Who Goes There!Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
General
Who Goes There!
Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"Take the door-key, if you please, sir. Lock it on the outside. Thank
you. This way, if you please, sir. I took it upon myself to bring the
car up to the kitchen entrance."
The car stood there; the bags were flung in; Karen Girard stepped into
the tonneau; Guild followed. At the same moment a woman appeared, coming
along the brick walk.
"My maid of all work," exclaimed Karen. "What shall I say to her?"
"Anything, madam, but send her home," whispered Bush.
The girl leaned from the car and called out: "I have locked the house
and am going away for the day, Mrs. Bulger. Please come tomorrow, as
usual."
The woman thanked her, turned and went away again down the brick walk.
They watched her out of sight.
"Now!" said Guild to the chauffeur, "drive to the Holland steamship
wharf at----"
"I know, sir," smiled the blond chauffeur.
Which reply troubled the young man exceedingly, for it was evident to
him now that, if not herself a spy, this young girl in his charge was
watched, surrounded and protected by German agents of a sinister
sort--agents known to her father, in evident communication with him, and
thoroughly informed of the fact that he wanted his daughter to leave
England at once and under the particular escort of Guild.
Nor had Guild the slightest doubt that the two men who had followed and
handcuffed him were British Government agents, and that if this young
girl's maid had really been arrested for espionage, and if the Edmeston
people, too, were suspected, then suspicion had been also directed
toward Miss Girard and naturally also to him, who was her visitor.
Guild's troubled gaze rested once more upon the young girl beside him.
At the same moment, as though he had spoken to her she turned and looked
at him out of eyes so honest, so fearless that he had responded aloud
before he realized it: "It's all right. I know _you_ are not deceiving
me."
"No," she said, "I am not. But could you tell me what all this
means--all this that has happened so swiftly, so terribly----"
"I have a pretty clear idea what it means.... It's just as well that
those detectives did not arrest me.... Tell me, did you ever before see
this chauffeur, Bush?"
"Never, Mr. Guild."
He nodded; he was slowly coming to a definite conclusion concerning the
episode but he kept his own counsel. She said in a low, embarrassed
voice: "You think me cowardly. I know it. But I really didn't know what
to do."
She was very much in earnest, very intent on his expression, and he did
not dare smile.
"What _could_ you have done, Miss Girard?" he asked, pleasantly.
"I don't know. I--I felt as though we--you and I--were allies--and that
I ought to help you. But it all passed too quickly----"
"There was nothing you could have done for me," he smiled.
She said reflectively: "I myself don't quite see how I could have helped
matters. But I didn't wish you to believe me afraid to help you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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