Patrine had always abominated cheap sentiment. She had once laughed until she cried at a revival of an old four-decker drama, whose hero, waking to the knowledge of a committed, irrevocable deed cried in throaty, stagy tones of anguish upon God to put back the dreadful clock of Time and give him yesterday.
Now she perceived the deep, vital interest of the common-place human story. If asking Him on whom that other sinner cried would wipe from Time's register a span of hours between twelve P.M. and three o'clock in the morning--blot one deed from the Roll of things that done, are beyond Humanity's undoing--Patrine told herself that it would be worth while to wear sackcloth, live on boiled field-peas, drink brook-water, and pray--until her knees were worn to the bone.
She caught Saxham's piercing glance across the intervening strip of greensward. He turned away his eyes, and a shudder went through her frame. Had he suspected--could anyone have found out and told him? The Doctor's head was bent now as the General talked to him. It seemed to her that a muscle in his lean cheek twitched, a characteristic sign with him of excitement, or emotion. She wondered what the General had said to Uncle Owen to make him look like that.
As a fact, the quiet voice was saying in Saxham's ear: "And prepare against a surprise, Doctor--for though your nerves are tough as aluminium bronze, a few million gallons of water have rolled under the Thames bridges since you and I held Council of War.... As I mentioned before, the interest taken by the French Government in Sherbrand's gyroscopic hoverer may well have stimulated the interest of our Teuton neighbours. But it doesn't explain the presence on Fanshaw's Flying Ground of Lieutenant-General Count Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German Great General Staff, and--Grand Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the Kaiser--in a F.I.A.T. touring-car!"
*CHAPTER XXIX*
*A SECRET MISSION*
"Can it be possible----" Saxham checked himself. "You see how rusty I am getting, General. You refer to that machine that turned out from where cars are parked just now. The German fellow went up to it.... It had a groom beside the chauffeur and three other men inside it.... While I was looking--elsewhere--it must have moved away!"
"It has only turned the corner of the cafe-restaurant," the Chief said in his quiet tones. He glanced in the direction of the squat block of gaily painted wooden buildings devoted to the inner needs of Fanshaw's clients. "The awning hides it, but I can see a bit of it still. Until it moves, I can go on talking. Frankly, I am in the position of the High Church curate who went out wild-pig shooting in the territories of the Limpopo with a single-bore hammer-gun of grandpapa's pattern--and got his choice of pot-shots between a lion and a rhino. Prinz Heinrich is my royal lion and von Herrnung,--who counted for little more than a bush-pig--has suddenly swelled into a rhinoceros."
He pulled the grizzled moustache thoughtfully, keeping his eyes glued on the back of the big blue car.
"If I could get hold of Sherbrand!--but the chance is dead for the rhino and lion winding me. Old von Moltke with the big wart on his ginger-coloured face, and the charming manner that makes you forget that you don't like him!--would certainly recognise me--and the nautical Hohenzollern and I have met once or twice before. I must lay low like Brer Rabbit, and take a single-handed chance. No, no, Doctor, you have your patients to look after! I am not going to drag you into this. But if I'd got a couple of my Boy Scouts handy----" He broke off, encountering Bawne's bright eyes. "By George, Doctor! I'm going to chance it! I'm going to give your youngster an opportunity to prove his Saxham blood!"
The Master-hand gave the Scout's Sign, and Bawne shot across like a brownish streak of swiftness. He drew himself up, gave the Full Salute, and stood waiting, his rigid attitude in sharp contrast with his dancing, expectant eyes. The Doctor looked at his watch and moved away silently. The Chief said in a clear undertone:
"You see that tall, red-haired man in grey clothes over there with Mr. Sherbrand? Don't look at him openly, or he will know we are talking about him, but take a sidelong gliff, and say."
"I see him, sir."
"Do you know anything of him? Stand easy and answer carefully."
The hand came down from the hat-brim. The boy said:
"I've heard him talk, sir, and I think he is German. I'm learning that and French at Charterhouse."
"He is a German. Do you speak enough of the language to understand him, suppose he were talking to one of his countrymen?"
"_Ich--kann--lesen, aber Ich kann es--nicht sprechen._" The answer came slowly. "And if they weren't using crack-jaw words, sir, or talking very quick, I might manage--I could make out a lot of what they said."
