The Head Girl at the Gables Part 34

"Lorraine," he said briefly, "Miss Kingsley has excused your lessons to-day. Get your hat and coat and come with me, for I want to take you by train. We've just time to catch the 10.40 if we're quick."

Much excited and puzzled, Lorraine flew to the cloak-room, and donned her outdoor shoes and hat with lightning speed. What was going to happen next in this amazing chain of events? On the way to the station, Uncle Barton explained.

"The police have long been trying to catch a notorious spy, and from the description you gave this morning, they think they are on the right track of the man they want. A certain foreigner at St. Cyr is under observation, but they cannot arrest him without a witness to his ident.i.ty. If you can certify that to the best of your knowledge he is the man whom you saw this morning supplying casks of oil to a U-boat, then the police can act. Should you know him again if you saw him?"

"I'd remember him anywhere now!" declared Lorraine.

It was a comparatively short journey to St. Cyr, and on arrival there they went straight to the police station. They were shown by a constable into a private office, where they were shortly joined by a detective. He questioned Lorraine carefully as to the various occasions on which she had seen the suspected foreigner.

"A man answering exactly to that description has been staying at a boarding-house in Spring Terrace," he commented. "We happen to know that he was out all last night, and returned on a motor bicycle at eight o'clock this morning. These facts would fit in with the supposition that he was at Giant's Tor Point at dawn. What we want you to do is to watch the house, and identify him if he comes out. Now of course you understand that it wouldn't do for a young lady and a detective to sit on the doorstep waiting for him. At the first sight of us he'd escape by the back way. We want to catch him off his guard. My idea is this. Have you any notion of gardening?"

"A little," said Lorraine, surprised.

"You could rake about, at any rate, and pull up a few weeds? Well, there's a small public park right in front of the house in Spring Terrace. If you don't mind putting on a land worker's costume that I've borrowed for you, we'll employ you for the day on a job of gardening in the park. You can keep one eye on the weeds, and the other on the front door of 27 Spring Terrace. I shall be near you, bedding out fuchsias.

You agree to take on the job? Then may I ask you to step into this other room and put on your land costume? There's no time to be lost. We don't want to miss the fellow. I've a man selling newspapers and watching the house, but he's no use as a witness."

This was indeed an excitement. Lorraine felt thrills as she hurried into the corduroys, leggings, and smock that had been placed ready for her.

They were an indifferent fit, but in the circ.u.mstances that did not matter. The hat she thought decidedly becoming. On her return to the office she found that Detective Scott had also accomplished a quick change. He was now arrayed in a shabby suit of clothes, and carried a parcel of bedding-out plants.

He smiled satisfaction at her get-up, and handed her a rake and a basket.

"Good luck to you!" said Uncle Barton. "I shall be somewhere about in the park, not far from you; but I'd better not show up too much. These fellows soon get their suspicions aroused if they see people hanging round."

It was certainly a new experience for Lorraine to walk through the streets of St. Cyr in smock and corduroys, but the townspeople were so well used to land workers that n.o.body took any particular notice of her.

The park was close at hand, and here the detective, setting down his parcel of fuchsias, showed her a patch of border next to the railings, and instructed her to weed and rake it.

"No. 27 is the house with the green blinds and the plant in the window,"

he whispered. "I've seen Jones--the man who's selling newspapers--and he says n.o.body has come out from there yet answering to the description of the fellow we want."

With that he left her, and, turning his back, began operations on a round bed already fairly full of lobelias and geraniums. Lorraine, with all her attention concentrated on the door of No. 27, worked abstractedly. She thought afterwards that, if any of the ratepayers of St. Cyr had taken the trouble to watch her gardening operations, they would have decided that girls on the land were certainly not worth their salt. She raked, and weeded, and picked up a few dead twigs, and sc.r.a.ped some moss off the path with a trowel, turning her head every other moment to peep through the railings. Once the door of No. 27 opened, and she held her breath, but it was only a lady who came out with a little child. Was this mysterious foreigner really in the house? He might have escaped by a back way, or have gone off in some disguise, in which case all her waiting would be in vain. Hour after hour pa.s.sed by. The night at the cove and the agitation of the early morning had made her very tired, but she stuck grimly to her job. She was hungry, too, for it was nearly three o'clock, and she had eaten nothing since breakfast. The detective, who had been pottering about the flower-beds, sauntered carelessly up to her as if to direct her work.

"Can you hold out any longer?" he asked under his breath.

"I'll try!" she answered pluckily.

"I'll send a boy to buy you some buns. I expect, after a night out, the fellow's sleeping. There's no knowing what time he may choose to take a walk. The only thing is to stick it as long as you can."

The buns arrived in due course, delivered in a paper bag by a small boy.

Lorraine felt a little better after eating them, but her task of waiting and watching had grown irksome in the extreme. She hated that patch of ground behind the railings. She felt that she would remember the look of the brown soil for the rest of her life. The market-hall clock chimed the quarters. The distance between the chimes seemed interminable. She had never realised that fifteen minutes could be so long. Four o'clock struck, then the time dragged on till half-past, then a quarter to five.

