Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
Ha, ha! Good-bye, my lad, good-bye to you!" Jock's hoot of laughter was answered by Mr. Hobhouse's giggle, and they set off down to the farm, the antiquary in front limping rather more markedly than usual, and the idiot rambling behind. The visit to the Scollays was a distinct success, so far as establishing the personality of Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse went.
"Then she has sent me this wire and this message?" "She must have," I agreed. "In that case we had better push on for the Scollays at once and see what she means." "You don't think it's a trap?" asked my uncle. Jack Whiteclett smiled slightly. The idea of the Navy pausing to weigh the risk appeared to amuse him. "We must take our chance," he said briefly. "We've both got our shooting irons."
The detectives of fiction might have found some clue to start a train of logical and inevitable reasoning that led straight to the criminal, but the detective of fact had utterly failed, and the brilliant young amateur of fact was likewise completely at sea. What good for instance had my visit to the Scollays done? I asked myself. If they were innocent I had wasted my time.
The Scollays were all seated round the kitchen table when our uncle's figure suddenly towered out of the gloom, his pistol covering Peter senior's head, and his voice thundering: "Hands up!" At the first command they simply gasped. "Hands up or I fire!" thundered Sir Francis again, and up went every pair of hands, and what is more they stayed up.
It seemed that two years before, the Scollays had been visited by a polite stranger apparently of the tourist species. This gentleman, after admiring the healthy yet retired situation of their residence, had suddenly been seized with an inspiration.
"Jack and I both have expectations so we've got to give him his head!" I must say Sir Francis stage-managed our entrance into the Scollays' house very effectively. As he quietly opened the door, he got us all close behind him, exactly like a band of robbers, so that we trod on one another's heels down a yard or two of narrow passage.
Such an amateur way of keeping watch and ward in such a vital area seemed hardly credible, but I learned afterwards that in those early days of the war that was one of the things which actually happened. Another fact also made me doubtful. On the night I landed I had met no watchers. "Who watches the shore up at the north end near the Scollays' farm?" I asked. "Oh, Dr. Rendall and Mr.
"But still who did you see or speak to apart from us and Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien?" "The Scollays," I said, "and several farmers I happened to meet; but always with a most suspicious accent. Oh, and there was one incident I forgot to mention. On the Sunday afternoon I was doing a little fancy shooting with my revolver down on the beach when Jock turned up. You know Jock the idiot?"
It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to read. This man's features differed vitally from the Scollays' and, especially, there was no cast in his eyes.
"Where did you find them?" demanded my uncle and cousin simultaneously, and I could tell from their voices that all doubts had vanished, and that, like me, they were burning now only with the excitement of the chase. "At the Scollays'!" she said, still panting. "But there's no time to lose you'll see everything if we only hurry he may be back if we don't!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking