal some dim notion of serving 
 the " under dog " because that was what they 
 felt themselves to be. Their idea of service 
 being to destroy, when possible, anyone in a more 
 fortunate position than the under-dog. It never 
 occurred to them, unhappy souls, that without such 
 destruction they could make themselves anything 
 but under-dogs in the world as it is to-day. They
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 273 
 
 thought, as many reformers have thought, and 
 doubtless will continue to think, that it is easier to 
 change the whole world than to change one's own 
 self. 
 
 " It is such a man that you have before you," said 
 Sir Andrew, " the police have produced enough 
 evidence to show you the life he has led, the company 
 he has frequented. A man is known by his friends. 
 He worked so secretly, destroying every bit of 
 evidence as he went along, that it is only by such 
 chance as the discovery of that bit of paper in his 
 pocket, his recognition, during a most accidental 
 meeting, by Mr. Preston's watchdog, and his some- 
 what clumsy attempt once more to enter Mr. Pres- 
 ton's house, by doping his chauffeur, that we have 
 any means of bringing home the crime that he has 
 committed. We do not know how the paper that 
 Brusiloff wanted was introduced into Mr. Preston's 
 house ; it was against all Miss Wentworth's tradi- 
 tions and convictions that she should have brought 
 it with her. Certainly she seems to have defended 
 it with her life. She did not bring it to sell or to 
 give to Brusiloff or any agent of his company. That 
 is quite evident, or he would not have killed her. 
 But that he wanted the paper is also evident, because 
 he came back a second time to find it here again 
 we know that it was Brusiloff because of the absence 
 of any alarm given by the watch dog. 
 
 " Brusiloff once more failed to carry away the 
 paper. He was interrupted in his search, and the 
 paper, as we know, was found by Detective Sergeant 
 Margetson in Miss Wentworth's room. There 
 was evidently something stupendous at stake he
 
 274 ^ WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 meant to try a third time, and endeavoured to get 
 into the house by the method we all know. About 
 this third attempt there is no doubt and no possible 
 defence." 
 
 Then Mr. Barnaby bounded, so to speak, into the 
 arena. His learned friend, he said, had made a 
 beautiful speech, he admired it enormously, but he 
 was obliged to point out that it had remarkably 
 little to do with the question before them. If he 
 might use the metaphor the foundation stone was 
 missing. No one had proved the identity of Smith 
 with Brusiloff. There was no evidence to show 
 that Smith had ever been at Greystones before he 
 drove Mr. Preston there. For his part, he, Barnaby, 
 believed Smith's story. He could not see any 
 reason why the word of the one chauffeur should be 
 preferred to that of the other. Green's contention 
 was very far fetched. Smith was a powerful man, 
 and there was no doubt that he lost his temper when 
 he was arrested, but that was no proof of guilt, per- 
 haps rather the contrary, it showed a hasty sort of 
 fellow, not a cold-blooded intriguer and murderer. 
 Probably many of us would have shown impatience 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 " My learned friend," said Mr. Barnaby, " has 
 drawn for us a vivid picture of an international 
 society or guild, whose sole object is to obtain 
 official political secrets by buying and no doubt 
 selling at stupendous prices important official 
 documents. That may be; we know all about the 
 raid on the Arcos Company, and we have heard in 
 camera about the importance of the document in 
 this case. But there are two bad flaws in the argu-
 
