“Give you a sovereign to get to Charing Cross in three minutes,” he cried out, and the man, accepting the spirit of the thing, thrust in his clutch, eagerly. For a moment it seemed as though temporarily, at any rate, Richard would get clear away. In about fifty yards, however, there was a slight block. The door of the taxicab was wrenched open, and one of the men who were chasing him essayed to enter. Richard sent him without difficulty crashing back into the street, only to find that simultaneously the other door had been opened, and that his hands were held from behind in a grip of iron. At the same time he looked into the muzzle of Crawshay’s revolver.
“Sit down,” the latter commanded.
Brightman, too, was in the taxicab, and one of the other men had his foot upon the step. With a shrug of the shoulders, the young man accepted the inevitable and obeyed. Brightman leaned out of the window, gave a direction to the driver, and the taxicab was driven slowly in through the assembling crowd. Richard leaned back in his corner and glared at his two companions.
“Say, this is nice behaviour to an officer!” he exclaimed truculently. “I am on my way to catch the leave train. How dare you interfere with me!”
“Perhaps,” Crawshay remarked, “we may consider that the time has arrived for explanations.”
“Then you’d better out with them quick,” Richard continued angrily. “I am an officer in His Britannic Majesty’s Service, come over to fight for you because you can’t do your own job. Do you get that, Crawshay?”
“I am listening.”
“I am on my way to catch the ten o’clock train from Charing Cross,” Richard went on. “If I don’t catch it, my leave will be broken.”
“I feel sure,” Crawshay remarked drily, “that the authorities will recognise the fact that you made every effort to do so. As a matter of fact, there will be a supplementary train leaving at ten-forty-five, which it is possible that you may be able to catch. Explanations such as I have to offer are not to be given in a taxicab. I have therefore directed the man to drive to my rooms, I trust that you will come quietly. If the result of our conversation is satisfactory, as I remarked before, you can still catch your train.”
Richard glanced at the man seated opposite to him — a great strong fellow who was obviously now prepared for any surprise; at Brightman, who, lithe and tense, seemed watching his every movement; at the little revolver which Crawshay, although he kept it out of sight, was still holding.
“Seems to me I’m up against it,” he muttered. “You’ll have to pay for it afterwards, you fellows, I can tell you that.”
They accepted his decision in silence, and a few minutes later they descended outside the little block of flats in which Crawshay’s rooms were situated. Richard made no further attempt to escape, stepped into the lift of his own accord, and threw himself into an easy-chair as soon as the little party entered Crawshay’s sitting room. There was a gloomy frown upon his forehead, but the sight of a whisky decanter and a soda-water syphon upon the sideboard, appeared to cheer him up.
“I think,” he suggested tentatively, “that after the excitement of the last half-hour—”
“You will allow me to offer you a whisky and soda,” Crawshay begged, mixing it and bringing it himself. “When you have drunk it, I have to tell you that it is our intention to search you.”
“What the devil for?” the young man demanded, with the tumbler still in his hand.
“We suspect you of having in your possession certain documents of a treasonous nature.”
“Documents?” Richard jeered. “Don’t talk nonsense! And treasonous to whom? I am an American citizen.”
“That,” Crawshay reminded him, “is entirely contrary to your declaration when a commission in His Majesty’s Flying Corps was granted to you. The immediate question, however, is are you going to submit to search or not?”
Richard glanced at that ominous glitter in Crawshay’s right hand, glanced at Brightman, and at the giant who was standing barely a yard away, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I suppose you must do what you want to,” he acquiesced sullenly, “but you’ll have to answer for it — I can tell you that. It’s a damnable liberty!”
He drank up his whisky and soda and set down the empty glass. The search which proceeded took a very few moments. Soon upon the table was gathered the usual collection of such articles as a man in Richard’s position might be expected to possess, and last of all, from the inside of his vest, next to his skin, was drawn a long blue envelope, fastened at either end with a peculiar green seal. Crawshay’s heart beat fast as he watched it placed upon the table. Richard seemed to have lost much of his truculence of manner.
“That packet,” he declared, “is my personal property. It contains nothing of any moment whatever, nothing which would be of the least interest to you.”
“In that case,” Brightman promised, “it will be returned to you. Mr. Crawshay,” he added, turning towards him, “I must ask you, as you represent the Government in this matter, to break these seals and acquaint yourself with the nature of the contents of this envelope, which I have reason to suppose was handed to Captain Beverley by Jocelyn Thew, a few minutes ago.”
Crawshay took the envelope into his hands.
“I am sorry, Captain Beverley,” he declared, “but I must do as Mr. Brightman has suggested. This man Jocelyn Thew, with whom you have been in constant association, is under very grave suspicion of having brought to England documents of a treasonable nature.”
“I suppose,” Richard said defiantly, “you must do as you d —— d well please. My time will come afterwards.”
Crawshay broke the seal, thrust his hand into the envelope and drew out a pile of closely folded papers. One by one he laid them upon the table and smoothed them out. Even before he had glanced at the first one, a queer presentiment seemed suddenly to chill the blood in his veins. His eyes became a trifle distended. They were all there now, a score or more of sheets of thin foreign note paper, covered with hand-writing of a distinctly feminine type. The two men read — Richard Beverley watched them scowling!
“What the mischief little May Boswell’s letters have to do with you fellows, I can’t imagine!” he muttered. “Go on reading, you bounders! Much good may they do you!”
There were minutes of breathless silence. Then Crawshay, as the last sheet slipped through his fingers, glanced stealthily into Brightman’s face, saw him bite through his lips till the blood came and strike the table with his clenched fist.
“My God!” he exclaimed, snatching up the telephone receiver. “Jocelyn Thew has done us again!”
“And you let him walk out!” Crawshay groaned.
“We’ll find him,” Brightman shouted. “Here, Central! Give me Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard, quick! Johnson, you take a taxi to the Savoy.”
Unnoticed, Richard Beverley had risen to his feet and helped himself to another whisky and soda.
“If you are now convinced,” he said, turning towards them, “that I am carrying nothing more treasonable than the love letters of my best girl, I should be glad to know what you have to say to me on the subject of my detention?”
Crawshay for once forgot his manners.
“Damn your detention!” he replied. “Get off and catch your train.”
.
CHAPTER XXVII
On the extreme edge of a stony and wide-spreading moor, Jocelyn Thew suddenly brought the ancient motor-car which he was driving to a somewhat abrupt and perilous standstill. He stood up in his seat, unrecognisable, transformed. From his face had passed the repression of many years. His lips were gentle and quivering as a woman’s, his eyes seemed to have grown larger and softer as they swept with a greedy, passionate gaze the view at his feet. All that was hard and cruel seemed to have passed suddenly from his face. He was like a poet or a prophet, gazing down upon the land of his desires.