Dictator's Way Read Online Free

wide apart, his hands in his jacket pockets.
    â€œNow you just listen to me, Waveny,” he said. “It’s no good talking like that. I can’t keep anyone’s name out of anything and I wouldn’t if I could. If people – girls, anyone – get mixed up in things, well, that’s that, and they’ve got to take the consequences. Another thing,” added Bobby, with a somewhat uneasy glance at that formidable stick Waveny seemed to regard with so much affection, “don’t you get trying any games like thrashing people within an inch of their lives – or over. It sounds all right but it’s apt to have the most unpleasant consequences. I suppose you wouldn’t care to do six months’ hard, would you?”
    Waveny paid no heed to this last remark. Six months’ hard and the Hon. Chas. Waveny lived in different streets, so to say, and there was no possible connection. But the first part of Bobby’s observations he evidently both understood and approved. To it, he nodded in complete agreement.
    â€œQuite right, too,” he approved. “I don’t believe in hushing things up myself. Only, of course – well, it’s no good making a stink, is it? And then, well, look at the way things are abroad. Look at the Bolshevik rebellion against Franco in Spain. We don’t want that sort of thing here, do we? and we shall unless chaps like us stick together.”
    â€œI’m not a chap like us,” snapped Bobby. “I’m a policeman.”
    â€œJolly good idea, too,” declared Waveny, still approving. “One up to Trenchard getting our sort to join. Gives the police a tone, if you see what I mean.”
    â€œMy God,” said Bobby, reaching for his hat.
    â€œAll I want,” continued Waveny, comfortably certain complete understanding had now been reached, “is for you to come along there to-morrow evening. Not now, because I’ve something on. To-morrow –”
    Bobby interrupted.
    â€œThe cigarettes are on the table,” he said. “In the left- hand cupboard of the writing-table you’ll find whisky and a siphon of soda-water. Make yourself at home and stay as long as you like. When I go on duty to-morrow I’ll report what you’ve said and that I advised you to call at the High Street police-station. So long.”
    With that he departed and as he went out into the street he saw Waveny staring from the window in open-eyed, open-mouthed bewilderment. Like that, the Hon. Chas.’s protuberant eyes and small round chin and mouth seemed more noticeable, the domineering nose to fade away. In profile, Bobby told himself, that nose, the well-known Waveny nose on which, for generations, judges, generals, admirals of the clan had trumpeted their approval or their disapproval of lesser mortals, would never have allowed him to depart so easily.
    He turned into the next street and at the corner waited for a bus to take him to Lord’s for what was left of the afternoon. Buses came, of course, for every other conceivable quarter of the globe but none for where he wanted to go. Bobby found himself wondering what had really been the cause of the Hon. Chas.’s visit. Could there be any connection with those vague rumours of which Bobby had some almost equally vague knowledge to the general effect that Mr. Judson’s little parties were not so innocent as they seemed. Probably though there was not much foundation for such stories. Bobby knew that discreet inquiry had shown Mr. Judson to be a man of some position in the City, well known and respected. Originally his business had been coal exporting, but the export of coal was less flourishing than once it had been and now for him had become subsidiary to his other interests. He was on the board of one of the smaller discount companies, he did a certain amount of company promoting – his name was worth mentioning when underwriting was being sought