 A WILV-CAT SCHEME 275 
 
 ment of the prosecution. First, Miss Went worth 
 did not take that document to Greystones. No one 
 who has heard the evidence to that effect from by 
 far the most important and reliable witnesses in 
 the case, Miss Wentworth's relations and the 
 Foreign Office officials, can possibly doubt her com- 
 plete innocence. Second, the only connection of 
 Smith with the case is his employment as an 
 occasional interpreter at the Foreign Office. If 
 he had an opportunity to steal the paper there, 
 why should he have left it to the doubtful chance of 
 finding it in Miss Wentworth's possession ? His 
 only connection with the type of individual so ably, 
 I may say romantically, drawn for us in a manner 
 worthy of the great criminal novelists why not 
 criminal novelists, you talk of criminal lawyers, 
 but you don't mean that they commit crime well, 
 Sir Andrew has spoken to us in a manner worthy of 
 Mr. Edgar Wallace, Mr. van Dyne, or Mr. John 
 Buchan himself, of the background of criminal 
 traffickers in official secrets among whom our poor 
 prisoner lived and moved and had his being. What 
 do you find really ? The man he is certainly of 
 doubtful nationality, does not remember his parents, 
 and does not know his legal patronymic any more 
 than we do has nothing against him but his truly 
 remarkable talent for acquiring out-of-the-way 
 languages. He has led a wandering life, and he 
 has made use of his talent to earn his living. As 
 interpreter, chiefly for refugees, poor and struggling 
 people, he has no doubt made some unconventional 
 friends. His has been no kid-gloved, rose-watered 
 
 O ? 
 
 existence. He has worked hard, and lain in hard
 
 176 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 places, no " cushy "jobs for him, no pleasant rooms 
 in shall we say Scotland Yard ? no easy hours, 
 no assured position or salary. . . ." 
 
 Mr, Barnaby paused, looked from the prisoner 
 in the dock with his intent and frowning face and 
 untidy hair, to where Margetson sat, well groomed 
 and imperturbable, near the solicitors' table, and then 
 took up his story again. " If a man, as has been 
 suggested, is earning huge sums by trafficking in 
 official secrets, is he usually content to live, like 
 Smith, among the classes that struggle on the edge, 
 the razor edge, of penury ? The thing, as said once 
 for all by Euclid, is absurd ! You have heard 
 about the dingy lodgings that Smith inhabited, the 
 miserable meals his landlady prepared for him, the 
 frowsy foreign friends whose company he fre- 
 quented. I suggest that he has shown more delicacy 
 than we might have expected, because he will not 
 allow us to use the power of the law to call for the 
 evidence that would prove where he spent the two 
 nights that he was supposed to be at Greystones. 
 I assure you that I most honestly believe his state- 
 ment that he cannot, even at this supreme moment, 
 bring into court a woman whose honour he is bound 
 to respect and protect. Gentlemen of the Jury, 
 there has been an entire misdirection here, I put 
 it to you that Smith had absolutely nothing to do 
 with this case. Miss Wentworth's murderer, much 
 as we lament her death, is still at large." 
 
 It is conceivable that if Mr. Barnaby had been 
 content to stop at that point, he might have won 
 the case, but he proceeded by various unpleasant 
 suggestions and implications to throw serious doubt
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 277 
 
 on the methods by which the document had been 
 found. 
 
 " I don't propose," he said, " to enter into the 
 initial mistake made by the police, though that 
 story is highly diverting, but I do suggest that even 
 the best of us are human, and we wish to save our 
 faces. Sometimes he that hides can find." 
 
 Mr. Barnaby sat down. 
 
 Anthony turned to Mr. Harman, who shook his 
 head and whispered, " The fundamental Barnaby 
 was too strong for him, he had to leave some poor 
 wretch without a fig-leaf. . . ." 
 
 The Judge summed up, in the entirely fair, 
 unbiassed, barely human, manner required of ajudge. 
 It was not a long summing up, but he laid the whole 
 case very clearly before the jury, and every soul in 
 court knew that BrusilofFs fate was sealed. He 
 pointed out that Brusiloff could produce no alibi, 
 either for the night of the murder or for that other 
 night when Eleanor Wentworth's room was entered. 
 He was certainly intimately connected with men 
 who were implicated in the corrupt and corrupting 
 traffic described by counsel for the Crown. The 
 document that provided the only conceivable motive 
 for the crime had been found in Greystones House. 
 The suggestion that some third person had brought 
 it there, he, the Judge, brushed aside as entirely 
 irrelevant. He remarked that it was for the Jury 
 to decide whether they would take the word of 
 Green, a simple young fellow, whose whole career 
 had been laid before them like a limpid stream, 
 concealing nothing, or that of BrusilorF, otherwise 
 Smith, the conditions of whose life at the best
 
