Get Wallace! by Alexander Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

ordinary. They must have a pretty complete organisation behind them. Meddling with affairs which they must know are bound to bring the Secret Service on their track, it is pretty certain that they first found outa good deal about the Secret Service, and set a watch. Apart from that, have you forgotten how the triumph of Miles, Cousins, and Shannon in India, which ended incidentally with a popular double wedding, brought the three into an almost worldwide glow of publicity? Isn’t that the reason why we generally give Cousins and Shannon jobs where it doesn’t matter whether they are recognised or not?’
    Brien nodded.
    ‘I forgot that for the moment,’ he confessed. ‘I remember your remark at the time that their usefulness as Secret Service agents was badly impaired.’
    ‘Of course that was three years ago, but people of the type we are generally up against always remember anything that is likely to turn out useful later. Cousins is probably a marked man, and – by Jove!’
    The sudden exclamation with which he interrupted himself, caused Brien to glance at him sharply. In consequence the car swerved again, bringing a duet of protest from within. Billy glanced round with a grin.
    ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘Leonard becomes so dashed interesting at times that I forget I’m driving.’
    ‘Shall I do it for you?’ enquired Phyllis sweetly; ‘then you two can come inside and gossip to your hearts’ content.’
    ‘No, thanks, dear. I’ll be careful in future.’
    ‘Mind you are,’ begged Molly; ‘we’ll soon be getting among the traffic, and I’ve no ambition to return from America only to be killed or maimed for life in a car smash.’
    ‘Why did you give that sudden exclamation?’ demanded Billy of his companion in aggrieved tones.
    ‘The significance of my own remark struck me rather forcibly, that’s all. I was saying that Cousins is probably a marked man,was going to add that it is very likely Shannon is too.’ He waited as though expecting Brien to make some comment. When the other remained silent, he went on: ‘Apparently the same idea does not occur to you. Taking into consideration the fact that Cousins and Shannon are publicly the two best known men in the Secret Service, isn’t it probable that they have been watched and studied? Then, as soon as this organisation or gang, or whatever you wish to call it, thought its activities were likely to bring the Secret Service on its track, precautions were taken. Cousins goes to Sheerness, or rather gets as far as Sittingbourne. There he walks into a trap already set for any Secret Service man who might go nosing round. He sees Shannon on the station and accosts him. He is invited into the car, goes innocently, and there you are.’
    ‘Good Lord! You mean to say—’
    ‘I mean to say that the man who impersonated the Chief of Staff and the Air-Marshal quite possibly impersonated Shannon also. You said the fellow in the car was big and burly; well, so is Shannon.’
    ‘But this man was not seen on the platform.’
    ‘You mean nobody has volunteered the information that such an individual was seen. Well, we’ll make certain of that. I’ll go down to Sheerness or rather Sittingbourne myself, and conduct enquiries along those lines.’ He chuckled. ‘I may even meet the sham Captain Shannon myself, though that’s not very probable. I don’t think the head of an organisation showing such skill and resource would blunder like that.’
    ‘He’s blundered pretty badly in one respect anyhow,’ observed Brien.
    ‘How?’
    ‘Why, in dispatching all his communications from Sheerness,especially as we seem to have proved that he is actually somewhere in that neighbourhood.’
    ‘That’s true. It certainly seems a slip, but it can’t be. There must be something behind it. The brain that has conceived all that we know, or guess at, wouldn’t make an error of such rank idiocy.’
    ‘Very often,’ declared Brien somewhat sententiously, ‘it’s