"Of course, then, it is quite possible that that may be the man's object. In any case, our course must be the same. We must watch every move he makes." He paused. "I could help—pardon my suggesting it—I could help a great deal more if you were to invite me to live in the house. You were kind enough to ask me to visit you in the country, but it will be two weeks before you go to the Country, and in those two weeks—"
"You must come here at once, Lord Wisbeach. To-night. To-day."
"I think that would be the best plan."
"I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all you are doing."
"You have been so kind to me, Mrs. Pett," said Lord Wisbeach with feeling, "that it is surely only right that I should try to make some return. Let us leave it at this then. I will come here to-night and will make it my business to watch these two men. I will go and pack my things and have them sent here."
"It is wonderful of you, Lord Wisbeach."
"Not at all," replied his lordship. "It will be a pleasure."
He held out his hand, drawing it back rapidly as the dog Aida made a snap at it. Substituting a long-range leave-taking for the more intimate farewell, he left the room.
When he had gone, Mrs. Pett remained for some minutes, thinking. She was aflame with excitement. She had a sensational mind, and it had absorbed Lord Wisbeach's revelations eagerly. Her admiration for his lordship was intense, and she trusted him utterly. The only doubt that occurred to her was whether, with the best intentions in the world, he would be able unassisted to foil a pair of schemers so distant from each other geographically as the man who called himself Jimmy Crocker and the man who had called himself Skinner. That was a point on which they had not touched, the fact that one impostor was above stairs, the other below. It seemed to Mrs. Pett impossible that Lord Wisbeach, for all his zeal, could watch Skinner without neglecting Jimmy or foil Jimmy without taking his attention off Skinner. It was manifestly a situation that called for allies. She felt that she must have further assistance.
To Mrs. Pett, doubtless owing to her hobby of writing sensational fiction, there was a magic in the word detective which was shared by no other word in the language. She loved detectives—their keen eyes, their quiet smiles, their Derby hats. When they came on the stage, she leaned forward in her orchestra chair; when they entered her own stories, she always wrote with a greater zest. It is not too much to say that she had an almost spiritual attachment for detectives, and the idea of neglecting to employ one in real life, now that circumstances had combined to render his advent so necessary, struck her as both rash and inartistic. In the old days, when Ogden had been kidnapped, the only thing which had brought her balm had been the daily interviews with the detectives. She ached to telephone for one now.
The only consideration that kept her back was a regard for Lord Wisbeach's feelings. He had been so kind and so shrewd that to suggest reinforcing him with outside assistance must infallibly wound him deeply. And yet the situation demanded the services of a trained specialist. Lord Wisbeach had borne himself during their recent conversation in such a manner as to leave no doubt that he considered himself adequate to deal with the matter single-handed: but admirable though he was he was not a professional exponent of the art of espionage. He needed to be helped in spite of himself.
A happy solution struck Mrs. Pett. There was no need to tell him. She could combine the installation of a detective with the nicest respect for her ally's feelings by the simple process of engaging one without telling Lord Wisbeach anything about it.
The telephone stood at her elbow, concealed—at the express request of the interior decorator who had designed the room—in the interior of what looked to the casual eye like a stuffed owl. On a table near at hand, handsomely bound in morocco to resemble a complete works of Shakespeare, was the telephone book. Mrs. Pett hesitated no longer. She had forgotten the address of the detective agency which she had employed on the occasion of the kidnapping of Ogden, but she remembered the name, and also the name of the delightfully sympathetic manager or proprietor or whatever he was who had listened to her troubles then.
She unhooked the receiver, and gave a number.
"I want to speak to Mr. Sturgis," she said.
"Oh, Mr. Sturgis," said Mrs. Pett. "I wonder if you could possibly run up here—yes, now. This is Mrs. Peter Pett speaking. You remember we met some years ago when I was Mrs. Ford. Yes, the mother of Ogden Ford. I want to consult—You will come up at once? Thank you so much. Good-bye."
Mrs. Pett hung up the receiver.
CHAPTER XVII
MISS TRIMBLE, DETECTIVE
Downstairs, in the dining-room, Jimmy was smoking cigarettes and reviewing in his mind the peculiarities of the situation, when Ann came in.
"Oh, there you are," said Ann. "I thought you must have gone upstairs."
"I have been having a delightful and entertaining conversation with my old chum, Lord Wisbeach."
"Good gracious! What about?"
"Oh, this and that."
"Not about old times?"
"No, we did not touch upon old times."
"Does he still believe that you are Jimmy Crocker? I'm so nervous," said Ann, "that I can hardly speak."
"I shouldn't be nervous," said Jimmy encouragingly. "I don't see how things could be going better."
"That's what makes me nervous. Our luck is too good to last. We are taking such risks. It would have been bad enough without Skinner and Lord Wisbeach. At any moment you may make some fatal slip. Thank goodness, aunt Nesta's suspicions have been squashed for the time being now that Skinner and Lord Wisbeach have accepted you as genuine. But then you have only seen them for a few minutes. When they have been with you a little longer, they may get suspicious themselves. I can't imagine how you managed to keep it up with Lord Wisbeach. I should have thought he would be certain to say something about the time when you were supposed to be friends in London. We simply mustn't strain our luck. I want you to go straight to aunt Nesta now and ask her to let Jerry come back."
"You still refuse to let me take Jerry's place?"
"Of course I do. You'll find aunt Nesta upstairs."
"Very well. But suppose I can't persuade her to forgive Jerry?"
"I think she is certain to do anything you ask. You saw how friendly she was to you at lunch. I don't see how anything can have happened since lunch to change her."
"Very well. I'll go to her now."
"And when you have seen her, go to the library and wait for me. It's the second room along the passage outside here. I have promised to drive Lord Wisbeach down to his hotel in my car. I met him outside just now and he tells me aunt Nesta has invited him to stay here, so he wants to go and get his things ready. I shan't be twenty minutes. I shall come straight back."
Jimmy found himself vaguely disquieted by this piece of information.
"Lord Wisbeach is coming to stay here?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Well, I'll go and see Mrs. Pett."
No traces of the disturbance which had temporarily ruffled the peace of the drawing-room were to be observed when Jimmy reached it. The receiver of the telephone was back on its hook, Mrs. Pett back in her chair, the dog Aida back in her basket. Mrs. Pett, her mind at ease now that she had taken the step of summoning Mr. Sturgis, was reading a book, one of her own, and was absorbed in it. The dog Aida slumbered noisily.
The sight of Jimmy, however, roused Mrs. Pett from her literary calm. To her eye, after what Lord Wisbeach had revealed there was something sinister in the very way in which he walked into the room. He made her flesh creep. In "A Society Thug" (Mobbs and Stifien, $1.35 net, all rights of translation reserved, including the Scandinavian) she had portrayed just such a man—smooth, specious, and formidable. Instinctively, as she watched Jimmy, her mind went back to the perfectly rotten behaviour of her own Marsden Tuke (it was only in the last chapter but one that they managed to foil his outrageous machinations), and it seemed to her that here was Tuke in the flesh. She had pictured him, she remembered, as a man of agreeable exterior, the better calculated to deceive and undo the virtuous; and the fact that Jimmy was a presentable-looking young man only made him appear viler in her eyes. In a word, she could hardly have been in less suitable frame of mind to receive graciously any kind of a request from him. She would have suspected ulterior motives if he had asked her the time.