Part 9 (1/2)

”Go on,” he said.

”Mr. Vincent Cawdor,” she continued, ”came in alone. He looked just as objectionable as ever, and he stared at me till I nearly threw my wine gla.s.s at him.”

”He did not speak to you?” Peter Ruff asked.

”I was afraid that he was going to,” Miss Brown said, ”but fortunately he met a friend who came to his table and lunched with him.”

”A friend,” Ruff remarked. ”Good! What was he like?”

”Fair, slight, Teutonic,” Miss Brown answered. ”He wore thick spectacles, and his moustache was positively yellow.”

Ruff nodded.

”Go on,” he said.

”Towards the end of luncheon,” she continued, ”an American came up to them.”

”An American?” Peter Ruff interrupted. ”How do you know that?”

Miss Brown smiled.

”He was clean-shaven and he wore neat clothes,” she said. ”He talked with an accent you could have cut with a knife and he had a Baedeker sticking out of his pocket. After luncheon, they all three went away to the smoking room.”

Peter Ruff nodded.

”Anything else?” he asked.

The girl smiled triumphantly.

”Yes!” she declared. ”There was something else--something which I think you will find interesting. At the next table to me there was a man--alone. Can you guess who he was?”

”John Dory,” Ruff said, calmly.

The girl was disappointed.

”You knew!” she exclaimed.

”My dear Violet,” he said, ”I did not send you there on a fool's errand.”

”There is something doing, then?” she exclaimed.

”There is likely,” he answered, grimly, ”to be a great deal doing!”

The two men who stood upon the hill, and Peter Ruff, who lay upon his stomach behind a huge boulder, looked upon a new thing.

Far down in the valley from out of a black shed--the only sign of man's handiwork for many miles--it came--something grey at first, moving slowly as though being pushed down a slight incline, then afloat in the air, gathering speed--something between a torpedo with wings and a great prehistoric insect. Now and then it described strange circles, but mostly it came towards them as swift and as true as an arrow shot from a bow. The two men looked at one another--the shorter, to whose cheeks the c.u.mberland winds had brought no trace of colour, gave vent to a hoa.r.s.e exclamation.

”He's done it!” he growled.