lounge, will you? I don’t want anyone to remain but those intimately concerned. There’s been a small accident here in the temporary fittings,’ he explained soothingly to the bewildered crowd which was being gently but firmly persuaded out of the lounge by an energetic young Scotsman and his assistants.
‘There’s something very wrong with the insulation of your cupboard,’ he went on, addressing the Japanese severely. ‘It’s evidently a very dangerous thing. Have you not had trouble with it before?’
Satsuma protested violently, but his birdlike twittering English would have been unintelligible to the engineer even had he been able to hear it.
Meanwhile a small army of mechanics was at work. The chief entered into an incomprehensible technical discussion with them, and their growing astonishment and consternation told more plainly than anything else could have done the terrible tragedy that had only just been averted by the timely sacrifice of the unfortunate Haig.
It was impossible not to be sorry for the Japanese. There could be no doubt of the sincerity of his wretchedness. He hovered round the electricians, half terrified of the consequences of what had happened and half fearful for the safety of his precious apparatus.
Marlowe Lobbett, whose patience had been slowly ebbing, stepped up to the chief and shouted in his ear.
‘I don’t know if you’ve heard,’ he began, ‘but back in New York there have been several unsuccessful attempts upon my father’s life. This affair looks very like another. I should be very glad if you could make certain where the responsibility lies.’
The chief turned upon him.
‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘there’s no question of responsibility. The whole thing’s an extraordinary coincidence. You see that cable on the floor there?’ He pointed to the exposed part of a cable resting upon the parquet floor of the platform. ‘If, in shifting the piano, the cabinet hadn’t been moved a little so that the one place where the insulation had worn off the cabinet made a connection with it, the affair could never have happened. At the same time, if it hadn’t been for the second purely accidental short, the other contact could not have been made.’ He indicated a dark stain on the polished grille of the cabinet. ‘But,’ he went on, fixing the young American with a vivid blue eye, ‘you’re not suggesting that someone fixed the whole thing up on the very slender chance of getting your father in there, are you?’ The chief was considerably more puzzled than he dared to admit. But since no harm had been done he was not anxious to go into the matter too thoroughly for the ship’s sake.
Old Judge Lobbett laid his hand on his son’s arm.
‘This isn’t quite the time to discuss this, my boy,’ he said. ‘Someone knew I couldn’t resist a conjuror. But I don’t think we’ll discuss it here.’
He glanced round as he spoke, and the chief, following the direction of his eyes, suddenly caught sight of the pale young man with the horn-rimmed spectacles who was still standing foolishly by the dismantled cabinet. The officer frowned.
‘I thought I gave orders for the lounge to be cleared,’ he said. ‘May I ask, sir, what you’ve got to do with this affair?’
The young man started and coloured uncomfortably.
‘Well, it was my mouse,’ he said.
It was some time before the chief could be made to understand what he was saying, but when at last he did he was hardly sympathetic.
‘All the same, I think we can manage without you,’ he said bluntly.
The dismissal was unmistakable, and the pale young man smiled nervously and apologized with a certain amount of confusion. Then he crept off the platform like his own mouse, and had almost reached the door before young Marlowe Lobbett overtook him.
The young American had left his father and sister on the platform and came up eagerly. His dark-skinned face and piercing eyes gave him almost a fierce expression, and the pale young man in the spectacles had an impression of someone abounding in energy that was not solely physical.
‘I’d like to thank you,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘And,’ he added bluntly, ‘I’d like to talk to you. I’m greatly indebted to you, but I don’t see quite where you come in on this. What’s your game? Who are you?’
The pale young man looked, if possible, even more foolish than before.
‘My game?’ he said. ‘I don’t quite know what you mean. I toss a few cabers, and tiddle a wink occasionally, and I’m a very fair hand at shove-halfpenny.’
He paused.
Marlowe Lobbett was looking at him steadily.
‘This is more serious for me than it is for you,’ he said slowly.
The pale young man grew suddenly very red and uncomfortable.
‘I’ve got a card here somewhere.’ He took a handful of miscellaneous odds and ends out of his coat pocket, and selecting a visiting card handed it gravely to Marlowe.
‘My trade card,’ he said, ‘if there’s anything I can do for you, ring me up. I don’t suppose we shall meet again on board. We bus conductors feel dreadfully out of place here.’
Then, grinning fatuously, he bowed and disappeared through the doorway out of sight, leaving the other staring after him.
The whole conversation had taken less than ten seconds.
Undecided whether the stranger was genuine or not, young Lobbett glanced at the card in his hand. It was immaculate and beautifully engraved:
MR ALBERT CAMPION
Coups neatly executed
Nothing sordid, vulgar or plebeian
Deserving cases preferred
Police no object
PUFFINS CLUB
THE JUNIOR GREYS
On the back a phone number had been scribbled:
Regent 01300
CHAPTER 2
The Simister Legend
After half an hour’s experience of the vagaries of the London telephone service Marlowe Lobbett could hear the telephone bell ringing in some far-off room in the great city which seemed to be huddling round his hotel as if it were trying to squeeze the life out of it.
At last he heard the welcome click at the far end of the wire and a thick and totally unexpected voice said huskily, ‘Aphrodite Glue Works speaking.’
Marlowe Lobbett sighed. ‘I want Regent 01300,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ said the voice. ‘ ’Oo do you want?’
The young man glanced at the card in front of him, and a wave of disappointment overwhelmed him. He had cherished the idea that he could rely upon the man who had come to his father’s rescue so successfully on board
