‘Cub id,’ said a voice at last.
Mr Abney was sitting up in bed, the blankets wrapped tightly about him. His appearance was still disordered. The furniture of the room was in great confusion, and a poker on the floor by the dressing-table showed that he had been prepared to sell his life dearly.
‘I ab glad to see you, Idspector,’ he said. ‘Bister Burds, what is the expladation of this extraordinary affair?’
It took some time to explain matters to Mr Abney, and more to convince Bones and his colleague that, so far from wanting a hue and cry raised over the countryside and columns about the affair in the papers, publicity was the thing we were anxious to avoid. They were visibly disappointed when they grasped the position of affairs. The thing, properly advertised, would have been the biggest that had ever happened to the neighbourhood, and their eager eyes could see glory within easy reach. Mention of a cold snack and a drop of beer, however, to be found in the kitchen, served to cast a gleam of brightness on their gloom, and they vanished in search of it with something approaching cheeriness, Johnson taking notes to the last.
They had hardly gone when Glossop whirled into the room in a state of effervescing agitation.
‘Mr Abney, Ogden Ford is nowhere to be found!’
Mr Abney greeted the information with a prodigious sneeze.
‘What do you bead?’ he demanded, when the paroxysm was over. He turned to me. ‘Bister Burds, I understood you to–ah–say that the scou’drels took their departure without the boy Ford.’
‘They certainly did. I watched them go.’
‘I have searched the house thoroughly,’ said Glossop, ‘and there are no signs of him. And not only that, the Boy Beckford cannot be found.’
Mr Abney clasped his head in his hands. Poor man, he was in no condition to bear up with easy fortitude against this succession of shocks. He was like one who, having survived an earthquake, is hit by an automobile. He had partly adjusted his mind to the quiet contemplation of Mr MacGinnis and friends when he was called upon to face this fresh disaster. And he had a cold in the head, which unmans the stoutest. Napoleon would have won Waterloo if Wellington had had a cold in the head.
‘Augustus Beckford caddot be fou’d?’ he echoed feebly.
‘They must have run away together,’ said Glossop.
Mr Abney sat up, galvanized.
‘Such a thing has never happened id the school before!’ he cried. ‘It has aldways beed my–ah–codstant endeavour to make my boys look upod Sadstead House as a happy hobe. I have systebatically edcouraged a spirit of cheerful codtedment. I caddot seriously credit the fact that Augustus Beckford, one of the bost charbig boys it has ever beed by good fortude to have id by charge, has deliberately rud away.’
‘He must have been persuaded by that boy Ford,’ said Glossop, ‘who,’ he added morosely, ‘I believe, is the devil in disguise.’
Mr Abney did not rebuke the strength of his language. Probably the theory struck him as eminently sound. To me there certainly seemed something in it.
‘Subbthig bust be done at once!’ Mr Abney exclaimed. ‘It is–ah–ibperative that we take ibbediate steps. They bust have gone to Londod. Bister Burds, you bust go to Londod by the next traid. I caddot go byself with this cold.’
It was the irony of fate that, on the one occasion when duty really summoned that champion popper-up-to-London to the Metropolis, he should be unable to answer the call.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and look out a train.’
‘Bister Glossop, you will be in charge of the school. Perhaps you had better go back to the boys dow.’
White was in the hall when I got there.
‘White,’ I said, ‘do you know anything about the trains to London?’
‘Are you going to London?’ he asked, in his more conversational manner. I thought he looked at me curiously as he spoke.
‘Yes. Ogden Ford and Lord Beckford cannot be found. Mr Abney thinks they must have run away to London.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said White dryly, it seemed to me. There was something distinctly odd in his manner. ‘And you’re going after them.’