CHAPTER I SIR JOHN DENE RECEIVES HIS ORDERS

I

"John!"

"Yeh!"

"Don't say 'yeh,' say 'yes,' Dorothy dear."

"Yes, Dorothy de – "

Sir John Dene was interrupted in his apology by a napkin-ringwhizzing past his left ear.

"What's wrong?" he enquired, laying aside his paper and picking upthe napkin-ring.

"I'm trying to attract your attention," replied Lady Dene, slippingfrom her place at the breakfast-table and perching herself upon thearm of her husband's chair. She ran her fingers lightly through hishair. "Are you listening?"

"Sure!"

"Well, what are you going to do for Mr. Sage?"

In his surprise at the question, Sir John Dene jerked up his head tolook at her, and Dorothy's forefinger managed to find the corner ofhis eye.

He blinked vigorously, whilst she, crooning apologies into his ear, dabbed his eye with her handkerchief.

"Now," she said, when the damage had been repaired, "I'll go and sitdown like a proper, respectable wife of a D.S.O.," and she returnedto her seat. "Well?" she demanded, as he did not speak. "Yes, dear."

"What are you going to do for Mr. Sage, now that Department Z isbeing demobbed? You know you like him, because you didn't want toginger him up, and you mustn't forget that he saved your life," sheadded.

"Sure!"

"Don't say 'sure,' John," she cried. "You're a British baronet, andBritish baronets don't say 'sure,' 'shucks' or vamoose.' Do youunderstand?"

He nodded thoughtfully;

"I like Mr. Sage," announced Dorothy. Then a moment later she added,"He always reminds me of the superintendent of a Sunday-school, withhis conical bald head and gold spectacles. He's not a bit like adetective, is he?"

"Sure!"

"If you say it again, John, I shall scream," she cried.

For some seconds there was silence, broken at length by Dorothy.

"I like his wonderful hands, too," she continued. "I'm sure he'sproud of them, because he can never keep them still. If you say'sure,' I'll divorce you," she added hastily.

He smiled, that sudden, sunny smile she had learned to look for andlove.

"Then again I like him because he's always courteous and kind. AtDepartment Z they'd have had their appendixes out if Mr. Sage wantedthem. Now have you made up your mind?"

"Made it up to what?" he asked, lighting a cigar.

"That you're going to set him up as a private detective," she saidcoolly. "I don't want him to come here and not find everythingplanned out."

"He won't do that," said Sir John Dene with conviction. "He's nolap-dog."

"I wrote and asked him to call at ten to-day," she said coolly.

"Snakes, you did!" he cried, sitting up in his chair.

"Alligators, I did!" she mocked.

"You're sure some wife;" he looked at her admiringly.

"I sure am," she laughed lightly, "but I'm only just beginning, Johndear. By the way, I asked Sir James Walton to come too," she addedcasually.

"You – " he began, when the door opened and a little, silver-hairedlady entered. Sir John Dene jumped to his feet.

"Behold the mother of the bride," cried Dorothy gaily.

"Good morning, John," said Mrs. West as he bent and kissed her cheek.

She always breakfasted in her room; she abounded in tact.

"Now we'll get away from the eggs and bacon," cried Dorothy. "In thelanguage of the woolly West, we'll vamoose," and she led the way outof the dining-room along the corridor to Sir John Dene's den.

"Come along, mother-mine," she cried over her shoulder. "We've got alot to discuss before ten o'clock."

Sir John Dene's "den" was a room of untidiness and comfort. AsDorothy said, he was responsible for the untidiness and she thecomfort.

"Heigh-ho!" she sighed, as she sank down into a comfortable chair."I wonder what Whitehall would have done without Mr. Sage;" shesmiled reminiscently. "He was the source of half its gossip."

"He was very kind to you, Dorothy, when John was – was lost," saidMrs. West gently, referring to the time when Sir John Dene haddisappeared and a reward of 20,000 pounds had been offered for newsof him.

"Sure!" Sir John Dene acquiesced. "He's a white man, clean to thebone."

"It was very wonderful that an accountant should become such aclever detective," said Mrs. West. "It shows – " she paused.

"You see, he wasn't a success as an accountant," said Dorothy. "Hewas always finding out little wangles that he wasn't supposed to see.So when they wouldn't have him in the army, he went to the Ministryof Supply and found out a great, big wangle, and Mr. Llewellyn Johnwas very pleased. You get me, Honest John?" she demanded, turning toher husband.

