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Title: The amateur crime
Author: Anthony Berkeley
Release date: January 10, 2024 [eBook #72675]
Language: English
Original publication: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1928
Credits: Brian Raiter
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMATEUR CRIME ***
The Amateur Crime
by A. B. Cox
Contents
Prologue
I. The Nesbitt Combination
II. From Cocktails to Criminology
III. Mr. Priestley Is Adventurous
IV. Red Blood and Red Ink
V. Confusing the Issue
VI. Adventures of a Pair of Handcuffs
VII. Inspector Cottingham Smells Blood
VIII. Two into One Will Go
IX. George Says Nothing, Much
X. Laura Surpasses Herself
XI. Perspicacity of a Chief Constable
XII. Mr. Priestley Becomes an Uncle
XIII. Cynthia Begins to Smile
XIV. Interesting Scene in a Tool-Shed
XV. Various People Get Busy
XVI. Mr. Priestley Bursts a Bombshell
XVII. Awkward Predicament of Some Conspirators
XVIII. Mr. Priestley Solves His Last Problem
TO
MY SISTER
Prologue
The young man waved his arms violently. “You’re a cabbage!” he
shouted. “A turnip! A vegetable marrow! A—” He paused. “A snail!” he
concluded, relinquishing this horticultural catalogue.
Mr. Matthew Priestley blinked at him mildly through his glasses. “Am
I, Pat?” he asked, not without surprise.
“Yes, you are.” From his stand upon the hearthrug the young man
contemplated his host with extreme severity. “How old are you,
Priestley?” he demanded at length.
“Thirty-six,” apologised Mr. Priestley.
“Thirty-six!” repeated the young man with remarkable scorn. “And what
do you think people would take you for?”
“Thirty-five?” hazarded Mr. Priestley optimistically.
“Certainly not!” said the young man sharply. “Sixty-five, more like.”
“Oh, no, Pat,” protested Mr. Priestley, pained.
“At least sixty-five,” rejoined the young man firmly. “And no wonder.
Do you know what you are, Priestley?”
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Priestley, a little doubtfully, “I’m a cabbage,
and a vegetable-marrow, and a snail, and——”
“You’re a limpet!”
“A limpet as well?” said Mr. Priestley, with distress. “Now, what
makes you say that, Pat?”
“Well, look at you!” observed the young man shortly.
Mr. Priestley obeyed. “I seem much the same as usual,” he ventured.
“That’s the whole point!” the young man said with force. “You’re
always much the same as usual. Always!”
“I wear a different suit nearly every day,” Mr. Priestley protested
wistfully.
“You know what I mean. Look at you—thirty-six, and as set and
unenterprising as a man of sixty! Why don’t you move out of your
rotten little rut, man? Move about! See life! Have adventures!” The
young man ran a sensitive hand through his rather long black hair.
Mr. Priestley looked round the cosy bachelor room in the cosy bachelor
flat; if it was a rut, it was a remarkably pleasant one. “It’s curious
how restless love seems to make a man,” he observed mildly.
The young man stamped violently several times up and down the room.
“I’m not restless!” he exclaimed loudly. “I’m happy!”
“I see,” replied Mr. Priestley with humility. “Have another drink,
won’t you?”
The young man manipulated the decanter and siphon. “I do hate to see a
man vegetating,” he growled into his glass.
“I suppose it’s the result of getting engaged,” Mr. Priestley
meditated. “That sort of thing must be upsetting, no doubt.”
“It makes a fellow so happy, he wants to make his friends happy, too,”
the young man condescended to explain.
“But I am happy, Pat! Remarkably happy.”
“You’re nothing of the sort,” snapped the young man.
“Aren’t I?” queried Mr. Priestley in surprise. “Well, I certainly
thought I was.”
“Oh, yes,” said the young man with remarkable bitterness. “You think
you are, of course. But you’re nothing of the sort. How can you be? Is
a cabbage happy? Why don’t you live, man? Get about! Fall in love!
Have adventures!”
“But adventures don’t happen to me.”
“Of course they don’t. Because you never let them. If you saw an
adventure coming, you’d shut both eyes and wrap your head up in a rug.
You’re turning into a regular hermit, Priestley: that’s what’s the
matter with you. And hermits have a habit of becoming most
confoundedly dull.”
Soon after that the young man took his leave; and quite time, too.