"I believe I'll faint or do something silly if I stay here much longer!"

thought Lorraine. "I wish my legs wouldn't shake in such an idiotic manner!"

Five o'clock sounded from the tower of the market hall. She stretched her weary back, and leaned on her rake. Her eyes were fixed on the door opposite. It was opening. Someone was standing in the hall, and apparently speaking. He slammed the door and came down the path towards the gate. There was no mistaking the dark, clean-shaven face; she knew its owner again instantly. At the gate he paused and lighted a cigarette, then walked rapidly away in the direction of the railway station.

The detective turned from his flower-beds, humming a tune with apparent indifference.

"Can you identify him?" he whispered.

"Certainly I can. Without a doubt it's the man I saw this morning."

"We'll just catch him at the corner of the park, then. I've a couple of men waiting," chuckled the detective, taking a short cut over the flower-beds, regardless of tender seedlings.

Lorraine was not near enough to witness the actual arrest. What happened next was that Mr. Barton Forrester came and took her back to the police station, where she formally identified the prisoner. Then she thankfully changed into her own clothes, and went with Uncle Barton into the town to get some tea.

Little Uncle Barton was as excited and pleased as a boy at the result of the adventure. His face beamed with satisfaction as he ordered cakes at the cafe.

"We've done a good day's work, Lorraine," he confided, lowering his voice lest bystanders should overhear. "That fellow has been under suspicion, but they couldn't catch him tripping. Dodson, the detective, believes he'll turn out a notorious spy, in which case they'll have plenty of witnesses against him on other charges, without needing to bring you into the matter again. They'll deal with him under martial law. There are far too many of these spies about the country--half of the foreigners who are here ought to be interned! You looked A1 in that rig-out" (his eyes twinkled). "Will you stick to your job as lady-gardener in the park?"

"Not for worlds!" exclaimed Lorraine eloquently, helping herself to a second cup of tea.

CHAPTER XXI.

Trouble

When Lorraine looked back upon those few warm days in July, she decided that they had contained more concentrated adventure than had been provided in the whole course of her life. Events seemed to follow quickly one upon another.

On the day after her exciting experience at St. Cyr she went to school as usual. It was an effort to do so, for she was tired, but she had a record for punctual attendance, and did not wish to break it unless under special compulsion. To her surprise, Claudia was absent. She missed her chum, and kept looking anxiously towards the door, expecting the golden head to pop in at the eleventh hour. But nine o'clock and the roll-call came, and no sign of Claudia. Miss Turner marked her absent, and put back the book inside the desk. The girls took out their copies of Moliere, in preparation for the French lesson. Miss Turner collected some papers from her desk, and walked away to instruct the Third Form on the subject of Roman history. The Sixth sat with their books before them and waited. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Madame Bertier was punctuality personified. She was generally in the schoolroom before Miss Turner made her exit. What had happened to her to-day? At twenty minutes past nine Miss Janet entered, looking flurried.

"I fear Madame must be unwell, as she has not come or sent a note," she explained briefly. "You had better go on with your preparation and write your exercises. I suppose you know what to do next? Then get to work, and of course I put you on your honour as seniors to keep the silence rule."

Lorraine, sitting scribbling away at her desk, felt in no mood to break the rule by entering into conversation with either Dorothy or Audrey, who sat respectively to right and left of her. Her thoughts were far away from the pen which was automatically writing her exercise. What had become of Madame Bertier? Was her absence in any way connected with the events of yesterday? That was the question which kept forcing itself upon her brain. She wondered whether Miss Janet had ever harboured suspicions of the attractive Russian. She had never fallen under her sway so completely as her sister had done. Something in Miss Janet's worried expression made Lorraine think her surmise a correct one.

Lorraine's French grammar went to the winds that morning, and she wrote down mistakes, which, in calmer moments, would have caused her to shudder.

At the eleven o'clock interval, Claudia walked into the cloak-room.

Lorraine, who had come for her packet of lunch, greeted her with surprised enthusiasm.

"Here you are at last! Why are you so late? I've simply loads to tell you! Do you know that Madame Bertier's never turned up to-day?"

"Hasn't she?" said Claudia abstractedly. "I've loads to tell you too, Lorraine. Come into the garden; I don't want anyone to overhear."

When they were out of reach of the ears of prying juniors, Claudia continued:

"I'm in dreadful trouble; that's why I'm so late. Everything's gone wrong. Yesterday afternoon I had a telegram from Morland: 'Take parcel immediately to the George'."

"That case that the officer lost? I always thought Morland ought to have given it back to him at once. Well! Did you go to the cave and fetch it?"

"I went," said Claudia slowly, "but, when I looked in the little cupboard, it wasn't there."

"Not there!" Lorraine's tone was horror-stricken.

"No. I hunted all round the cave, but it had gone, absolutely."

"Great Scott! What are we to do?"