Sir John Dene nodded and blew clouds of cigar smoke from his lips.He liked nothing better than to sit listening to his wife'sreminiscences of Whitehall, despite the fact that he had heard mostof them before.

"Poor Mr. Sage," continued Dorothy, "nobody liked him, and he's gotsuch lovely down on his head, just like a baby," she added, with afar-away look in her eyes.

"Perhaps no one understood him," suggested Mrs. West, withinstinctive charity for the Ishmaels of the world.

"Isn't that like her," cried Dorothy, "but this time she's right,"she smiled across at her mother. "When a few thousand tons of copperwent astray, or someone ordered millions of shells the wrong size,Mr. Sage got the wind up, and tried to find out all about it, and inWhitehall such things weren't done."

"They tried to put it up on me," grumbled Sir John Dene, twirlinghis cigar with his lips, "but I soon stopped their funny work."

"Everybody was too busy winning the war to bother about trifles,"Dorothy continued. "The poor dears who looked after such thingsfound life quite difficult enough, with only two hours for lunch andpretty secretaries to be – "

"Dorothy!" cried Mrs. West reproachfully.

"Well, it's true, mother," she protested.

It was true, as Malcolm Sage had discovered. "Let us concentrate onwhat we know we have got," one of his chiefs had once gravely saidto him. "Something is sure to be swallowed up in the fog of war," hehad added. Pleased with the phrase, which he conceived to beoriginal, he had used it as some men do a titled relative, with theresult that Whitehall had clutched at it gratefully.

"The fog of war," General Conyers Bardulph had muttered when, forthe life of him, he could not find a division that was due upon theWestern Front and which it was his duty to see was sent out.

"The fog of war," murmured spiteful Anita McGowan, when the prettylittle widow, Mrs. Sleyton, was being interrogated as to thewhereabouts of her husband.

"The fog of war," laughed the girls in Department J.P.Q., when athalf-past four one afternoon neither its chief nor his dark-eyedsecretary had returned from lunch.

"But when he went to Department Z he was wonderful," said Mrs. West, still clinging tenderly to her Ishmael.

"He was," said Sir John Dene. "He was the plumb best man at his job

I ever came across."

"Yes, John dear, that's all very well," said Dorothy, her eyesdancing, "but suppose you had been the War Cabinet and you had sentfor Mr. Sage;" she paused.

"Well?" he demanded.

"And he had come in a cap and a red tie," she proceeded, "and hadresigned within five minutes, saying that you were talking of thingsyou didn't know anything about." She laughed at the recollection.

"He was right," said Sir John Dene with conviction. "I've comeacross some fools; but – "

"There, there, dear," said Dorothy, "remember there are ladiespresent. In Whitehall we all loved Mr. Sage because he snubbedMinisters, and we hadn't the pluck to do it ourselves," she added.

Sir John Dene snorted. His mind travelled back to the time when hehad been "up against the whole sunflower-patch," as he had onceexpressed it.

"But why did they keep him if they didn't like him?" enquired Mrs.

West.

"When you don't like anyone in Whitehall," Dorothy continued, "youdon't give him the push, mother dear, you just transfer him toanother department."

"Like circulating bad money," grumbled Sir John Dene.

"It sure was, John," she agreed. "Poor Mr. Sage soon became the mosttransferred man in Whitehall. They used to say, 'Uneasy lies thehead that has a Sage.'" She laughed at the recollection.

"But wasn't it rather unkind?" said Mrs. West gently.

"It was, mother-mine; but Whitehall was a funny place. One of Mr.Sage's chiefs went about for months trying to get rid of him. Heoffered to give a motor-cycle to anyone who would take him, it was aGovernment cycle," she added; "but there was nothing doing. Wecalled him Henry the Second and Mr. Sage Becket, the archbishop notthe boxer," she explained. "You know," she added, "there was oncean English king who wanted to get rid of – "

"We'll have it the sort of concern that insurance companies can lookto," Sir John Dene broke in.

"What on earth are you talking about, John?" cried Dorothy.

Whilst his wife talked Sir John Dene had been busy planning MalcolmSage's future, and he had uttered his thoughts aloud. He proceededto explain. When he had finished, Dorothy clapped her hands.

