The Zeppelin's Passenger
was interlarded continually with those little social reminiscences
inevitable amongst men moving in a certain circle of English society.
Apparently Richard Felstead was not the only one of his college friends
with whom he had kept in touch. The last remnants of Captain Griffiths'
suspicions seemed to vanish with their second glass of port, although
his manner became in no way more genial.
“Don't you think you are almost a little too daring?” Philippa asked her
favoured guest as he helped her afterwards to set out a bridge table.
“One adapts one's methods to one's adversary,” he murmured, with a
smile, “Your friend Captain Griffiths had only the very conventional
suspicions. The mention of a few good English names, acquaintance with
the ordinary English sports, is quite sufficient with a man like that.”
Helen and Griffiths were talking at the other end of the room. Philippa
raised her eyes to her companion's.
“You become more of a mystery than ever,” she declared. “You are making
me even curious. Tell me really why you have paid us this visit from the
clouds?”
She was sorry almost as soon as she had asked the question. For a moment
the calm insouciance of his manner seemed to have departed. His eyes
glowed.
“In search of new things,” he answered.
“Guns? Fortifications?”
“Neither.”
A spirit of mischief possessed her. Lessingham's manner was baffling
and yet provocative. For a moment the political possibilities of his
presence faded away from her mind. She had an intense desire to break
through his reserve.
“Won't you tell me--why you came?”
“I could tell you more easily,” he answered in a low tone, “why it will
be the most miserable day of my life when I leave.”
She laughed at him with perfect heartiness.
“How delightful to be flirted with again!” she sighed. “And I thought
all German men were so heavy, and paid elaborate, underdone compliments.
Still, your secret, sir, please? That is what I want to know.”
“If you will have just a little patience!” he begged, leaning so close
to her that their heads almost touched, “I promise that I will not leave
this place before I tell it to you.”
Philippa's eyes for the first time dropped before his. She knew
perfectly well what she ought to have done and she was singularly
indisposed to do it. It was a most piquant adventure, after all, and
it almost helped her to forget the trouble which had been sitting so
heavily in her heart. Still avoiding his eyes, she called the others.
“We are quite ready for bridge,” she announced.
They played four or five rubbers. Lessingham was by far the most expert
player, and he and Philippa in the end were the winners. The two men
stood together for a moment or two at the sideboard, helping themselves
to whisky and soda. Griffiths had become more taciturn than ever, and
even Philippa was forced to admit that the latter part of the evening
had scarcely been a success.
“Do you play club bridge in town, Mr. Lessingham?” Griffiths asked.
“Never,” was the calm reply.
“You are head and shoulders above our class down here.”
“Very good of you to say so,” Lessingham replied courteously. “I held
good cards to-night.”
“I wonder,” Griffiths went on, dropping his voice a little and keeping
his eyes fixed upon his companion, “what the German substitute for
bridge is.”
“I wonder,” Lessingham echoed.
“As a nation,” his questioner proceeded, “they probably don't waste as
much time on cards as we do.”
Lessingham's interest in the subject appeared to be non-existent. He
strolled away from the sideboard towards Philippa. She, for her part,
was watching Captain Griffiths.
“So many thanks, Lady Cranston,” Lessingham murmured, “for your
hospitality.”
“And what about that secret?” she asked.
“You see, there are two,” he answered, looking down at her. “One I shall
most surely tell you before I leave here, because it is the one secret
which no man has ever succeeded in keeping to himself. As for the
other--”
He hesitated. There was something almost like pain in his face. She
broke in hastily.
“I did not call you away to ask about either. I happened to notice
Captain Griffiths just now. Do you know that he is watching you very
closely?”
“I had an idea of it,” Lessingham admitted indifferently. “He is rather
a clumsy person, is he not?”
“You will be careful?” she begged earnestly. “Remember, won't you, that
Helen and I are really in a most disgraceful position if anything should
come out.”
“Nothing shall,” he promised her. “I think you know, do you not, that,
whatever might happen to me, I should find some means to protect you.”
For the second time she felt a curious lack of will to fittingly reprove
his boldness. She had even to struggle to keep her tone as careless as
her words.
“You really are a delightful person!” she exclaimed. “How long is it
since you descended from the clouds?”
“Sometimes I think that I am there still,” he answered, “but I have
known you about seventy-six hours.”
“What precision?” she laughed. “It's a national characteristic, isn't
it? Captain Griffiths,” she continued, as she observed his approach, “if
you really must go, please take Mr. Lessingham with you. He is making
fun of me. I don't allow even Dick's friends to do that.”
Lessingham's disclaimer was in quite the correct vein.
“You must both come again very soon,” their hostess concluded, as she
shook hands. “I enjoyed our bridge immensely.”
The two men were already on their way to the door when a sudden idea
seemed to occur to Captain Griffiths. He turned back.
“By-the-by, Lady Cranston,” he asked, “have you heard anything from your
brother?”
Philippa shook her head sadly. Helen, who, unlike her friend, had not
had the advantage of a distinguished career upon the amateur dramatic
stage, turned away and held a handkerchief to her eyes.
“Not a word,” was Philippa's sorrowful reply.
Captain Griffiths offered a clumsy expression of his sympathy.
