The Zeppelin's Passenger
She took him over to her husband's desk, opened such of the drawers as
were not locked, and searched amongst their contents ruthlessly. By the
time they had finished the last drawer, Lessingham had quite a little
collection of charts, more or less finished, in his hand.
“I don't know where else to look,” she said. “You might go through those
and see if they are of any use. What is it, Mills?” she added, turning
to the door.
Mills had entered noiselessly, and was watching the proceedings at Sir
Henry's desk with a distinct lack of favour. He looked away towards his
mistress, however, as he replied.
“The young woman has called with reference to a situation as
parlour-maid, your ladyship,” he announced. “I have shown her into the
sewing room.” Lady Cranston glanced at the clock.
“I sha'n't be more than five or ten minutes,” she promised Lessingham.
“Just look through those till I come back.”
She hurried away, leaving Lessingham alone in the room. He stood for a
moment listening. On the left-hand side, through the door which had
been left ajar, he could hear the click of billiard balls and occasional
peals of laughter. On the right-hand side there was silence. He moved
swiftly across the room and closed the door leading into the billiard
room, deposited on the sofa the charts which he had been carrying, and
hurried back to the secretary. With a sickening feeling of overwhelming
guilt, he drew from his pocket a key and opened, one by one, the drawers
through which they had not searched. It took him barely five minutes to
discover--nothing. With an air of relief he rearranged everything.
When Philippa returned, he was sitting on the lounge, going through the
charts which they had looked out together.
“Well?” she asked.
“There is nothing here,” he decided, “which will help me very much. With
your permission I will take this,” he added, selecting one at random.
She nodded and they replaced the others. Then she touched him on the
arm.
“Listen,” she said, “are you perfectly certain that there is no one
coming?”
He listened for a moment.
“I can't hear any one,” he answered. “They've started a four-handed game
of pool in the billiard room.”
She smiled.
“Then I will disclose to you Henry's dramatic secret. See!”
She touched the spring in the side of the secretary. The false back,
with its little collection of fishing flies, rolled slowly up. The large
and very wonderful chart on which Sir Henry had bestowed so much of his
time, was revealed. Lessingham gazed at it eagerly.
“There!” she said. “That has been a great labour of love with Henry.
It is the chart, on a great scale, from which he works. I don't know
a thing about it, and for heaven's sake never tell Henry that you have
seen it.”
He continued to examine the chart earnestly. Not a part of it escaped
him. Then he turned back to Philippa.
“Is that supposed to be the coast on the other side of the point?” he
asked.
“I don't exactly know where it is,” she replied. “Every time Henry finds
out anything new, he comes and works at it. I believe that very soon it
will be perfect. Then he will start on another part of the coast.”
“This is not the only one that he has prepared, then?” Lessingham
enquired.
She shook her head.
“I believe it is the fifth,” she replied. “They all disappear when they
are finished, but I have no idea where to. To me they seem to represent
a shocking waste of time.”
Lessingham was suddenly taciturn. He held out his hand. “You are dining
with us to-morrow night, remember,” she said.
“I am not likely to forget,” he assured her.
“And don't get drowned,” she concluded. “I don't know any of these
fishermen--I hate them all--but I'm told that Oates is the worst.”
“I think that we shall be quite all right,” he assured her. “Thanks very
much for finding me the charts. What I have seen will help me.”
Helen came in for a moment and their farewell was more or less
perfunctory. Lessingham was almost thankful to escape. There was an
unusual flush in his cheeks, a sense of bitter humiliation in his heart.
All the fervour with which he had started on his perilous quest had
faded away. No sense of duty or patriotism could revive his drooping
spirits. He felt himself suddenly an unclean and dishonoured being.
CHAPTER XXI
Towards three o'clock on the following afternoon, the boisterous wind
of an uncertain morning settled down to worse things. It tore the spray
from the crest of the gathering waves, dashed it even against the
French windows of Mainsail Haul, and came booming down the open spaces
cliffwards, like the rumble of some subterranean artillery. A little
group of fishermen in oilskins leaned over the railing and discussed
the chances of Ben Oates bringing his boat in safely. Philippa, also,
distracted by a curious anxiety, stood before the blurred window,
gazing into what seemed almost a grey chaos. “Captain Griffiths, your
ladyship.”
She turned around quickly at the announcement. Even an unwelcome caller
at that moment was almost a relief to her.
“How nice of you to come and see me on such an afternoon, Captain
Griffiths,” she exclaimed, as they shook hands. “Helen is over at the
Canteen, Nora is hard at work for once in her life, and I seem most
dolefully alone.”
Her visitor's reception of Philippa's greeting promised little in the
way of enlivenment. He seemed more awkward and ill at ease than ever,
and his tone was almost threatening.
“I am very glad to find you alone, Lady Cranston,” he said. “I came
specially to have a few words with you on a certain matter.”
Her momentary impulse of relief at his visit passed away. There seemed
to her something sinister in his manner. She was suddenly conscious that
there was a new danger to be faced, and that this man's attitude towards
her was, for some reason or other, inimical. After the first shock,
however, she prepared herself to do battle.