 278 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 could only be said to be murky and muddled. 
 It was for the Jury to decide whether there was 
 sufficient evidence to prove that Brusiloff had actu- 
 ally made three attempts to obtain that document, 
 a document whose disappearance, they must re- 
 member, had caused international complications; 
 that at the first attempt he had murdered a most 
 innocent and courageous woman, who had actually 
 sacrificed her life rather than give up the secret 
 that had been committed to her charge. At the 
 third attempt, if they believed Green's evidence, 
 he had very nearly caused the death of an equally 
 innocent, though totally ignorant individual, whose 
 absence would give him his chance to get into the 
 house where he still believed that the document 
 was concealed. 
 
 He, the Judge, considered that last attempt as 
 better evidence of BrusilofFs identity with Miss 
 Wentworth's murderer than any other evidence 
 laid before them, though he did not for a moment 
 suggest that other evidence, such as the dog's 
 recognition of Brusiloff, should be ignored. 
 
 The verdict of " Guilty " brought by the Jury, 
 after a very short interval, was only expected, but 
 Mr. Barnaby was no tyro, he pushed through an 
 appeal, and when that failed, a petition for mercy, 
 signed by the unthinking multitudes who do sign 
 such petitions, to the Home Secretary, but that was 
 also refused, and the evening papers on the following 
 day were full of startling headlines : BRUSILOFF'S 
 CONFESSION MURDERER'S LAST WORDS FOREIGN 
 OFFICE MYSTERY SOLVED ARCOS REVELATIONS 
 and so forth and so on.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 279 
 
 His confession, it must be owned, was made, 
 not out of remorse for the cruel murder of a helpless 
 woman, but out of a desire to be revenged on his 
 " masters " as he called them. 
 
 It was after all, if terrible, also a pitiful story. 
 Brusiloffhad been employed by the Arcos Company, 
 and they had betrayed him in the end. He had 
 depended on them, or on some of their agents, to 
 provide an unshakable alibi for him for the two 
 nights that he had been at Greystones under their 
 orders, and they would not move a finger on his 
 behalf. Possibly they were too intent on saving 
 what they could from the cataclysm in which they 
 found themselves involved. There was no woman 
 in the case. Brusiloffhad listened to Mr. Barnaby's 
 remarks on that subject with his tongue in his cheek. 
 If there had been a woman no scruples about any- 
 thing so intangible as her good name would have 
 deterred him from calling upon her for evidence. 
 Besides, what had he to do with women of any 
 reputation at all ? Mr. Barnaby, or rather the 
 solicitor who was instructing him, did know that 
 there was someone, some unknown person or per- 
 sons, whose name his client refused to reveal, who- 
 might have come forward with a story, true or false, 
 to save the situation. Mr. Harman had been quite 
 right. Throughout the trial Brusiloff had expected 
 help, though from what quarter he would not 
 divulge. So far he had been loyal, but he had no 
 idea -at all of the supreme nobility of loyalty to the 
 end. - No one had ever taught him the meaning 
 of nobility, except as linked with the class of all 
 others that he hated, despised and envied.
 
 280 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 He had received no reward for his past service, 
 and whether he lived or died he would receive none 
 from his late " masters." He knew that they 
 considered he had failed in the very worst possible 
 manner because he had been found out. According 
 to their rules, if two men were working together, 
 one was instructed to shoot the other if necessary, 
 to escape detection, and his own mad struggle when 
 he was arrested was made with the intention of 
 getting an opportunity to shoot himself, or to 
 swallow that packet of poison which he carried about 
 with him always. 
 
