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Updated: June 2, 2025
'The episode is closed. I am a man of peace, and I take it that you would not keep on lying quietly on that bed while I went into the other room and abstracted our young friend? Unless you have changed your mind again, would a fifty-fifty offer tempt you? 'Not an inch. 'Just so. I merely asked. 'And how about Mr Abney, in any case? Suppose we met him on the stairs?
The General, standing alone in his open carriage all along the long, sad way, must have felt that he had the people's sympathy and love with him in his grief, for scores of heartfelt 'God bless you's! came from lips that are unused to such words. And at last the yellow evening sun shone out as the great procession reached the gates of Abney Park Cemetery and wound towards the open grave.
Mr Abney belonged to the latter class. Indeed, I doubt if a finer representative of the class could have been found in the length and breadth of southern England. London drew him like a magnet. After breakfast he would take me aside. The formula was always the same. 'Ah Mr Burns. 'Yes? Er yes? 'I am afraid I shall be obliged to run up to London today.
I wondered what was the matter, and then it came to me. We were about to become sordid. The discussion of terms was upon us. And as I realized this, I saw simultaneously how I could throw one more sop to my exigent conscience. After all, the whole thing was really a question of hard cash. By kidnapping Ogden I should be taking money from Mr Abney.
The next day, the funeral march was restricted to Officers of whom 3,000 were present; but the crowds which looked on as it passed right through from our Headquarters in the City to the Abney Park Cemetery were beyond all computation.
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.
'I'm sorry to disturb you, I began, when Buck, ever the man of action, with a scorn of palaver, strode past me, and, having prodded with the pistol that part of the bedclothes beneath which a rough calculation suggested that Mr Abney's lower ribs were concealed, uttered the one word, 'Sa-a-ay! Mr Abney sat up like a Jack-in-the-box. One might almost say that he shot up. And then he saw Buck.
He came to kidnap him. Mr Abney, as he had every excuse for doing, grunted with amazement. I achieved the ringing laugh of amused innocence. It was beyond me to fathom Sam's mind. He could not suppose that any credence would be given to his wild assertion. It seemed to me that disappointment had caused him momentarily to lose his head. 'Are you mad, White? 'No, sir. I can prove what I say.
And together we composed the letter which led to my sitting, two days later, in stately conference at his club with Mr Arnold Abney, M.A., of Sanstead House, Hampshire. Mr Abney proved to be a long, suave, benevolent man with an Oxford manner, a high forehead, thin white hands, a cooing intonation, and a general air of hushed importance, as of one in constant communication with the Great.
I do not, as I say, suppose that Buck, whose forte was action rather than brain-work, had thought all this out. He had trusted to luck, and luck had stood by him. There would be no raising of the countryside in his case. On the contrary, I could see Mr Abney becoming one of the busiest persons on record in his endeavour to hush the thing up and prevent it getting into the papers.
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