Get Wallace! by Alexander Wilson Read Free Book Online

the scenery. Despite the fact that it was shorn of the beauty which delights in spreading its cloak over the county of Hampshire during other seasons of the year, the countryside was still attractive. Mighty trees, most of them leafless, proudly raised their heads as though calling witness to their hardiness; others still retained a certain amount of foliage coloured with the warm tints of late autumn, a few evergreens combined with the rolling meadows to add that verdant touch which is so typical of the English country. Here and there they passed old-fashioned thatched cottages, nestling among the trees, made more fascinating and attractive bycontrast with the ugly, modern buildings which, erected on the virgin breast of nature, almost suggested sacrilege. They had passed through Basingstoke before Sir Leonard spoke again.
    ‘The impersonation must have been amazingly good to have taken in Cousins,’ he observed, ‘especially after he had discovered how the copies of the plans had been obtained.’
    ‘What impersonation?’ queried Brien in tones of surprise.
    ‘I have been wondering why Cousins suddenly changed his plans at Sittingbourne and, instead of catching the connection for Sheerness, walked out of the station, and entered a car which was waiting there. You made certain, I suppose, that he had a ticket for Sheerness?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then he must either have met somebody in the train, or on the platform at Sittingbourne, who influenced him to alter his arrangements.’
    ‘According to the collector, who seems to have been an observant sort of fellow, he actually went towards the local; then changed his mind, eventually handing over his ticket, and leaving the station. As far as we have been able to ascertain, he spoke to nobody on the platform at all.’
    ‘Yet to judge from the taxi driver’s story he entered a car of his own free will and apparently without hesitation. That shows that he knew it was there, and waiting for him. Of course he may have arranged for it to be there. In that case why did he take a ticket for Sheerness? It’s a bit of a puzzle, Billy.’
    ‘Bit of a puzzle! It seems a crazy enigma to me. Do you think that the man who impersonated the Air-Marshal and Warrington also impersonated someone Cousins knew, and deceived him so effectively that he accepted a lift?’
    ‘It looks like it.’
    ‘But how on earth could he have known that Cousins was going to Sheerness, where did he meet him, and how did he know him?’
    ‘Those are questions I am unable to answer at present.’
    ‘Another thing you must remember,’ went on Brien, ‘is the fact that Cousins was wearing a naval uniform which would render him inconspicuous in a train crowded with naval ratings, and in a place where sailors are as frequently seen as civilians.’
    ‘That’s true. But it is possible that Cousins made himself known to the man who kidnapped him.’
    ‘What!’ The car swerved violently, as Brien forgot the wheel in his surprise. ‘Why on earth should he do that?’
    ‘Because he recognised, or thought he recognised, a friend who would be of use to him in his investigations. The only man he would be likely to accost when engaged on a job of that sort would be one of us. Therefore, I am playing with the notion that one of us was impersonated. Cousins fell into the trap, and was kidnapped.’
    ‘But, man alive,’ protested Brien, ‘you are bestowing almost supernatural, or rather I should say satanic, powers on these people. We don’t move about under a halo of publicity with pictures in the papers, and all that sort of thing. How on earth can outsiders know us or anything about us?’
    ‘We’re up against a pretty big thing if I’m any judge,’ observed Wallace. ‘Men who have among their number fellows who can impersonate people like the Air-Marshal and the War Office Chief of Staff, walk boldly into their offices, and make copies of plans supposedly secreted in burglar-proof safes, are not