 All the same he knew very well that the organiza- 
 tion was quite strong enough to save him by a certain 
 amount of false swearing had it not been done 
 before and when he found that he was to be 
 treated already as a dead man out of mind, the iron 
 entered into his scarred and tormented soul. He 
 turned and rent whom he could by revealing such 
 secrets as he had. Not half his confession was ever 
 published. The newspapers had to be satisfied with 
 the details of Eleanor Wentworth's murder, which, 
 among other matters of probably far-reaching 
 national importance, was a very small part indeed. 
 
 Two things the published confession made quite 
 clear, to the relief of the Prestons, and to the extreme 
 annoyance of Margetson, but as he told himself, 
 he was in the same boat with judge and jury and 
 everyone else who had anything to do with the case. 
 
 Brusiloff confessed that he had murdered Eleanor 
 Wentworth, but also that, at the time of the murder, 
 the Foreign Office docket was already in his pos- 
 session.
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 281 
 
 Eleanor had not taken the docket to Greystones. 
 She had had no official papers of any kind in her 
 possession. She had not died in a distinguished 
 manner to defend an official secret. 
 
 Brusiloff had not wanted to obtain possession of 
 the paper, but to get rid of it. 
 
 The man who had been right, from the first 
 moment that the murder was discovered, was Pratt, 
 the village policeman. 
 
 " The fellow did her in, in self-defence, I take 
 it," he had said, and that was strictly true. 
 
 Margetson's initial mistake was that he conceived 
 the motive for the crime to be anger not fear. 
 But, as he had said, of the three fundamental 
 motives the greatest is fear, and fear it was. 
 
 The Arcos Company were well served, and as all 
 the world knows now, they had learnt beforehand 
 that a police raid was going to be made on their 
 premises to search for the very paper afterwards 
 found at Greystones. In BrusilofFs confession he 
 said that he thought it was the great coup of his life 
 when he took it from the table where Eleanor 
 herself had put it, in the room of Sir John Davidson's 
 secretary at the Foreign Office. By mistake she 
 had left with it the blue slip with her address that 
 she meant to give to the correspondence clerk, and 
 Brusiloff said that he took the slip also. 
 
 He revealed that directly the raid on Soviet 
 House was known to be imminent he received 
 orders to take the paper that he had " confiscated," 
 as they called it, down to the country house where 
 Miss Went worth was staying, and by hook or crook, 
 without her knowledge, return it to her. The
 
 282 A WILD-CAT. SCHEME 
 
 Company wanted to get rid of that particular paper 
 in a way which would seem to prove that they had 
 never had it at all. If it were burnt, it would still 
 be supposed that they had destroyed it, and the 
 cipher would not be used again, but if it were found 
 in the possession of a trusted official, as Eleanor 
 was, suspicion would be allayed, and the key might 
 still be of use. Eleanor's signature was the last 
 on the docket, therefore they supposed it would not 
 be unnatural that she should take it with her. 
 Anyhow, that was no concern of theirs. It was too 
 dangerous, once the hue and cry for missing docu- 
 ments had been started, to attempt to return it to 
 the Foreign Office. Brusiloff's instructions were to 
 get into the house at Greystones, discover where 
 Eleanor's papers were kept, and leave it there. 
 No sort of trace must be visible either that Brusiloff 
 had been in the house, or that he had brought the 
 paper. If necessary she must imagine that she had 
 brought it by mistake. 
 
 Brusiloff's actions were almost precisely as they 
 had been outlined by Mr. Harman and Sir Andrew 
 Mallock. He did disguise himself as a gypsy and 
 feed Patch. He did hide under the stairs, and waited 
 until as he thought, everyone had gone to bed, 
 before he went into the library, and he was nearly 
 as much startled as Eleanor herself when he opened 
 the door and found her sitting at the writing- 
 table. 
 
 But Sir Andrew was wrong in supposing that he 
 had threatened her with violent language. She 
 was naturally frightened almost to death, and sprang 
 to her feet, clutching the back of her chair, but she
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 283 
 
 made no sound. In all probability Brusiloff looked 
 like the devil incarnate. In his confession he men- 
 tioned that he had added to his " repulsive appear- 
 ance " by blackening his face, because it helped to 
 make him invisible among the shadows where he 
 had concealed himself. 
 
