Chronicles of the Secret Service by Alexander Wilson

of his way to do anyone a good turn. No; don’t speak. This may be a trap. I don’t think he suspects me, but one never knows. Whatever happens, don’t by word or sign show that you think me anything but what I look. I’ve got to rely on you to that extent – can’t help myself. If there’s any trouble coming to you, I’ll do my best to get you out of it.’ Suddenly he raised his voice, and again spoke in thick, drunken accents. ‘Wharrer yer thinkin’ ’bout, you two, eh? Tha’s wha’ I wan’ to know. I’m’s good s’you ’ny day, an’ don’ yer forget it, see? If I wanter play Noughts an’ Crosses on yer bloomin’ car why shouldn’ I, answer me tha’ – why shouldn’ I?’ He waved his right arm in an emphatic gesture that almost caused him to overbalance. ‘If I’d m’way, I’d drown all aris’crat babies a’ birth, tha’s wha’ I’d do – s’truth I would, s’elp m’bob.’
    The hunchback had returned during this drunken diatribe, and stood, for a moment, listening, a smile on his sallow face. He stepped forward as the little man showed signs of becoming violent; took him by the arm.
    ‘You please don’t mind heem,’ he advised the others. ‘He toomooch drunk to know what it is he say. Look,’ he added to the tramp, ‘I have the slate. We will play.’
    He placed a large slate of the type used by small school children on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, inviting his ragged guest to take another. The latter did so after fumbling ineffectually for a while and eventually needing help. He took the piece of chalk handed to him with a grunt of satisfaction.
    ‘Noughts me,’ he enunciated. ‘You c’n be cross-crosses.’
    ‘As you like, my frien’, but it would have been proper if first we have toss the coin.’
    The tramp leered at him.
    ‘Not on yer life,’ he vowed. ‘P’raps yer would ’a called noughts, an’ I allus star’s we’ noughts – nev’ lose then. Are yer ready, pal?’
    ‘Yes, I am ready.’
    ‘Then off we goes.’
    To Sonia and Tony sitting there watching, the scene was fantastic, incredible. That two men – even though one appeared drunk and a tramp, and the other a foreigner, a hunchback and possibly rendered eccentric through his deformity – should solemnly sit at a table and play Noughts and Crosses on a slate was almost beyond belief. Anstruther could not rid himself of the feeling that he was dreaming. The whole affair – the drunk tramp playing the game on his car, the interposition of the hunchback, the warning from the inebriated man in anything but an uncouth or intoxicated voice, and now the two queer individuals playing Noughts and Crosses on a slate, both appearing in deadly earnest – was of the absurd stuff of which dreams are made. There was nothing real about the situation. Sonia did not regard it in quite the same light as Tony. She was most struck by thehumour of the circumstances and badly wanted to giggle. They had been much impressed by the whispered remarks of the little man during the absence from the room of Nicholas Karen and, more than ever, Anstruther felt he had been extremely foolish in allowing Sonia to enter the house. It was obvious to them both now that the tramp was playing a part, that he was no more drunk than they were, even though he looked it and exuded such an unpleasant odour of strong liquor. They had become intensely interested in him; wondered who he was, and what was behind his extraordinary pretence. Tony would have been delighted at the prospect of becoming concerned at last in something that promised adventure, had it not been for the presence of the girl. She, for her part, was feeling delightfully thrilled. The prospect of danger did not frighten her; on the contrary, she welcomed it. Probably that was because she did not really feel in her heart that any actually existed.
    The two men at the table played Noughts and Crosses with the seriousness of experts engaged in a game of chess.