Battle, Superintendent (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; Police -- England -- Fiction
"One of my cousins had three children burned to death. Awful, wasn't
it?"
The Countess paid no attention. She went on and on. And she finally
stopped as suddenly as she had begun.
"There!" she said. "I have told you! We have money--but no
organization. It is organization we need."
Lady Coote sighed.
"I've heard my husband say that nothing can be done without regular
methods. He attributes his own success entirely to that. He declares he
would have never got on without them."
She sighed again. A sudden fleeting vision passed before her eyes of a
Sir Oswald who had not got on in the world. A Sir Oswald who retained,
in all essentials, the attributes of that cheery young man in the
bicycle shop. Just for a second it occurred to her how much pleasanter
life might have been for her if Sir Oswald had _not_ had regular
methods.
By a quite understandable association of ideas she turned to Bundle.
"Tell me, Lady Eileen," she said, "do you like that head gardener of
yours?"
"MacDonald? Well--" Bundle hesitated. "One couldn't exactly _like_
MacDonald," she explained apologetically. "But he's a first-class
gardener."
"Oh! I know he is," said Lady Coote.
"He's all right if he's kept in his place," said Bundle.
"I suppose so," said Lady Coote.
She looked enviously at Bundle, who appeared to approach the task of
keeping MacDonald in his place so light heartedly.
"I'd just adore a high-toned garden," said the Countess dreamily.
Bundle stared, but at that moment a diversion occurred. Jimmy Thesiger
entered the room and spoke directly to her in a strange, hurried voice.
"I say, will you come and see those etchings now? They're waiting for
you."
Bundle left the room hurriedly, Jimmy close behind her.
"What etchings?" she asked, as the drawing-room door closed behind her.
"No etchings," said Jimmy. "I'd got to say something to get hold of
you. Come on, Bill is waiting for us in the library. There's nobody
there."
Bill was striding up and down the library, clearly in a very perturbed
state of mind.
"Look here," he burst out, "I don't like this."
"Don't like what?"
"You being mixed up in this. Ten to one there's going to be a rough
house and then--"
He looked at her with a kind of pathetic dismay that gave Bundle a warm
and comfortable feeling.
"She ought to be kept out of it, oughtn't she, Jimmy?"
He appealed to the other.
"I've told her so," said Jimmy.
"Dash it all, Bundle, I mean--someone might get hurt."
Bundle turned round to Jimmy.
"How much have you told him?"
"Oh! everything."
"I haven't got the hang of it all yet," confessed Bill. "You in that
place in Seven Dials and all that." He looked at her unhappily. "I say,
Bundle, I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Get mixed up in these sorts of things."
"Why not?" said Bundle. "They're exciting."
"Oh, yes--exciting. But they may be damnably dangerous. Look at poor
old Ronny."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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