“Bad luck!” he said. “I'm so sorry, Lady Cranston. Good night once
more.”
This time their departure was uninterrupted. Helen removed her
handkerchief from her eyes, and Philippa made a little grimace at the
closed door.
“Do you believe,” Helen asked seriously, “that Captain Griffiths has any
suspicions?”
Philippa shrugged her shoulders.
“If he has, who cares?” she replied, a little defiantly. “The very idea
of a duel of wits between those two men is laughable.”
“Perhaps so,” Helen agreed, with a shade of doubt in her tone.
CHAPTER X
Philippa and Helen started, a few mornings later, for one of their
customary walks. The crystalline October sunshine, in which every
distant tree and, seaward, each slowly travelling steamer, seemed to
gain a new clearness of outline, lay upon the deep-ploughed fields, the
yellowing bracken, and the red-gold of the bending trees, while the west
wind, which had strewn the sea with white-flecked waves, brought down
the leaves to form a carpet for their feet, and played strange music
along the wood-crested slope. In the broken land through which they
made their way, a land of trees and moorland, with here and there a
cultivated patch, the yellow gorse still glowed in unexpected corners;
queer, scentless flowers made splashes of colour in the hedgerows; a
rabbit scurried sometimes across their path; a cock pheasant, after
a moment's amazed stare, lowered his head and rushed for unnecessary
shelter. The longer they looked upwards, the bluer seemed the sky. The
grass beneath their feet was as green and soft as in springtime. Driven
by the wind, here and there a white-winged gull sailed over their
heads,--a cloud of them rested upon a freshly turned little square of
ploughed land between two woods. A flight of pigeons, like torn leaves
tossed about by the wind, circled and drifted above them. Philippa
seated herself upon the trunk of a fallen tree and gazed contentedly
about her.
“If I had a looking-glass and a few more hairpins, I should be perfectly
happy,” she sighed. “I am sure my hair must look awful.”
Helen glanced at it admiringly.
“I decline to say the correct thing,” she declared. “I will only remind
you that there will be no one here to look at it.”
“I am not so sure,” Philippa replied. “These are the woods which the
special constables haunt by day and by night. They gaze up every tree
trunk for a wireless installation, and they lie behind hedges and watch
for mysterious flashes.”
“Are you suggesting that we may meet Mr. Lessingham?” Helen enquired,
lazily. “I am perfectly certain that he knows nothing of the equipment
of the melodramatic spy. As to Zeppelins, don't you remember he told us
that he hated them and was terrified of bombs.”
“My dear,” Philippa remonstrated, “Mr. Lessingham does nothing crude.”
“And yet,--” Helen began.
“Yet I suppose the man has something at the back of his head,” Philippa
interrupted. “Sometimes I think that he has, sometimes I believe that
Richard must have shown him my picture, and he has come over here to see
if I am really like it.”
“He does behave rather like that,” her companion admitted drily.
Phillipa turned and looked at her.
“Helen,” she said severely, “don't be a cat.”
“If I were to express my opinion of your behaviour,” Helen went on,
picking up a pine cone and examining it, “I might astonish you.”
“You have an evil mind,” Philippa yawned, producing her cigarette case.
“What you really resent is that Mr. Lessingham sometimes forgets to talk
about Dick.”
“The poor man doesn't get much chance,” Helen retorted, watching the
blue smoke from her cigarette and leaning back with an air of content.
“Whatever do you and he find to talk about, Philippa?”
“Literature--English and German,” Philippa murmured demurely. “Mr.
Lessingham is remarkably well read, and he knows more about our English
poets than any man I have met for years.”
“I forgot that you enjoyed that sort of thing.”
“Once more, don't be a cat,” Philippa enjoined. “If you want me to
confess it, I will own up at once. You know what a simple little thing
I am. I admire Mr. Lessingham exceedingly, and I find him a most
interesting companion.”
“You mean,” her friend observed drily “the Baron Maderstrom.” Philippa
looked around and frowned.
“You are most indiscreet, Helen,” she declared. “I have learnt something
of the science of espionage lately, and I can assure you that all spoken
or written words are dangerous. There is a thoroughly British squirrel
in that tree overhead, and I am sure he heard.”
“I suppose the sunshine has got into your head,” Helen groaned.
“If you mean that I am finding it a relief to talk nonsense, you are
right,” Philippa assented. “As a matter of fact, I am feeling most
depressed. Henry telephoned from somewhere or other before breakfast
this morning, to say that he should probably be home to-night or
to-morrow. They must have landed somewhere down the coast.”
“You are a most undutiful wife,” Helen pronounced severely. “I am sure
Henry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, and
it is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, a
year or two ago.”
Some of the lightness vanished from Philippa's face.
“That was before the war,” she sighed.
“I still think Henry is a dear, though I don't altogether understand
him,” Helen said thoughtfully.
“No doubt,” Philippa assented, “but you'd find the not understanding him
a little more galling, if you were his wife. You see, I didn't know that
I was marrying a sort of sporting Mr. Skimpole.”
“I wonder,” Helen reflected, “how Henry and Mr. Lessingham will get on
when they see more of one another.”
“I really don't care,” Philippa observed indifferently.
“I used to notice sometimes--that was soon after you were married,”