The Zeppelin's Passenger
“Another name?” Philippa faltered.
“Some such name, perhaps,” he continued, “as Bertram Maderstrom.”
There was a short silence. Captain Griffiths had leaned back in his
chair and was caressing his upper lip. His eyes were fixed upon Philippa
and Philippa saw nothing. Her little heel dug hard into the carpet. In a
few seconds the room ceased to spin. Nevertheless, her voice sounded to
her pitifully inadequate.
“What an absurdity all this is!” she exclaimed.
“Maderstrom,” Captain Griffiths said thoughtfully, “was, curiously
enough, an intimate college friend of your brother's. He was also a
visitor at Wood Norton Hall. At neither place is there any trace of
Mr. Hamar Lessingham. Perhaps you have made a mistake, Lady Cranston.
Perhaps you have recognised the man and failed to remember his name. If
so, now is the moment to declare it.”
“I am very much obliged to you,” Philippa retorted, “but I have never
met or heard of this Mr. Maderstrom--”
“Baron Maderstrom,” he interrupted.
“Baron Maderstrom, then, in my life; whereas Mr. Lessingham I remember
perfectly.”
“I am sorry,” Captain Griffiths said, setting down his empty teacup and
rising slowly to his feet. “We cannot help one another, then.”
“If you want me to transfer Mr. Lessingham, whom I remember perfectly,
into a German baron whom I never heard of,” Philippa declared boldly, “I
am afraid that we can't.”
“Baron Maderstrom was a Swedish nobleman,” Captain Griffiths observed.
“Swedish or German, I know nothing of him,” Philippa persisted.
“There remains, then, nothing more to be said.”
“I am afraid not,” Philippa agreed sweetly.
“Under the circumstances,” Captain Griffiths asked, “you will not, I am
sure, expect me to dine to-night.”
“Not if you object to meeting Mr. Hamar Lessingham,” Philippa replied.
Her visitor's face suddenly darkened, and Philippa wondered vaguely
whether anything more than professional suspicion was responsible
for that little storm of passion which for a moment transformed his
appearance. He quickly recovered, however.
“I may still,” he concluded, moving towards the door, “be forced to
present myself here in another capacity.”
CHAPTER XXII
The confinement of the house, after the departure of her unwelcome
visitor, stifled Philippa. Attired in a mackintosh, with a scarf around
her head, she made her way on to the quay, and, clinging to the railing,
dragged herself along to where the fishermen were gathered together in a
little group. The storm as yet showed no signs of abatement.
“Has anything been heard of Ben Oates' boat?” she enquired.
An old fisherman pointed seawards.
“There she comes, ma'am, up on the crest of that wave; look!”
“Will she get in?” Philippa asked eagerly.
There were varied opinions, expressed in indistinct mutterings.
“She's weathering it grand,” the fisherman to whom she had first spoken,
declared. “We've a line ready yonder, and we're reckoning on getting 'em
ashore all right. Lucky for Ben that the gentleman along with him is a
fine sailor. Look at that, mum!” he added in excitement. “See the way he
brought her head round to it, just in time. Boys, they'll come in on the
next one!”
One by one the sailors made their way to the very edge of the
wave-splashed beach. There were a few more minutes of breathless
anxiety. Then, after the boat had disappeared completely from sight,
hidden by a huge grey wall of sea, she seemed suddenly to climb to the
top of it, to hover there, to become mixed up with the spray and the
surf and a great green mass of waters, and then finally, with a harsh
crash of timbers and a shout from the fishermen, to be flung high and
dry upon the stones. Philippa, clutching the iron railing, saw for a
moment nothing but chaos. Her knees became weak. She was unable to move.
There was a queer dizziness in her ears. The sound of voices sounded
like part of an unreal nightmare. Then she was aware of a single figure
climbing the steps towards her. There was blood trickling down his face
from the wound in the forehead, and he was limping slightly.
“Mr. Lessingham!” she called out, as he reached the topmost step.
He took an eager step towards her.
“Philippa!” he exclaimed. “Why, what are you doing here?”
“I was frightened,” she faltered. “Are you hurt?”
“Not in the least,” he assured her. “We had a rough sail home, that's
all, and that fellow Oates drank himself half unconscious. Come along,
let me help you up the steps and out of this.”
She clung to his arm, and they struggled up the private path to the
house. Mills let them in with many expressions of concern, and Helen
came hurrying to them from the background.
“I went out to see the storm,” Philippa explained weakly, “and I saw Mr.
Lessingham's boat brought in.”
“And Mr. Lessingham will come this way at once,” Helen insisted. “I
haven't had a real case since I got my certificate, and I'm going to
bind his head up.”
Philippa began to feel her strength returning. The horror which lay
behind those few minutes of nightmare rose up again in her mind. Mills
had hurried on into the bathroom, and the other two were preparing to
follow. She stopped them.
“Mr. Lessingham,” she said, “listen. Captain Griffiths has been here. He
knows or guesses everything.”
“Everything?”
Philippa nodded.
“Helen must bind your head up, of course,” she continued. “After that,
think! What can we do? Captain Griffiths knows that there was no Hamar
Lessingham at college with Dick, that he never visited Wood Norton, that
there is some mystery about your arrival here, and he told me to my face
that he believes you to be Bertram Maderstrom.”
“What a meddlesome fellow!” Lessingham grumbled, holding his
handkerchief to his forehead.
