CHAPTER XXIV.

PETER PAN

A delicious haze hung over the Serpentine, by which token I knew that a warm day might be expected. Votaries of Peter Pan were few, for the morning was young as yet, but I sat watching him in his green temple and I thought how puzzled some archæologist of the future was going to be.

Strange to reflect that a Scotsman should add to the ranks of the gods; stranger still that his immortal child should find himself so completely at home upon Olympus. More and more strange the reflection that none of the older gods were jealous.

Children of course came to pay tribute, and I think it was this morning I learned for the first time that there are many juvenile citizens whose day is incomplete unless they have made offering--a laugh, a pointed finger, a fleeting glance--to the god of that dear world which is hidden from most of us behind the gates of innocence. To many an exile under palm and pine, the coming of spring means dreams of crocuses and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

I was suffering from a fit of physical and mental restlessness. I could not clear my mind of the idea that some imminent peril threatened O’Shea. That Nanette was involved, I feared, but tried hard not to believe. Experience of that Red organization known as the S Group had shown its members to be frankly unscrupulous; and Nanette had blindly involved herself with one of them. I knew why she had done it, but the man, Adolf Zara, could not know. For Nanette, Zara had ceased to exist. I doubted that the reverse was true.

The peace of the morning and the beauty of the lake mocked me. In the long encounter between O’Shea and the S Group, honours had gone to the enemy. But the battle was not yet over. Instinct and common sense alike told me that the worst was yet to come.

My ceaseless meditations along these lines had earned me a sleepless night, and I think I had sought out this spot beside the Serpentine with some vague idea of finding peace.

Now, coming out of a brown study and looking up, I observed a figure approaching along the path. It was that of a girl very simply dressed in a gray walking suit, and wearing a tight-fitting hat, which I should have described as claret-coloured but for which the fashion journals no doubt have a better name. Her fingers listlessly interlocked, she came slowly along, looking down at the path and sometimes kicking a pebble aside. Never once did she look up, not even when she arrived before Peter Pan, until:

“Good-morning, Nanette!” said I.

Then she stopped as suddenly as though a physical obstacle had checked her.

“Good heavens!” she replied, tore herself from a land of dreams and stared at me, smiling. But her smile was not exactly a happy one. “It’s like a musical comedy, isn’t it?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, everybody turning up at the same place for no reason!”

“Not everybody,” said I.

“Well--no.” Nanette hesitated, and then sat down beside me on the bench. “Not everybody.”

“Curiously enough,” I went on, “I was thinking about you.”

Nanette stared at the point of her shoe.

“Must be telepathy,” she murmured.

“Why? Were you thinking about me?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I shall never forgive myself for what I have done.”

“You mean--about Adolf Zara?”

“About Captain Slattery, yes.” She turned to me. “You see, I always think of him as ‘Slattery.’”

“Does that make you like him any better, Nanette?”

“No,” she admitted; “I have never liked him. But, well--you know how I felt about him? Does Major O’Shea know that I know?”

“You mean,” I suggested, “does he know that you no longer suspect him of using you as a lure?”

Nanette nodded without looking up.

“I have had no opportunity of telling him,” said I. “But I expect to see him to-day.” I rested my hand upon hers, which lay listlessly on the seat beside her. “May I talk to you quite honestly?”

“Of course,” said Nanette, but still did not look up.

“I want to tell you,” I went on, “that the man you call Captain Slattery, but whose real name is Adolf Zara, is not as civilized as he appears to be. He is a member of a very dangerous organization. I hope you will make a point of avoiding him.”

“I am never going to see him again,” Nanette declared.

She spoke abstractedly, and it dawned upon me that her interest was centred less upon this matter of her perilous acquaintance with a member of the S Group than upon the passers-by. I attached little significance to the fact at the time, and:

“I am only anxious about your personal safety,” I said. “Anything you care to tell me, I shall keep to myself. Are you sure that Captain Slattery does not mean to see _you_ again?”

Nanette looked aside at me.

