Chapter 2

“I think not, sir,” he answered, and it seemed to me that a very faint
smile twitched round his lips. In fact, there was a sort of air of
expectancy about Jenkins—excitement almost—that was most unusual.
Jenkins I have always regarded as a model servant.

“Five to one, my trusty lad. That’s better than breaking your false
teeth on a plum stone.”

I turned at this somewhat astounding utterance and regarded the speaker.
He was still immersed in the paper, and for the moment I couldn’t see
his face.

“Put anything on Moongazer?”

“’Alf a dollar each way, sir,” said Jenkins, so far forgetting himself
as to suck his teeth in his excitement.

“You’ll get your money back. Second at fours. That’s not so bad for the
old firm.”

“Pity about cook, sir,” said Jenkins earnestly. “She don’t ’old with
backing both ways. Moongazer—win only—she was.”

He consulted a small note-book, apparently to verify the statement.

“That sheds a bit of gloom over the afternoon, Jenkins.”

Captain Drummond lowered the paper, and seemed to become aware of my
existence for the first time.

“Hullo! hullo! hullo!” he exclaimed. “The new arrival. Home, Jenkins—and
for God’s sake don’t break it to the cook till after dinner.”

He got into the car, and it struck me that I had seldom seen a larger
individual.

“Do you think it is quite wise to encourage the servants to bet?” I
enquired a little pointedly as we started.

“Encourage, old lad?” he boomed. “They don’t want any encouragement.
You’d have to keep ’em off it with a field-gun.”

He waved a friendly hand at an extremely pretty girl on the pavement,
and I took off my hat.

“Who was that?” he said, turning to me.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I thought you waved at her.”

“But you took off your hat.”

“Because you waved at her.”

He pondered deeply.

“I follow your reasoning,” he conceded at length. “The false premise, if
I may say so, is your conclusion that a friendly gesture of the right
hand betokens previous acquaintance. I regret to say I do not know the
lady: I probably never shall. Still, we have doubtless planted hope in
her virginal bosom.”

He relapsed into silence, while I glanced at him out of the corner of my
eye. A strange individual, I reflected: one, somehow, I could hardly
place at the Traceys’. Now that he was sitting beside me he seemed
larger than ever—evidently a very powerful man. Moreover, his face was
rather of the type that one associates with pugilism. He certainly had
no claims to good looks, and yet there was something very attractive
about his expression.

“_The Cat and Custard Pot_,” he remarked suddenly, and Jenkins touched
his hat.

“It’s nearly an hour,” he said, turning to me, “since I lowered any ale.
And I don’t really know Bill Tracey well enough to reason with him about
his. The damned stuff isn’t fit to drink.”

The car pulled up outside a pub, and my companion descended. I refused
his invitation to join him—ale is not a favourite beverage of mine—and
remained sitting in the car. The afternoon was warm, the air heavy with
the scent of flowers from a neighbouring garden. And in the distance one
got a glimpse of the peaceful Thames. Peaceful—the _mot juste_:
everything was peaceful in that charming corner of England. And with a
feeling of drowsy contentment, I lay back and half-closed my eyes.

I don’t know what drew my attention to them first—the two men who were
sitting at one of the little tables under a tree. Perhaps it was that
they didn’t seem to quite fit in with their surroundings. Foreigners, I
decided, and yet it was more from the cut of their clothes than from
their actual faces that I came to the conclusion. They weren’t talking,
but every now and then they stole a glance at the door by which Drummond
had gone in. And then one of them turned suddenly and stared long and
earnestly at me.

“Who are those two men, Jenkins?” I said, leaning forward.

“Never seen ’em before to-day, sir,” he answered. “But they was ’ere
when the Captain stopped for his pint on the way down. Lumme—look
there.”

I looked, and I must admit that for a moment or two I began to have
doubts as to Drummond’s sanity. He had evidently come out by some other
door, and he was now standing behind the trunk of the tree under which
the men were sitting. They were obviously quite unaware of his presence,
and if such a thing hadn’t been inconceivable, I should have said he was
deliberately eavesdropping. Anyway, the fact remains that for nearly a
minute he stood there absolutely motionless, whilst I watched the scene
in frank amazement. Then one of the two men happened to glance at me,
and I suppose my face must have given something away. He nudged his
companion, and the two of them rose to their feet just as Drummond
stepped out from behind the tree.

“Good afternoon, my pretties,” he burbled genially. “Are we staying long
in Pangbourne’s happy clime—or are we not?”

“Who the devil are you, sir?” said one of the men, speaking perfect
English, except for a slightly guttural accent.

Drummond took out his case and selected a cigarette with care.

“Surely,” he remarked pleasantly, “your incompetence cannot be as
astounding as all that. Tush! tush!——” he lifted a hand like a leg of
mutton as the man who had spoken started forward angrily. “I will push
your face in later, if necessary, but just at the moment I would like a
little chat. And since the appearance of you both is sufficient to shake
any man to the foundations, let us not waste time over unnecessary
questions.”

“Look here,” snarled the other angrily, “do you want a rough house,
young man?”

“Rough house?” said Drummond mildly. “What is a rough house? Surely you
cannot imagine for one minute that I would so far demean myself as to
lift my hand in anger against my neighbour.”

And then the most extraordinary thing happened. I was watching the
strange scene very closely, wondering really whether I ought not to
interfere—yet even so I didn’t see how it was done. It was so incredibly
quick, and as far as I could tell, Drummond never moved.

The two men seemed to close in on him suddenly with the idea obviously
of hustling him out of the garden. And they didn’t hustle him out of the
garden. Far from it. There came a noise as of two hard bodies impinging
together, and the gentleman who had not yet spoken recoiled a pace,
holding his nose and cursing.

I sympathised with him: it is a singularly painful thing to hit one’s
nose hard on somebody else’s head. In fact, the only completely unmoved
person was Drummond himself.