You blow in on the
laird, begin talking with an accent and then drop it. You pitch him a
cock and bull yarn about being landed from a cruiser and wanting to hide
your uniform coat and so on. You conduct yourself like a criminal in
church and wander out at night. Naturally the Rendalls--and everybody
else--eye you strangely to your face and try to find out a little more
behind your back. Do you see?"
"There's something certainly in all this," I had to admit.
"Then they find your parachute--"
"Who found it?"
"I haven't asked that yet; but I shall of course. Anyhow it was found,
and as evidently you had hid it. One point discovered against you. Then
the Rendalls decide on stronger measures--and very rightly too, I think.
They open your drawer and find you never had a uniform coat at all. Most
wisely they then wire to me, and to keep you from bolting, lock you in
your room."
"Dash it," said I, "I seem at least to have succeeded in providing them
with a devilish good excuse for every blessed thing they did!"
"I don't honestly think you have left yourself with any grounds whatever
for suspecting the Rendalls of anything."
"On the other hand, sending for you and having me arrested would be an
excellent way of getting rid of me when they were certain who I was--or
rather, wasn't."
"And who did they make apparently certain you were not? A British
officer! That was the natural conclusion when they opened that drawer.
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