“Well, you seem very mysterious,” she observed. “I haven't broken any
laws, have I? No lights flashing from any of my windows?”
“So far as I am aware, there are no complaints of the sort,” the
Commandant acknowledged, still speaking with an unnatural restraint. “My
call, I hope, may be termed, to some extent, at least, a friendly one.”
“How nice!” she sighed. “Then you'll have some tea, won't you?”
“Not at present, if you please,” he begged. “I have come to talk to you
about Mr. Hamar Lessingham.”
“Really?” Philippa exclaimed. “Whatever has that poor man been doing
now.”
“Dreymarsh,” her visitor proceeded, “having been constituted, during the
last few months, a protected area, it is my duty to examine and enquire
into the business of any stranger who appears here. Mr. Hamar Lessingham
has been largely accepted without comment, owing to his friendship with
you. I regret to state, however, that certain facts have come to my
knowledge which make me wonder whether you yourself may not in some
measure have been deceived.”
“This sounds very ridiculous,” Philippa interposed quietly.
“A few weeks ago,” Captain Griffith continued, “we received information
that this neighbourhood would probably be visited by some person
connected with the Secret Service of Germany. There is strong evidence
that the person in question is Mr. Hamar Lessingham.”
“A graduate of Magdalen, my brother's intimate friend, and a frequent
visitor at my father's house in Cheshire,” Philippa observed, with faint
sarcasm.
“The possibility of your having made a mistake, Lady Cranston,” Captain
Griffiths rejoined, “has, I must confess, only just occurred to me. The
authorities at Magdalen College have been appealed to, and no one of the
name of Lessingham was there during any one of your brother's terms.”
Philippa took the blow well. She simply stared at her caller in a
noncomprehending manner.
“We have also information,” he continued gravely, “from Wood Norton
Hall--from your mother, in fact, Lady Cranston--that no college friend
of your brother, of that name, has ever visited Wood Norton.”
“Go on,” Philippa begged, a little faintly. “Did I ever live there
myself? Was Richard ever at Magdalen?”
Captain Griffiths proceeded with the air of a man who has a task to
finish and intends to do so, regardless of interruptions.
“I have had some conversation with Mr. Lessingham, in the course of
which I asked him to explain his method of reaching here, and his last
habitation. He simply fenced with me in the most barefaced fashion. He
practically declined to give me any account of himself.”
Philippa rose and rang the bell.
“I suppose I must give you some tea,” she said, “although you seem to
have come here on purpose to make my head ache.”
“My object in coming here,” Captain Griffiths rejoined, a little
stiffly, “is to save you some measure of personal annoyance.”
“Oh, please don't think that I am ungrateful,” Philippa begged. “Of
course, it is all some absurd mistake, and I'm sure we shall get to the
bottom of it presently--Tell me what you think of the storm?” she added,
as Mills entered with the tea tray. “Do you think it will get any worse,
because I am terrified to death already?”
“I am no judge of the weather here,” he confessed. “I believe the
fishermen are preparing for something unusual.”
She seated herself before the tea tray and insisted upon performing
her duties as hostess. Afterwards she laid her hand upon his arm and
addressed him with an air of complete candour.
“Now, Captain Griffiths,” she began, “do listen to me. Just one moment
of common sense, if you please. What do you suppose there could possibly
be in our harmless seaside village to induce any one to risk his life by
coming here on behalf of the Secret Service of Germany?”
“Dreymarsh,” Captain Griffiths replied, “was not made a prohibited area
for nothing.”
“But, my dear man, be reasonable,” Philippa persisted. “There are
perhaps a thousand soldiers in the place, the usual preparations along
the cliff for coast defence, a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, and
a couple of searchlights. There isn't a grocer's boy in the place who
doesn't know all this. There's no concealment about it. You must
admit that Germany doesn't need to send over a Secret Service agent to
acquaint herself with these insignificant facts.”
Her visitor smiled very faintly. It was the first time he had relaxed
even so far as this.
“I am not in possession of any information which I can impart to you,
Lady Cranston,” he said, “but I am not prepared to accept your statement
that Dreymarsh contains nothing of greater interest than the things
which you have mentioned.”
There was no necessity for Philippa to play a part now. The suggestion
contained in her visitor's words had really left her in a state of
wonder.
“You are making my flesh creep!” she exclaimed. “You don't mean to say
that we have secrets here?”
“I have said the last word which it is possible for me to say upon the
subject,” he declared. “You will understand, I am sure, that I am not
here in the character of an inquisitor. I simply thought it my duty, in
view of the fact that you had made yourself the social sponsor for
Mr. Lessingham, to place certain information before you, and to ask,
unofficially, of course, if you have any explanation to give? You may
even,” he went on, hesitatingly, “appreciate the motives which led me to
do so.”
“My dear man, what explanation could I have?” Philippa protested, “it is
an absolute and undeniable fact that Mr. Lessingham was at Magdalen
with my brother, and also that he visited us at Wood Norton. I know
both these things of my own knowledge. The only possible explanation,
therefore, is that you have been misinformed.”
“Or,” Captain Griffiths ventured, “that Mr. Hamar Lessingham in those
days passed under another name.”