Part 14 (1/2)

A page came in with a telegram.

”Addressed to you, Sir Thomas,” he said, ”marked personal.”

I tore it open, it was from Pat Moore.

”Extraordinary youth followed us out shooting, and came up at lunch asking for you. Boy of about sixteen. Mysterious cove with the a.s.surance of Mephistopheles. Some question of fifty pounds was to get from you on delivering letter. Gave him your address and he departed for London.”

I couldn't make head or tail of Pat's wire, and I put it down on the table for future consideration, when Williams hurried in with a pad of paper.

”Danvers just 'phoned through,” he said, ”and I've sent the message downstairs for the stop press.”

I began to read.

”Bloxhame interrogated Secretary to the Board of Trade, who replied it was perfectly true that the towers were built to the order of Gideon Morse and were his property. Morse has entered into an agreement with the Government engaging not to use the towers for wireless telegraphy or for any other purpose than a strictly private one, which appears to be that he intends to live on the platforms on the top. At his death the whole property will pa.s.s into possession of the Government, to be used for wireless purposes, or for the princ.i.p.al aeroplane station between England and the Continent. Aeroplanes, when the existing buildings are removed, will be able to alight from the platforms in numbers.

Expenditure from first to last, Board of Trade estimates at seven millions. Feeling of House at such a magnificent gift to the Nation, which is bound to fall in within twenty years or so, friendly and satisfactory. In answer to a question from Commander Crosman, M.P. for Rodwell, President Board of Aerial Control announces that strict orders have been issued that aeroplanes are not to circle round the towers or in any way annoy present proprietor. The House is greatly amused and interested at this romantic news.”

Williams departed to issue another ”Extra Special,” and I was once more left alone. Obviously the secret was out, it was startling enough in all conscience, and, as I thought, merely the whim of a madman. And yet there were aspects of it which were inexplicable. There could be no doubt whatever that Gideon Morse had flouted English society, which had treated him with extreme kindness, in a way that it would never forget.

That surely was not the action of a sane man. If he had wanted to build for himself a lordly ”pleasure house” to which he might retire upon occasions, a sane man would have arranged things very differently.

Certainly, and this was not without some bitter satisfaction to me, he had ruined his daughter's chances of a brilliant marriage--for a long time at any rate. I saw that secrecy had been necessary, though it had been carried to an extreme degree; but why had he fooled me under the guise of friends.h.i.+p? Surely he could have trusted my word.

I was furious as I thought of the way I had been done. I was furious also, and worse than furious, alarmed, when I thought of Juanita. Had she been in the plot the whole time? Did she like being spirited away from all that could make a young girl's life bright and happy? What _was_ at the bottom of it all?

The only thing to do was to try and keep ahead, or level, with my rival contemporaries in the matter of news, and privately to wait on events, and think the matter out definitely. For the next few days, weeks perhaps, some of the acutest brains in England would be puzzled over this problem, and if there was really anything more in it than the freak of a colossal egotist, who thus, with a superb gesture, signified his scorn of the world, then some light might come.

Suddenly I felt ill, and collapsed. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed.

It was about eight o'clock when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what I should do for the rest of the evening, when Preston came in and said that there was a boy who wished to see me. He would neither give his name nor his business, but seemed respectable.

I remembered Pat's mysterious telegram, which till now I had quite forgotten, and with a certain quickening of the pulses I ordered the boy to be shown up.

He came into the room with a sc.r.a.pe and a bow, a nice-looking lad of sixteen, decently dressed in black.

”Who are you and what do you want?” I said.

He seemed a little nervous and his eyes were bright.

”Are you Sir Thomas Kirby?”

”Yes, what is it? By the way, haven't you been all the way to Norfolk to find me?”

”Yes, sir, it's my day off, but unfortunately I found you had left, sir, so I came on here as fast as I could. A gentleman at Cerne Hall gave me your address.”

”And how did you know I was at Cerne Hall?”

”It's on the envelope, sir.”

”The envelope?”