“Oh, please be serious!” Helen begged, looking up from the bandage which
she was preparing. “This is horrible!”
“Don't I know it!” Philippa groaned. “Mr. Lessingham, you must please
try and escape from here. You can have the car, if you like. There must
be some place where you can go and hide until you can get away from the
country.”
“But I'm dining here to-night,” Lessingham protested. “I'm not going to
hide anywhere.”
The two women exchanged glances of despair.
“Can't I make you understand!” Philippa exclaimed pathetically. “You're
in danger here--really in danger!”
Lessingham's demeanour showed no appreciation of the situation.
“Of course, I can quite understand,” he said, “that Griffiths is
suspicious about me, but, after all, no one can prove that I have broken
the law here, and I shall not make things any better by attempting an
opera bouffe flight. Can I have my head tied up and come and talk to you
about it later on?”
“Oh, if you like,” Philippa assented weakly. “I can't argue.”
She made her way up to her room and changed her wet clothes. When she
came down, Lessingham was standing on the hearth rug in the library,
with a piece of buttered toast in one hand and a cup of tea in the
other. His head was very neatly bound up, and he seemed quite at his
ease.
“You know,” he began, as he wheeled a chair up to the fire for her,
“that man Griffiths doesn't like me. He never took to me from the first,
I could see that. If it comes to that, I don't like Griffiths. He is
one of those mean, suspicious sort of characters we could very well do
without.”
Philippa, who had rehearsed a little speech several times in her
bedroom, tried to be firm.
“Mr. Lessingham,” she said, “you know that we are both your friends. Do
listen, please. Captain Griffiths is Commandant here and in a position
of authority. He has a very large power. I honestly believe that it is
his intention to have you arrested--if not to-night, within a very few
days.”
“I do not see how he can,” Lessingham objected, helping himself to
another piece of toast. “I have committed no crime here. I have played
golf with all the respectable old gentlemen in the place, and I have
given the committee some excellent advice as to the two new holes. I
have played bridge down at the club--we will call it bridge!--and I
have kept my temper like an angel. I have dined at Mess and told them at
least a dozen new stories. I have kept my blinds drawn at night, and I
have not a wireless secreted up the chimney. I really cannot see what
they could do to me.”
Philippa tried bluntness.
“You have served in the German army, and you are living in a protected
area under a false name,” she declared.
“Well, of course, there is some truth in what you say,” he admitted,
“but even if they have tumbled to that and can prove it, I should do no
good by running away. To be perfectly serious,” he added, setting his
cup down, “there is only one thing at the present moment which would
take me out of Dreymarsh, and that is if you believe that my presence
here would further compromise you and Miss Fairclough.”
Philippa was beginning to find her courage. “We're in it already, up to
the neck,” she observed. “I really don't see that anything matters so
far as we are concerned.”
“In that case,” he decided, “I shall have the honour of presenting
myself at the usual time.”
CHAPTER XXIII
Philippa and Helen met in the drawing-room, a few minutes before
eight that evening. Philippa was wearing a new black dress, a model of
simplicity to the untutored eye, but full of that undefinable appeal to
the mysterious which even the greatest artist frequently fails to create
out of any form of colour. Some fancy had induced her to strip off her
jewels at the last moment, and she wore no ornaments save a band of
black velvet around her neck. Helen looked at her curiously.
“Is this a fresh scheme for conquest, Philippa?” she asked, as they
stood together by the log fire.
Philippa unexpectedly flushed.
“I don't know what I was thinking about, really,” she confessed. “Is
that the exact time, I wonder?”
“Two minutes to eight,” Helen replied.
“Mr. Lessingham is always so punctual,” Philippa murmured. “I wonder if
Captain Griffiths would dare!”
“We've done our best to warn him,” Helen reminded her friend. “The man
is simply pig-headed.”
“I can't help feeling that he's right,” Philippa declared, “when he
argues that they couldn't really prove anything against him.”
“Does that matter,” Helen asked anxiously, “so long as he is an enemy,
living under a false name here?”
“You don't think they'd--they'd--”
“Shoot him?” Helen whispered, lowering her voice. “They couldn't do
that! They couldn't do that!”
The clock began to chime. Suddenly Philippa, who had been listening,
gave a little exclamation of relief.
“I hear his voice!” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness!”
Helen's relief was almost as great as her companion's. A moment later
Mills ushered in their guest. He was still wearing his bandage, but his
colour had returned. He seemed, in fact, almost gay.
“Nothing has happened, then?” Philippa demanded anxiously, as soon as
the door was closed.
“Nothing at all,” he assured them. “Our friend Griffiths is terribly
afraid of making a mistake.”
“So afraid that he wouldn't come and dine. Never mind, you'll have to
take care of us both,” she added, as Mills announced dinner.
“I'll do my best,” he promised, offering his arm.
If the sword of Damocles were indeed suspended over their heads, it
seemed only to heighten the merriment of their little repast. Philippa
had ordered champagne, and the warmth of the pleasant dining room, the
many appurtenances of luxury by which they were surrounded, the glow of
the wine, and the perfume of the hothouse flowers upon the table, seemed
in delicious contrast to the fury of the storm outside. They all three
appeared completely successful in a strenuous effort to dismiss all
disconcerting subjects from their minds. Lessingham talked chiefly of