The elderly woman who acted as cook showed me my room, gave me my dinner, and I sat smoking with William for an hour or so afterwards.
The valet was a very inquisitive person, and I could not fail to notice how cleverly he tried to pump me concerning my post. He, however, failed to obtain much from me.
"The guv'nor is one of the best fellows alive--a thorough sportsman," he informed me. "Respect his confidence, and don't breathe a word to any one as to his doings, and you'll find your place worth hundreds a year."
"But why these strict injunctions regarding silence?" I inquired, in the hope of learning something.
"Well--because he's compelled to mix himself up with queer affairs and queer people sometimes, and in his position as the younger son of a peer it wouldn't do if it leaked out. I simply act as he bids, and seek no explanation. You'll have to do the same."
Hardly had he ceased speaking when "the guv'nor," in dinner-jacket and black tie, entered, and said:
"William, I want you to take a letter for me to Raven at Nottingham by the next train. It leaves St. Pancras at 10.45. You'll be there at 2.30 in the morning. He's at the 'Black Boy.' Get an answer and take the 5.50 back. You'll be here again soon after nine in the morning."
"Very well, sir," answered the valet, taking the letter from his master's hand; and ten minutes later he went downstairs to catch his train.
This incident showed that Robert Brackenbury was essentially a man of action. His keen, dark aquiline face, bright, sharp eyes, and quick, almost electric movements combined to show him to be a man of nerve, resource, and rapid decision. The square lower jaw betokened hard determination, while at the same time his manner was easy, nonchalant, and essentially that of a born gentleman.
William returned next morning, and a few days passed uneventfully. Both morning and evening each day, at hours prearranged, he "got on" to Shand, but their conversations were very enigmatical. Several times I happened to be in the room, but could learn nothing from the talk, which seemed, in the main, to refer to the rise and fall of certain mining shares.
Each day I drove him out in the "ninety." The car, a four-cylinder, had no flexibility, and was a perfect terror in traffic. The noise it caused was as though it had no silencer, while the police everywhere looked askance as we crept through the Strand, dodged the motor-buses in Oxford Street, or put on a move down Kensington Gore.
While Bob Brackenbury--as he was known to his friends of the "Savoy"--was out one day, I was in his bedroom with William, when the latter opened one of the huge wardrobes there. Inside I saw hanging a collection of at least fifty coats of all kinds, some smart and of latest style, others old-fashioned and dingy, while more than one was greasy, out-at-elbow, and ragged. I made no remark. Never in my life had I seen such an extensive collection of clothes belonging to one man.
Surely those ragged coats were kept there for purposes of disguise! Yet would it not be highly necessary for a member of the Secret Service to possess certain disguises, I reflected!
William noticed my interest, and shut the doors hurriedly.
I drove Brackenbury hither and thither to various parts of London, for he seemed to possess many friends. Once we took two pretty young ladies from Hampstead down to the "Mitre" at Hampton Court, and on another afternoon we took a young French girl and her mother from the "Carlton"
down to the "Old Bridge House" at Windsor.
To me it was apparent that Bob Brackenbury was very popular with a certain set at the Motor Club, at the Automobile Club, and at other resorts.
My duties were not at all arduous, and such a thoroughgoing sportsman was my master that he treated me almost as an equal. When out in the country he compelled me to have lunch at his table "for company," he said. My people, I told him, had been wealthy before the South African War, but had been ruined by it, and though I had been at Rugby and had done one year at Balliol College, Oxford, I hid the fact now that I was compelled to earn my living as a mere chauffeur. He had no idea that I was a barrister, with chambers in New Stone Buildings.
One morning after breakfast Mr. Brackenbury called me into the little dining-room, wherein stood his capacious roll-top desk against the wall, with the telephone upon it, and inviting me to a seat opposite the fireplace, said in a voice which betrayed just the faintest accent:
"Nye, I want to speak confidentially to you for a few minutes. You recollect that the day before yesterday when down at Windsor I was speaking with a police-inspector in uniform, who called at the hotel to see me, eh?"
"Yes. He looked round the car and spoke to me. I thought he'd come to take our name for exceeding the limit on the Staines road."
"You'd remember him again if you saw him?"
"Certainly," was my prompt reply.
"Well, don't forget him," he urged, "because you may, before long, be required to meet him. And if you should chance to mistake the man, a very serious _contretemps_ would ensue."
"I'd recognise him again among a thousand!" I declared.
"Good. Now listen attentively to me for a few minutes," he said, lighting a fresh cigarette and fixing his dark, penetrating eyes upon mine. "I and my friend Shand have a very difficult task. A certain Colonel von Rausch, of the German Intelligence Department, is, we have discovered, in England on a secret mission. It is suspected that he is here controlling a number of spies who had been engaged in staff-rides in the eastern counties, and to receive their reports. My object is to learn the truth, and it can only be done by great tact and caution. I tell you this so that any orders I give you may not surprise you. Obey, and do not seek motive. Am I clear?"