"Very well, keep your man under close observation and--you see that brown satchel he has in his hand?"
"I've seen it close, sir. A flat brown leather despatch case thing--with a criss-cross pattern on the leather, and two locks, and another lock on the strap that goes round. He hadn't it with him when first I saw him talking to--a lady. Then a man--a servant--came and called him away to speak to some gentlemen in a big blue motor-car. One of them--fat and old and bald--with a wart on his cheek, who wore a white topper, and yellowy clothes, and a red necktie, and looked rather like a--like an Inspector of Sunday Schools in shooting-clothes--passed him the leather case. That's how I know he didn't bring it, sir. Oh! and the yellow car he drives isn't British. She's got an oval International plate with the German 'D' in black on a white ground."
"I am glad my Scout knows how to use his eyes!"
The Chief's own eyes were crinkled with merriment. That Moltke, the Chief of the German Great General staff, bosom friend of the All Highest, should resemble a stout Inspector of Sunday Schools in the estimation of a small British boy, was lovely in the extreme.
"Well, I want to know what the big German officer--he is an officer!--does with that leather satchel he's carrying so carefully. Where he goes with it, whom he talks to, and what he says to them. Find out whether it is light or heavy, if it is what I believe it to be, you might be rendering good service to your country in destroying it. But you'll be doing all I want or expect, if you stick to the man who carries it!"
"I'll do that, sir, on my Honour!"
"Good! Make your little German serve you. I may have to leave here upon this business, but I'll be back within, at least--half an hour. If he goes before I get back, find out where he is going. If you can't find out, follow him. On foot if he walks, in a taxi if he doesn't. Here are six separate shillings--in that case you'll want money for fares. Remember, if things take a puzzling turn and you find yourself in a tight place, whisper a quiet word to Sherbrand, though I'd prefer you to carry through on your own! Report to me, in case he goes before I get back here--at Headquarters, Victoria Street. Have you got all this tucked away safe in your head?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then quit yourself like a man. My signal to you that I have left will be a dog's yelping. Ah!" The keen bright eyes, glued on the distant back of the blue car, had seen the rear wheels moving. Before the F.I.A.T. glided smoothly out of eyeshot the Chief had hurried away.
In the opposite direction to the archway of exit, the slight, active figure in the perfectly-cut blue serge morning clothes and pot hat of Bond Street block, was rapidly walking. Bawne doubted his eyes for a moment before he remembered that the Collingwood Avenue ran along that side of the Flying Ground fence. There was a smaller gate in charge of a commissionaire, in the fence, about a hundred yards along it. Taxi-cabs were standing outside the gate. Any person on foot or awheel, leaving the Flying Ground, must pass the gate and the taxi-stand. You could see through the chinks in the fence when they passed, nip out when they were well by, and follow in a green-flagged chuffer. Bawne had settled this to his satisfaction before a wrench at the rein of duty pulled his head round to the business on hand.
"I'm not spying on Mr. Sherbrand," the boy told himself, gritting his small square teeth doggedly. "I've _got_ to listen, so as to understand the German's game. And I'm going to. This is how I'm going to!"
He began to turn hand-springs after the fashion of the London street Arab, thus lessening the distance between himself and the talking men. They glanced at him, and Sherbrand grinned, but they looked back again directly at each other. Then Bawne threw himself down and panted, rolled over and lay, still panting. Now he was near enough to hear what passed between the two.
Sherbrand said:
"No, I was not particularly solid in my conviction that the aerial stabiliser would take the fancy of the Chiefs of the Service Aeronautique. An accident prevented me from witnessing the final test, and I got what the Americans call cold feet and judged it no use staying in France longer. So I flew back here, starting early by daylight the next morning, with Davis, my mechanic, and found a cable waiting at my office to say the working of the invention had been observed with interest by the Chiefs of the S. Ae. F., and that if I could carry out a satisfactory time-trial at my headquarters in the presence of the French Consul, the authorities at the Ministry of War would be willing to buy my patents for France. As it happened, I was suffering from a slight obstruction in the nasal passages, that spoiled my climbing. It was absolutely necessary to go into Hospital. That is why I could not give M. Jourdain an earlier date for the hovering-test you have just seen carried out."