After his departure Mr. Priestley sat for a few moments turning over
in his mind what had been said. Was it true that he was getting into a
rut? Was he a turnip? Was he in danger of becoming a hermit, and a
confoundedly dull hermit at that? He looked round his comfortable room
again and sighed gently. Certainly most of his interests were
concentrated in the flat—his books, for instance, and his china, and
his collection of snuff-boxes. It was equally certain that, with a
comfortable income which precluded his having to work for his living,
and a valet who looked after him better than a nurse, he found himself
very much more comfortable in his home than out of it. But did that
necessarily mean that he was a snail?
“Poof!” observed Mr. Priestley with mild decision. “Ridiculous! Pat
has just become engaged, to, as I understand, a charming and beautiful
girl, and his whole world is upset. Out of the exuberance of his
spirits he wants to upset everybody else’s world as well. Hermit,
indeed.”
And he reached happily for his Theocritus.
Thus, regardless of his doom, the little victim played.
Chapter I.
The Nesbitt Combination
On a certain soft evening in early April, Guy Nesbitt of Dell Cottage,
Duffley, Oxfordshire, was engaged in wrestling with his dress-tie.
Dress-ties did not take kindly to Guy. When a dress-tie found itself
encircling a collar belonging to Guy a devil entered into it. All
dress-ties were like this with Guy. They knew he had met his master,
and they became as wax in his hands. They melted, they drooped, they
languished, they slid, and the means they employed to prevent the ends
of their bows from ever coming even were a manifestation of the
triumph of matter over mind. A South African negro, seeing a dress-tie
pursuing its eel-like antics in Guy’s impotent hands would have had no
hesitation in falling down on his knees and worshipping it on the
spot, and quite rightly; one of Guy’s dress-ties could have given
pounds to any of the ju-ju’s of his native land and disposed of him in
half a round.
Giving up the unequal struggle, Guy dashed the victorious excrescence
to the floor, where it lay chortling gently, whipped another out of
the open drawer in front of him and strode to the door which separated
his dressing-room from his wife’s bedroom, muttering naughtily to
himself as he went. At the risk of becoming tedious, he must try to
give some idea of his appearance during the second-and-a-half occupied
by his journey.
Guy Nesbitt was a thin, tall man, almost an attenuated tall man, and
he carried himself just about as badly as a man can. His rather narrow
shoulders were invariably bowed like those of Atlas, and between them
his small, half-bald head shot forward at such an angle that, although
he was nearly always taller than his interlocutor, he gave the
impression of peering up at anybody he happened to be addressing over
his rimless pince-nez. In spite of the ribald observations of one of
his wife’s friends, Guy was not old; a mere thirty-one. But he had
looked exactly as he did now (which was forty-five) for the last five
years, and would probably continue to do so for the next twenty. The
other part of the candid friend’s remark was not inapt; he did look
exactly like a vulture, but a thoroughly benign and good-tempered old
vulture at that. Guy had never lost his temper in his life, a matter
which had caused his parents (he was an only son) considerable
satisfaction —for parents are notoriously short-sighted folk—and his
old nurse an equal perturbation.
For the rest he was delicate, but refused to admit it; possessed of a
private income with which he was generous beyond reason or logic; not
so much of a recluse as might have been expected, considering the
scholarly nature of his chief hobby, which was the minor poets of the
seventeenth century; and he wielded a nifty brassie and a surprisingly
ferocious tennis-racket. His manner was as much of a contradiction as
most of his other attributes; at times he was as prim and precise as
the maiden aunt of a Dean, at others he verged on the Rabelaisian. He
had a pretty wit, and he could make up his mind quickly.
“Blessed were the Picts and Scots, Cynthia,” he observed wistfully,
closing the door meticulously behind him. “They may have had trouble
at times with their sporrans, perhaps, but what is a mere sporran?”
Cynthia, seated in a kimono before her dressing-table, smiled at him
over her shoulder; she had a particularly sweet smile. She was a tall,
graceful girl of twenty-three, who bore every promise of turning later
into that most delightful of creatures, a charmingly gracious woman.
Gracious women are of two widely opposite kinds, one the most adorable
and one the most fell of their sex, and it is the presence or absence
of charm which makes or mars them. There was no fear of Cynthia
falling into the latter category.
Guy and Cynthia had been married for two years, which period had been
passed during the winters at Guy’s old home in Lincolnshire and in the
summers at their riverside cottage in Duffley, a quiet little village
on the Thames nearly mid-way between Oxford and Abingdon (it was
called a “cottage”). To outward appearances they were as incompatible
as a couple may well be, and they were extremely happy together. That
shows the value of outward appearances.