"Hurrah! for Malcolm Sage, Detective," she cried and, jumping up, she perched herself upon the arm of her husband's chair, and rumpledthe fair hair, which with her was always a sign of approval. "That'shis ring, or Sir James's," she added as the bell sounded.

"Now we'll leave you lords of creation to carry out my idea," shesaid as she followed Mrs. West to the door.

And Sir John Dene smiled.

II

"In the States they've got Pinkerton's," said Sir John Dene, twirling with astonishing rapidity an unlit cigar between his lips."If you've lost anything, from a stick-pin to a mountain, you justblow in there, tell them all about it, and go away and don't worry.Here you've got nothing."

"We have Scotland Yard," remarked Malcolm Sage quietly, withoutlooking up from the contemplation of his hands, which, with fingerswide apart, rested upon the table before him.

His bald, conical head seemed to contradict the determined set ofhis jaw and the steel-coloured eyes that gazed keenly through largegold-rimmed spectacles. Even his ears, that stood squarely out fromhis head, appeared to emphasise by their aggressiveness that theyhad nothing to do with the benevolent shape of the head above.

"Yes, and you've got Cleopatra's Needle, and the pelicans in St.James's Park," Sir John Dene retorted scornfully. He had neverforgotten the occasion when, at a critical moment in the country'shistory, the First Lord of the Admiralty had casually enquired if hehad seen the pelicans.

For the last half-hour Sir John Dene, with characteristicimpulsiveness, had been engaged in brushing aside all Malcolm Sage's"cons" with his almighty "Pro."

"We'll have a Pinkerton's in England," he resumed, as neither of hislisteners took up his challenge, "and we'll call it Sage's."

"I shall in all probability receive quite a number of orders forshop-fronts," murmured Malcolm Sage, with a slight fluttering at thecorners of his mouth, which those who knew him understood how tointerpret.

"Shop-fronts!" repeated Sir John Dene, looking from one to the other,

"I don't get you."

"There is already a well-known firm of shop-furnishers called'Sage's,'" explained Sir James, who throughout the battle had beenan amused listener.

"Well, we'll call it the Malcolm Sage Detective Bureau," replied SirJohn Dene, "and we'll have it a concern that insurance companies canlook to." He proceeded to light his cigar, with him always a signthat something of importance had been settled.

Sir John Dene liked getting his own way. That morning he hadresolutely brushed aside every objection, ethical or material, thathad been advanced. To Malcolm Sage he considered that he owed alot,¹ and with all the aggressiveness of his nature, he overwhelmedand engulfed objection and protest alike. To this was added the factthat the idea was his wife's, and in his own phraseology, "thatgoes."

Passive and attentive, his long shapely hands seldom still, MalcolmSage had listened. From time to time he ventured some objection, only to have it brushed aside by Sir John Dene's overwhelmingdetermination.

For some minutes Malcolm Sage had been stroking the back of his headwith the palm of his right hand, a habit of his when thoughtful.Suddenly he raised his eyes and looked across at his would-bebenefactor.

"Why should you want to do this for me, Sir John?" he asked.

"If you're going to put up a barrage of whys," was the irascibleretort, "you'll never cut any ice."

"I fully appreciate the subtlety of the metaphor," said Malcolm Sage, the corners of his mouth twitching; "but still why?"

"Well, for one thing I owe you something," barked Sir John Dene,"and remembering's my long suit. For another, Lady Dene – "

"That is what I wanted to know," said Malcolm Sage, as he drew hisbriar from his pocket and proceeded to fill it. "Will you thank LadyDene and tell her that I am proud to be under an obligation to her – and to you, Sir John," he added.

"Say, that's fine," cried Sir John Dene, jumping to his feet andextending his hand, which Malcolm Sage took, an odd, quizzicalexpression in his eyes. "This Detective Bureau notion is a whale."

"The zoological allusion, I'm afraid, is beyond me," said MalcolmSage as he struck a match, "but no doubt you are right," and helooked across at Sir James Walton, whose eyes smiled his approval.

"It's all fixed up," cried Sir John Dene to his wife as she came outinto the hall as the visitors were departing.

"I'm so glad," she cried, giving her hand to Malcolm Sage. "You'llbe such a success, Mr. Sage," and she smiled confidently up into hiseyes.