Chapter VI: Donohue Again

Some delay occurred at the door of O’Hagan’s chambers.

“Donohue cannot have gone out,” said he. “How careless of me to have forgotten my key!”

He rang impatiently. Once—twice—thrice. Then the door was opened some three inches and Donohue’s face peered through the aperture.

“Excuse me, sir,” said that treasure, ignoring O’Hagan’s icy stare; “but would you, sir—I don’t ask a favour often—would you come back in half an hour, sir?”

Captain O’Hagan thrust the door open, and swept Donohue against the wall.

“What do you mean?” he demanded fiercely. “Consider yourself discharged, Donohue! What . . .”

An uproarious banging and shouting drowned further speech. Lady Rundel clearly was afraid to enter. Donohue shrank away before the fierce glare which sought him through the pebble.

“_Donahue!_”—portentously.

“Sir!”

“What is that unseemly disturbance proceeding from the store-room?”

Donohue, with great hesitancy:

“I’m sorry, sir! You can discharge me if you like—excuse me, sir, you _have_! But he came here calling you such dirty names, sir, and—excuse me, m’lady—said things about her ladyship!——”

“Donohue!” interrupted O’Hagan, in a voice of freezing calm—“unlock the store-room door!”

“Sir——”

“Donohue! unlock the store-room door! Then pack your box.”

Donohue, with a sort of badly veiled truculence—(“I have always distrusted that man!” whispered Lady Rundel)—walked to and unlocked the door indicated.

Whereupon Lady Rundel uttered a stifled shriek.

For out into view leapt a nightmare apparition—a man who had sky-blue hair and only half a moustache! Furthermore, that surviving half was grass-green!

“Come out, you piebald spalpeen!” cried Donohue, throwing restraint to the winds—“come out and show what I’ve done to you!”

Lady Rundel slowly raised her hands to her face.

“Heavens!” she said, in a smothered voice, “it is Bobby Haverley! Captain O’Hagan, your man must be given in char. . . .”

Her voice trailed off into a suppressed ripple.

“Lady Rundel!” shouted Haverley frantically—“This is a conspiracy! I have been lashed to a chair——”

But Lady Rundel already was half way down the stairs, and her laughter, no longer to be denied, came back in mocking answer. O’Hagan stood in the doorway, monocle raised Haverley, by a tremendous effort, regained control of himself.

“Captain O’Hagan,” he said, his voice grating harshly, “you will be in jail to-morrow.”

“Possibly,” replied O’Hagan; “but let us survey the facts. If you care to give me the written undertaking to which I referred—merely a matter of form, _now_—you may enjoy the use of the hot and cold water in my bathroom. The dye will wash out. I will even lend you a razor. If you decline, you are at liberty to depart into Whitehall—as you are! Finally, Donohue has taken your photograph! You did so, Donohue?”

Donohue: “I did, sir.”

“It will, of course, be reproduced in the press during the course of the case. The bathroom is on your immediate left.”

Is it necessary to pursue this matter further? I think not. O’Hagan has not been prosecuted. He never will be, I fancy. Recently, he related to Lady Rundel the true facts of the affair; and I thought that she would have never ceased laughing.

Captain Bernard O’Hagan’s policy is, Do it hard, and face the music. One sighs for a ministry of O’Hagans.

EXPLOIT THE SIXTH.

HE HONOURS THE GRAND DUKE.

EXPLOIT THE SIXTH.
HE HONOURS THE GRAND DUKE.