"My chauffeur will settle him," said Mr. Bennett. It may seem odd that
Mr. Bennett should have a chauffeur; but he had--or proposed to
have--_pro hac vice_--or _ad hoc_; for this particular job, in fact.
Without a car that stuff at Tower Cottage--somewhere at Tower
Cottage--would be difficult to shift.
The Sergeant demurred still, by no means for the sake of saving
Beaumaroy's skin, but still purely for the reason already given; yet he
admitted that he could not name any date on which he could guarantee
Beaumaroy's absence from Tower Cottage. "He never leaves the old blighter
alone later than eleven o'clock or so, and rarely as late as that."
"Then any night's about the same," said gentleman Bennett; "and now for
the scheme, dear N.C.O.!"
Sergeant Hooper despaired of the doors. The house-door might possibly be
negotiated, though at the probable cost of arousing the notice of
Beaumaroy--and of the old blighter himself. But the door from the parlor
into the Tower offered insuperable difficulties. It was always locked;
the lock was intricate; he had never so much as seen the key at close
quarters and, even had opportunity offered, was quite unpractised in the
art of taking impressions of locks--a thing not done with accuracy quite
so easily as seems sometimes to be assumed.
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