I thought that, since Adolf Zara was human, my question had been rather superfluous. O’Shea, who was no alarmist, had admitted that the secret organization of these people was extensive and efficient. Wild ideas assailed my mind, but:

“Of course, we are no longer in the lonely island of Madeira,” I went on, “but in the capital of a civilized country. All the same, Nanette, I should be glad to know that Zara was no longer in England.”

“So should I,” she admitted, and looked away again.

The words were simple enough, but, from what I knew of Nanette, I detected an unfamiliar note in her voice. I was not sorry to hear it, although it was a note of fear. It told me that my warning had been unnecessary. Nanette knew that Zara was a dangerous man.

“I have been wondering what I should do,” she began suddenly. “But now I have made up my mind.”

She opened her handbag and took out a twisted scrap of paper. Smoothing it carefully, she passed it to me, and:

“Captain Slattery dropped this yesterday,” she said, “while he was with me in a taxi. I think, perhaps----”

She hesitated.

“Yes?” said I, glancing at what was written on the paper.

“It’s so odd that I think, perhaps, you should show it to--your friend.”

Watching her as she spoke, I wondered at the scheme of things; wondered whether she would outlive a romance born in a jewelled island, or whether, despite her youth, it was real, for good or ill, this love of hers for O’Shea.

I suppressed a sigh, and bent over the writing. This was what I read:

Book from Charing Cross to the British Museum. From the Mansion House also it is no distance to the British Museum. Hyde Park there is a station. Change at Charing Cross for Piccadilly. Bond Street is merely Bond Street, and two London Bridges are better than one Bond Street. But the Mansion House and the British Museum are national institutions, and Berkeley Square pulled down or Berkeley Square blown up would only lead to the Old Bailey. Residents at the Crystal Palace rarely moved to Berkeley Square, and the Tower Bridge is new whilst London Bridge is old. Meet you in Bond Street.

I raised my eyes. Nanette was stifling laughter. Now she stifled it no longer. And Nanette’s laughter was very sweet music.

“Of course,” she confessed, “I know it _seems_ perfectly idiotic! But one never knows. It may mean a general strike or something. But whatever it means, I shall have to be pushing along. I am meeting Mumsy at Marshall’s.”

She stood up, looking sharply to right and left, and I wondered what this might portend. However, we took the path to the Gate, walking very slowly, and from there proceeded in a taxi.

I dropped Nanette at her destination and was standing outside the shop wondering whether to walk over to the Club or to hunt up O’Shea, when an explanation of this chance meeting presented itself.

O’Shea, I recalled, had once said, in Nanette’s presence, that when he had a difficult problem upon his mind, he varied the ordinary routine of a London morning. Other duties permitting, he walked as far as Peter Pan, and in the presence of the little god not infrequently discovered a solution of his difficulties.

Nanette had been unfortunate. This morning O’Shea had not come.

I reëntered the taxi which I had kept waiting, and:

“Lancaster Gate,” I directed.

Why I did so I have no idea; but experience has taught me that the motives which prompt many far-reaching actions are so obscure as to defy subsequent research.

Discharging the man, I set out along that path beside the Serpentine. The hour was now approaching noon, and platoons of white-capped nursemaids promenaded with the younger generation. I found myself surrounded by future society beauties; statesmen who would be making laws when I was an old man; great soldiers destined to save the British Empire from enemies yet unborn; actresses whose reputations might overshadow the memory of Sarah Bernhardt; princesses, dukes, vagabonds, thieves; some in perambulators, others in miniature automobiles, some toddling; a fascinating crowd.

Then I awakened from my day dream. Standing squarely in front of Peter Pan, and watching that youthful deity with a fixed stare, was O’Shea! He remained unaware of my presence until I touched him on the shoulder.

He turned swiftly. And I saw a far-away look in his gray eyes instantly change to one of close scrutiny; then:

“Decies,” he said, “I am glad to see you. I learned something last night.”

“What?” I said.

“I learned why Adolf Zara has come to England! The president of the S Group--a person with the mentality of a Tomsky and the morals of a baboon--is one Schmidt.”

“Well?” said I.

“Schmidt is in London!”