 Neither of them uttered a word, so Brusiloff 
 explained, but Eleanor made an instinctive effort 
 to reach one of the long old-fashioned heavy bell- 
 pulls that hung on each side of the fireplace. 
 
 Brusiloff declared that he had no time to think ; 
 he dared not fire his revolver, as Sir Andrew had 
 said, because it would rouse the household more 
 surely than any bell, but he knew that somehow or 
 other he must prevent her from ringing the bell. 
 It would echo all over the house in that tense and 
 terrible midnight silence, and he knew what his 
 instructions were secrecy at any cost. He grabbed 
 at Eleanor's arm and she attempted to keep him off 
 with a book she still held as she sprang up from the 
 table. He snatched it from her, a heavy brass-bound 
 book. She made another effort to reach the bell, 
 and Brusiloff brought down the book with a crash 
 on her head. She fell like a log on the hearthrug, 
 and he flung the book away impatiently. In that 
 aching silence the sound of its fall echoed in 
 Brusiloff's ears like thunder. Neither of them had 
 uttered even a whisper. It all happened in the 
 merest fraction of time, barely a minute. 
 
 Brusiloff declared that he had had no intention of 
 killing Eleanor. At the moment he did not even 
 know that he had killed her, but the noise of the 
 book falling frightened him so much that he
 
 284 A WILDCAT SCHEME 
 
 shut the library door, and crept away once more to 
 his hiding place under the stairs. 
 
 After all he dared not leave the paper, much as 
 he longed to get rid of it, because if Eleanor re- 
 covered she would know that he had brought it, 
 and if she died, and the police came into the business 
 it would be only too obvious to them that her 
 murderer must have had some connection with a 
 document that was going to cause international 
 complications. 
 
 He thought, considering deeply, that if no trace 
 were found of any alien entry and departure, 
 suspicion must fall on someone in the house. His 
 only obsession was to get away and leave no 
 trace. He did not give Eleanor another thought. 
 She was of the class that had to be sacrificed. 
 He did not even regret that he had killed a defence- 
 less woman. From the crawling festering multitudes 
 among whom he had spent most of his time, he had 
 learnt to look on human life as cheap, and to do 
 him justice he did not hold his own life dear, though 
 he was prepared to fight for it. 
 
 He made the rustle that Kate had heard under 
 the stairs just as Mr. Harman had made it, with 
 his foot against some loose papers because he had 
 been listening for someone to come down by the 
 back stairs, and had stretched out his legs. 
 
 He got out of the house after Kate had opened 
 the back door, in precisely the manner that Mr. 
 Harman had supposed, and escaped through the 
 door near Patch's kennel, crossed the kitchen 
 garden, and made his way out by the shrubbery 
 next to the long walk. But he still had the document
 
 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 285 
 
 concealed under his waistcoat, and when he arrived 
 in London his head office received him coldly. 
 He had not obeyed their orders. He was told to 
 go back and attempt once more to leave behind 
 him at Greystones the incriminating document. 
 
 That second attempt was more successful. He 
 did leave the document, and turned the room 
 upside down in a real hurried frenzied search for 
 suitable papers with which it might be mixed in 
 order that it should escape attention. But in that 
 he failed. There was not one single official docu- 
 ment in the room. He heard Pratt moving, 
 and so escaped as rapidly as he could. 
 
 He hoped at last to get his reward, and go to 
 Paris to enjoy it in his own doubtless diabolical 
 fashion, but again he met with disappointment. 
 He found the Arcos organization severely shaken 
 by the police raid on their property. The greater 
 part of their expensively acquired information, if 
 not destroyed, was " compromised " and rendered 
 useless, but " BrusilofFs paper " was intact, and 
 therefore more valuable than ever. It could never 
 be proved, they thought, that they had handled it 
 at all. They knew that the cipher was still in use, 
 and believed that important information could still 
 be tapped. When the paper was discovered 
 at Greystones, the police would only believe, at the 
 worst, that some Arcos agent had been looking for 
 it, but had not found it. As subsequent events 
 proved, that was exactly what happened. 
 
