This announcement was greeted with loud cheers.  The crowd fell back, allowing Smith a free course to the aeroplane.

“Bedad,” said McMurtrie; “I wouldn’t wonder but they tear me to pieces before I get safe home.  But I’ll skip into a motor-car as soon as you are started.  Now, is there anything I can do for you before you go?”

“Only send two cables for me; one to my sister:  here’s the address; say simply ‘All well.’  The other to Barracombe, 532 Mincing Lane, London, asking him to meet me at home at eleven p.m., to-morrow.  You won’t forget?”

“I will not.  But you’re a cool hand, to be sure.”

A space was cleared; the aeroplane ran off, soared aloft, and for a few seconds circled over the heads of the spectators.  Then a voice came to them from the air, not so much like Longfellow’s falling star as an emission from a gramaphone.

“Good-bye, friends.  Thanks for your kind reception.  Sorry I can’t stay any longer; but I’ve got to be in Portsmouth, England within twenty-four hours.  Good-bye.”

The aeroplane wheeled eastward, and shot forward at a speed that made the onlookers gasp.  When it had disappeared, they became suddenly alive to the suspicion that Jack McMurtrie had practised a ruse on them.  They gave a yell and looked round for him.  A motor-car was making at forty miles an hour for Toronto.

CHAPTER XVII

A MIDNIGHT VIGIL

Mr. William Barracombe was the most punctual of men.  He entered his office in Mincing Lane precisely at ten o’clock on Thursday morning.  His letters had already been sorted and arranged in two neat piles on his desk.  Topmost on one of them was a cablegram from Toronto:  “Meet me home eleven p.m.  Smith.”  He never admitted that anything would surprise him, and in fact he showed no sign of excitement, but looked through his correspondence methodically, distributing the papers among several baskets to be dealt with by respective members of his staff, or by himself.  This done, he rang for the office boy, ordered him to remove the baskets, and then took up the cablegram again.

“By Jove!” he said to himself.

He reached down his A B C and looked out a train for Cosham.

“I may as well go down to dinner,” he thought.

His next proceeding was to telephone to his chambers instructing his man to meet him at Waterloo with his suit-case.  Then he wrote a telegram to Mrs. Smith announcing that he would dine with her that evening.  Thereupon he was ready to tackle the business problems which would absorb his attention until five o’clock.

On arriving at Cosham Park he was taken to the study, where Kate Smith was awaiting him.

“You have heard from Charley?” she said anxiously, after shaking hands.

“Yes.  Have you?”

“He wired ‘All well.’  He is very economical.  All his messages have been just those two words, except yesterday’s from Honolulu.  That was ‘Father safe.’”