The envious years had refused to Major-General Punnit, C.B.—he was a distant cousin of Mrs. Naylor's—the privilege of serving his country in the Great War. His career had lain mainly in India and was mostly behind him even at the date of the South African War, in which, however, he had done valuable work in one of the supply services. He was short, stout, honest, brave, shrewd, obstinate, and as full of prejudices, religious, political, and personal, as an egg is of meat. And all this time he had been slowly and painfully recalling what his young friend Colonel Merman (the Colonel was young only relatively to the General) had told him about Hector Beaumaroy. The name had struck on his memory the moment the Rector pronounced it, but it had taken him a long while to "place it" accurately. However, now he had it pat; the conversation in the club came back. He retailed it now to the company at Old Place.

A pleasant fellow, Beaumaroy, socially a very agreeable fellow. And as for courage, as brave as you like. Indeed he might have had letters after his name save for the fact that he—the Colonel—would never recommend a man unless his discipline was as good as his leading, and his conduct at the base as praiseworthy as at the front. (Alec Naylor nodded his handsome head in grave approval; his father looked a little discontented, as though he were swallowing unpalatable, though wholesome, food.) His whole idea—Beaumaroy's, that is—was to shield offenders, to prevent the punishment fitting the crime, even to console and countenance the wrongdoer. No sense of discipline, no moral sense—the Colonel had gone as far as that. Impossible to promote or to recommend for reward—almost impossible to keep. Of course, if he had been caught young and put through the mill, it might have been different—"it might"—the Colonel heavily underlined the possibility—but he came from Heaven knew where, after a life spent Heaven knew how. "And he seemed to know it himself," the Colonel had said, thoughtfully rolling his port round in the glass. "Whenever I wigged him, he offered to go—said he'd chuck his commission and enlist—said he'd be happier in the ranks. But I was weak, I couldn't bear to do it." After thus quoting his friend, the General added: "He was weak—damned weak—and I told him so."

"Of course he ought to have got rid of him," said Alec. "Still, sir, there's nothing—er—disgraceful."

"It seems hardly to have come to that," the General admitted reluctantly.

"It all rather makes me like him," Gertie affirmed courageously.

"I think that, on the whole, we may venture to know him in times of peace," Mr. Naylor summed up.

"That's your look out," remarked the General. "I've warned you. You can do as you like."

Delia Wall had sat silent through the story. Now she spoke up and got back to the real point:

"There's nothing in all that to show how he comes to be at Mr. Saffron's."

The General shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, Saffron be hanged! He's not the British Army," he said.

CHAPTER III

MR. SAFFRON AT HOME

To put it plainly, Sergeant Hooper—he had been a sergeant for a brief and precarious three weeks, but he used the title in civil life whenever he safely could—and he could at Inkston—Sergeant Hooper was a villainous-looking dog. Beaumaroy, fresh from the comely presences of Old Place, unconscious of how the General had ripped up his character and record, pleasantly nursing a little project concerning Dr. Mary Arkroyd, had never been more forcibly struck with his protégé's ill-favouredness than when he arrived home on this same evening, and the Sergeant met him at the door.

"By Gad, Sergeant," he observed pleasantly, "I don't think anybody could be such a rascal as you look. It's that faith that carries me through."

The Sergeant helped him off with his coat. "It's some people's stock-in-trade," he remarked, "not to look a rascal like they really are, sir." The "sir" stuck—out of pure habit; it carried no real implication of respect.

"Meaning me!" laughed Beaumaroy. "How is the old man to-night?"

"Quiet enough. He's in the Tower there—been there an hour or more."

The cottage door opened on to a narrow passage, with a staircase on one side, and on the other a door leading to a small square parlour, cheerfully if cheaply furnished, and well lit by an oil lamp. A fire blazed on the hearth, and Beaumaroy sank into a "saddle-bag" arm-chair beside it, with a sigh of comfort. The Sergeant had jerked his head towards another door, on the right of the fireplace; it led to the Tower. Beaumaroy's eyes settled on it.

"An hour or more, has he? Have you heard anything?"

"He was making a speech a little while back, that's all."

"No more complaints of palpitations, or anything of that sort?"

"Not as I've heard. But he never says much to me. Mrs. Wiles gets the benefit of his symptoms mostly."

"You're not sympathetic, perhaps."

During the talk Hooper had been to a cupboard and mixed a glass of whisky and soda. He brought it to Beaumaroy and put it on a small table by him. Beaumaroy regarded his squat paunchy figure, red face, small eyes (a squint in one of them), and bulbous nose with a patient and benign toleration.

"Since you can't expect, Sergeant, to prepossess the Judge and Jury in your favour, the instant you make your appearance in the box——"

"Here, what are you on to, sir?"

"It's the more important for you to have it clearly in your mind that we are labouring in the cause of humanity, freedom, and justice. Exactly like the Allies in the late war, you know, Sergeant. Keep that in your mind—clinch it! He hasn't wanted you to do anything particular to-night—or asked for me?"

"No, sir. He's happy with—with what you call his playthings."

"What are they but playthings?" asked Beaumaroy, tilting his glass to his lips with a smile perhaps a little wry.

"Only I wish as you wouldn't talk about judges and juries," the Sergeant complained.

"I really don't know whether it's a civil or a criminal matter, or both, or neither," Beaumaroy admitted candidly. "But what we do know, Sergeant, is that it provides us with excellent billets and rations. Moreover—a thing that you certainly will not appreciate—it gratifies my taste for the mysterious."

"I hope there's a bit more coming from it than that," said the Sergeant. "That is, if we stick together faithful, sir."

"Oh, we shall! One thing puzzles me about you, Sergeant. I don't think I've mentioned it before. Sometimes you speak almost like an educated man; at others your speech is—well, illiterate."

"Well, sir, it's a sort of mixture of my mother—she was class—the blighter who come after my father, and the board school——"

"Of course! What they call the educational ladder! That explains it. By the way, I'm thinking of changing our doctor."

"Good job too. I 'ate that Irechester. Stares at you, that chap does."

"Does he stare at your eyes?" asked Beaumaroy thoughtfully.

"I don't know that he does at my eyes particularly. Nothing wrong with 'em, is there?" The Sergeant sounded rather truculent.

"Never mind that; but I fancied he stared at Mr. Saffron's. And I've read somewhere, in some book or other, that doctors can tell, or guess, by the eyes——Well, that's only an idea. How does a lady doctor appeal to you, Sergeant?"

"I should be shy," said the Sergeant, grinning.

"Vulgar! Vulgar!" Beaumaroy murmured.

"That Dr. Mary Arkroyd?"

"I had thought of her."

"She ought to be fair easy to kid. You 'ave notions sometimes, sir."

Beaumaroy stretched out his legs—debonnair, well-rounded legs—to the seducing blaze of oak logs.

"I haven't really a care in the world," he said.

The Sergeant's reply—or comment—had a disconcerting ring. "And you're sure of 'eaven? That's what