This was the invariable greeting between husband and wife. Tims went up behind her, gripped her elbows to her side, and kissed her noisily.
"I told you I was busy," she said.
"You did, Emmelina," he responded. "I heard you say so, and how"s his Nibs?"
The last remark was addressed to an object that was crawling towards him with incoherent cries and gurgles of delight. Stooping down, Tims picked up his eighteen-months-old son and held him aloft, chuckling and mouthing his glee.
"You"ll drop him one of these days," said Mrs. Tims, "and then there"ll be a pretty hullaballoo."
"Well, he"s fat enough to bounce," was the retort. "Ain"t you, Jimmy?"
Neither Tims nor Mrs. Tims seemed to be conscious that without variations these same remarks had been made night after night, week after week, month after month.
"How"s Mr. Sage?" was the question with which Mrs. Tims always followed the reference to the bouncing of Jimmy.
"Like Johnny Walker, still going strong," glibly came the reply, just as it came every other night. "He was asking about you to-day,"
added Tims.
"About me?" Mrs. Tims turned, all attention, her cooking for the time forgotten.
"Yes, wanted to know when I was going to divorce you."
"Don"t be silly, Jim," she cried. "What did he say, really now?" she added as she turned once more to the stove.
"Oh! he just asked if you were well," replied Tims, more interested in demonstrating with the person of his son how an aeroplane left the ground than in his wife"s question.
"Anything else?" enquired Mrs. Tims, prodding a potato with a fork to see if it was done.
Tims was not deceived by the casual tone in which the question was asked. He was wont to say that, if his wife wanted his back teeth, she would get them.
"Nothing, my dear, only to ask if his Nibs was flourishin"," and with a gurgle of delight the aeroplane soared towards the ceiling.
Mrs. Tims had not forgotten the time when Malcolm Sage visited her several times when she was ill with pneumonia. She never tired of telling her friends of his wonderful knowledge of household affairs.
He had talked to her of cooking, of childish ailments, of shopping, in a way that had amazed her. His knowledge seemed universal. He had explained to her among other things how cracknel biscuits were made and why croup was so swift in its action.
Tims vowed that the Chief had done her more good than the doctor, and from that day Malcolm Sage had occupied chief place in Mrs.
Tims"s valhalla.
"Quaint sort o" chap, the Chief," Tims would remark sometimes in connection with some professional episode.
"Pity you"re not as quaint," would flash back the retort from Mrs.
Tims, whose conception of loyalty was more literal than that of her husband.
Supper finished and his Nibs put to bed, Tims proceeded to enjoy his pipe and evening paper, whilst Mrs. Tims got out her sewing. From time to time Tims"s eyes would wander over towards the telephone in the corner.
Finally he folded up the paper, and proceeded to knock out the ashes from his pipe preparatory to going to bed. His eyes took a last look at the telephone just as Mrs. Tims glanced up.
"Don"t sit there watching that telephone," she cried, "anyone would think you were wanting----"
"Brrrrrrr--brrrrrrr--brrrrrr," went the bell.
"Now perhaps you"re happy," cried Mrs. Tims as he rose to answer the call, whilst she put on the kettle to make hot coffee to fill the thermos flasks without which she never allowed the car to go out at night. It was her tribute to "the Chief."
II
In his more expansive moments Malcolm Sage would liken himself to a general pract.i.tioner in a diseased-infected district. It is true that there was no speaking-tube, with its terrifying whistle, a few feet from his head; but the telephone by his bedside was always liable to arouse him from sleep at any hour of the night.
As Tims had folded up his newspaper with a view to bed, Malcolm Sage was removing his collar before the mirror on his dressing-table, when his telephone bell rang. Rogers, his man, looked interrogatingly at his master, who, shaking his head, pa.s.sed over to the instrument and took up the receiver.
"Yes, this is Malcolm Sage--Speaking--Yes." Then for a few minutes he listened with an impa.s.sive face. "I"ll be off within ten minutes--The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford--I understand."
While he was speaking, Rogers, a little sallow-faced man with fish-like eyes and expressionless face, had moved over to the other telephone and was droning in a monotonous, uninflected voice, "Chief wants car in five minutes."
It was part of Malcolm Sage"s method to train his subordinates to realise the importance of intelligent and logical inference.
Returning to the dressing-table, Malcolm Sage took up another collar, slipped a tie between the fold, and proceeded to put it on.
As he did so he gave instructions to Rogers, who, note-book in hand, and with an expression of indifference that seemed to say "Kismet,"
silently recorded his instructions.
"My address will be The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford. Be on the look-out for messages."
Without a word Rogers closed the book and, picking up a suit-case, which was always ready for emergencies, he left the room. Two minutes later Malcolm Sage followed and, without a word, entered the closed car that had just drawn up before his flat in the Adelphi.
Rogers returned to the flat, switched the telephone on to his own room, and prepared himself for the night, whilst Malcolm Sage, having eaten a biscuit and drunk some of Mrs. Tims"s hot coffee, lay back to sleep as the car rushed along the Portsmouth road.
III
In the library at The Towers three men were seated, their faces lined and drawn as if some great misfortune had suddenly descended upon them; yet their senses were alert. They were listening.
"He ought to be here any minute now," said Mr. Llewellyn John, the Prime Minister, taking out his watch for the hundredth time.
Sir Lyster Grayne, First Lord of the Admiralty, shook his head.
"He should do it in an hour," said Lord Beamdale, the Secretary of War, "if he"s got a man who knows the road."
"Sage is sure----" began Sir Lyster; then he stopped abruptly, and turned in the direction of the further window.
A soft tapping as of a finger-nail upon a pane of gla.s.s was clearly distinguishable. It ceased for a few seconds, recommenced, then ceased again.
Mr. Llewellyn John looked first at Sir Lyster and then on towards where Lord Beamdale sat, heavy of frame and impa.s.sive of feature.