 Brusiloff's action was approved, but he was not 
 allowed to go to Paris. He was sent to Cambridge 
 to keep the usual watch on the Prince of Wales,
 
 286 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 who was passing through that city, but the most 
 useful thing he did there was to make friends with 
 Green. 
 
 Meanwhile, to his great disappointment and dis- 
 may he heard that the solitary copy that had been 
 made of the cipher key in " BrusilofFs paper " had 
 been destroyed, more or less as a precaution, though 
 by mistake, in connection with the raid. Another 
 copy was urgently wanted. The man who made 
 the original copy had memorized the key, but he 
 had been taken up on some minor charge by the 
 police, and for the moment was out of reach. 
 
 It was believed at the Arcos headquarters that 
 the police had not discovered the paper, because 
 they were said to be still hunting for Mr. Preston, 
 as Brusiloff himself heard when he went to Scotland 
 Yard to give information about the car at Cambridge. 
 
 He wrote very bitterly of the decision, that proved 
 fatal, to send him once more to Greystones, to find 
 the paper, not to take it away, but to copy the key. 
 In that endeavour he failed, and so finished the 
 story of Eleanor Wentworth's murder that has been 
 here set down. Of the more stupendous revelations 
 in his confession this is not the time or place to 
 speak. 
 
 From beginning to end Brusiloff expressed no 
 compunction. Fearless, pitiless and shameless, he 
 died as he had lived.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " GRANDPAPA," said Molly, on a wintry afternoon, 
 in the following January, as she walked through 
 the garden at Greystones with Robert and Anthony, 
 " do you know that Mr. Margetson has been pro- 
 moted for his successful handling of the Brusiloff 
 case ? " 
 
 " I am sorry to hear it," said Robert, ungraci- 
 ously, " because he owed it all to me." 
 
 " Aren't you rather conceited, Grandpa, dear ? 
 I think we all had a hand in it." 
 
 ' Who had a hand in it, I should like to know ? 
 Did I not bring that fellow, Brusiloff, brute as he 
 was, the most callous beast I ever came across, 
 here to this house, by myself, unaided, and give 
 instructions myself for him to be arrested ? Was 
 anyone else here, I should like to know ? Marget- 
 son, or Smithers, or the Chief Constable himself, 
 or you, Molly, or your father ? " 
 
 '* Margetson deserves everything he can get after 
 his experience in the Z. 17," said Anthony. " He 
 has the honesty to acknowledge that the catching 
 of Brusiloff was none of his doing, though he got 
 the kudos for it at Scotland Yard. He did turn up 
 here in the nick of time. He owns that it is the 
 only case in all his experience in which a man, 
 
 287
 
 288 A WILD-CAT SCHEME 
 
 himself accused of a murder, has brought the 
 real criminal to justice." 
 
 Robert smiled and lifted his shoulder in his 
 characteristic fashion, with conscious self-satis- 
 faction, but Molly went on, " Yes, but without 
 us, Daddy and me, would you have moved one foot 
 from this place ? Would you have gone to Ely and 
 hired a car and picked up a Bolshy chauffeur and 
 all the rest of it ? " 
 
 Robert laughed. " Oh, of course 1 That was 
 only one of Anthony's wild-cat schemes 1 " 
 
 Perhaps we may be allowed to hope that Eleanor 
 Wentworth's loyal spirit rested content, less with 
 the punishment of her murderer, the man who had 
 so cruelly frightened her, than with the justice tardily 
 done to Joseph Harper's memory. Robert Preston 
 insisted on bringing that matter into court once 
 more, at considerable cost to himself. He said that 
 he now knew what it was to be wrongfully accused 
 of crime, and that the best monument to Eleanor's 
 memory would be the act of justice, for which she 
 had pleaded almost with her last breath. 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000 126 906 7