"Certainly," I answered, interested in what he told me. It was curious that he, undoubtedly a German, was at the same time antagonistic to the colonel of the Kaiser's army.
"Well, I'm leaving London in an hour. Await orders from me, and obey them promptly," he said, dismissing me.
Through that day and the next I waited. He had taken William with him into the country, and left me alone in the flat. Once or twice the telephone rang, but to the various inquirers I replied that my master was absent.
Inactivity there was tantalising. I was naturally fond of adventure, and I had taken on the guise of chauffeur surely for the unmasking of a foreign spy.
On the third day, about two in the afternoon, I received a trunk call on the 'phone. The post office at Market Harborough called me up, and the voice which I heard was that of my master.
"Oh! that's you, Nye!" he said. "Well, I want you to start in the car in an hour, and run her up to Peterborough. When in the Market Place, inquire the road to Edgcott Hall. It's about six miles out on the Leicester road. Inquire for me there as Captain Kinghorne--remember the name now. Do you hear distinctly?"
I replied in the affirmative.
"Recollect what I told you before I left. I shall expect you about six.
Good-bye," he said, and then rang off.
Full of excitement, I got out the car from the garage, filled the petrol tank, saw to the carbide, and then set out across the suspension bridge at Hammersmith, and went through Kensal Green and Hampstead over to Highgate, where I got upon the North Road.
It had been raining, and there was plenty of mud about, but the big, powerful car ran well notwithstanding the terrific noise it created.
Indeed, she was such a terror and possessed so many defects that little wonder its maker had not placed his name upon her. As a hill-climber, however, she was excellent, and though being compelled constantly to change my "speeds," I did an average of thirty miles an hour after getting into the open country beyond Codicote.
Through crooked old Hitchin I slowed up, then away again through Henlow and Eton Socon up Alconbury Hill and down the broad road with its many telegraph lines, I went with my exhaust open, roaring and throbbing, through Stilton village into the quiet old cathedral town of Peterborough. Inquiry in the Market Place led me across a level crossing near the station and down a long hill, then out again into a flat agricultural district until I came to the handsome lodge-gates of Edgcott Hall.
Up a fine elm avenue I went for nearly a mile, until I saw before me in the crimson sunset a long, old Elizabethan mansion with high twisted chimneys and many latticed windows. The door was open, and as I pulled up I saw within a great high wall with stained windows like a church and stands of armour ranged down either side.
A footman in yellow waistcoat answered my ring, and my inquiry for Captain Kinghorne brought forth my master, smartly dressed in a brown flannel suit and smiling.
"Hulloa, Nye!" he exclaimed. "Got here all right, then. Newton will show the way to the garage," and he indicated the footman. "When you've put her up, I want to see you in my room."
The footman, mounted beside me, directed me across the park to the kennels of the celebrated Edgcott hounds, and behind these I found a well-appointed garage, in which were two other cars, a "sixteen" Fiat of a type three years ago, and a "forty" Charron with a limousine body, a very heavy, ponderous affair.
A quarter of an hour later I found myself with the Honourable Bob in a big, old-fashioned bedroom overlooking the park.
"You understood me on the 'phone, Nye?" he asked when I had closed the door and we were alone. "Shand is guest here with me under the name of Pawson, while, as you know, I'm Captain Kinghorne, D.S.O. This is necessary," he laughed. "The name of Bob Brackenbury would, in an instant, frighten away our friend the German. The people here, the Edgcotts, don't know our real names," he added. "All you have to do is to remain here and act as I direct."
A moment later the stout American entered and greeting me, turned to his friend, saying:
"I suppose Nye knows that Charles Shand is off the map at present, eh?"
"I've just been explaining," my master replied.
"And you'd better spread a picturesque story among the servants, too, Nye," the American went on--"the bravery of Captain Kinghorne at Ladysmith, and the wide circle of financial friends possessed by Archibald Pawson, of Goldfields, Nevada. The Edgcotts must be filled up with us, and that infernal Dutchman mustn't suspect that we have anything to do with Whitehall."
At that moment William, the valet, came in.
"Von Rausch met a strange man this afternoon in a little thatched inn called the 'Fitzwilliam Arms,' over at Castor. They were nearly half an hour together. One of the grooms pulled up there for a drink and saw them."
"Suppose he met one of his secret agents," remarked my master, with a glance at his friend. "We've got to have our eyes open, and there mustn't be any moss on us in this affair. To expose this man and his spying crowd will be to teach Germany a lesson which she's long wanted.
We shall receive the private thanks of the Cabinet for our services, which would be to us, patriotic Englishmen as we all are, something to be proud of."