“A sporran, darling?” Cynthia repeated. “Don’t try to make me answer
that; you know how I hate admitting ignorance. All my life I’ve
wondered what a sporran is, and never had the courage to ask. It
seemed to be a thing that any decently educated person ought to know,
like French verbs, or what Edward the Somethingth said to the lady
whose garter he picked up, and that sort of thing. What _is_ a
sporran, Guy?”
Her husband stroked his chin reflectively. “Isn’t it something you
wear in your bonnet?” he hazarded.
“No, dear,” Cynthia told him gently. “That’s a bee. Well, never mind
about sporrans. Let’s get this grim piece of work over.” She pushed
back her chair and stood up. “I’ve been expecting you for the last ten
minutes.”
“I nearly did it myself to-night,” Guy said ruefully, handing her the
strip of black devilry, which instantly ceased to be diabolical at all
and, assuming an air of almost offensive rectitude, permitted Cynthia
to do with it as she would. “I must have got the ends within an inch
of each other at least half-a-dozen times.”
“There!” Cynthia stepped back and regarded her handiwork complacently.
“Not so bad for a first shot, I fancy. You are a ridiculous old
butterfingers, aren’t you?” She kissed the ridiculous old
butterfingers lightly on the end of his long nose and resumed her
seat.
“Well, well,” said the old butterfingers, and moved towards the door.
“Thank you, my dear.”
“Oh, don’t go, Guy. You’re practically ready, and there’s heaps of
time. Sit down and smoke a cigarette and watch me make myself
beautiful; there are some cigarettes in the box on the mantelpiece.”
“Sure you don’t mind, in here?”
Cynthia smiled at her husband again. If good manners never won fair
lady, they must have often come very near it. It warmed Cynthia’s
heart to reflect that this husband of hers was just as courteous to
her now, after two years of marriage, as on the very first day he ever
met her; how many women could say the same?
“As a very great treat, I think you might be allowed to, for once,”
she said, in a tender little voice that matched her smile, feeling
like a mother, and a wife, and a lover, and a sister, and all sorts of
other things as well towards this adorably helpless person, so
infinitely inferior to herself and at exactly the same time so
infinitely superior, whom she had elected to marry. “Now watch, and
I’ll show you what happens to sandy eyebrows when they get into my
toils. It’s supposed to be hopelessly bad policy, I know, but I have
no secrets from you, darling; not even toilet ones.”
“I won’t have my wife’s eyebrows insulted,” Guy retorted, dropping his
long, lean frame into an arm-chair. “They’re not sandy, they never
have been sandy, and they never will be sandy.”
“My dear old Guy,” laughed Cynthia, taking effective steps to clear
the brows in question of any lingering imputations of sandiness,
“you’d never notice if they were, so don’t pretend you would. Why, I
don’t believe you could even say off-hand what colour my eyes are.”
“My dear!” exclaimed her husband, with righteous indignation.
“Well—what colour are they then?”
Guy shifted a trifle uneasily in his chair. “A—a sort of
greeny-brown,” he said, somewhat defiantly.
“Commonly called hazel. Is that what you mean?”
“Hazel,” Guy nodded with some relief. “Yes.”
“Guy, you’re hopeless!” Cynthia laughed. “What sort of a husband do
you think you are? Really! Not to have the faintest idea of the colour
of his own wife’s eyes! Well, you might have said blue and been
complimentary at any rate.”
“Do you mean to say they’re not hazel?” her husband inquired.
Cynthia nodded with emphasis. “I should hope I do! They’re gray, my
poor child. If you don’t believe me, ask George to-night. I shouldn’t
call George a particularly observant man, but I think his powers will
probably have carried him that far. Guy, I think you’d better begin
rather hurriedly to talk about the weather.”
Guy began to laugh instead. He had a curious and rather fascinating
laugh. He laughed with a kind of guilty air, as if he knew he were
doing something he shouldn’t, but for the life of him could not help
it. His laughter was subdued but hearty, and reminded one irresistibly
of a small boy stealing jam.
“I meant gray,” said Mr. Guy Nesbitt, stealing jam.
Cynthia became engrossed in the intricacies of her beautifying
operations and the conversation languished.
Guy was the first to break the silence. “Looking forward to this
evening, darling?” he asked.
“Mps,” Cynthia murmured absently, busy with her comb. “Quite. I want
to meet Dora’s fiancé. I’d like to see her married, I must say; though
when it’s going to happen, goodness knows. In her last letter, she
said quite cheerfully that Pat couldn’t even raise the money for their
furniture yet, and apparently she saw little chance of his ever doing
so. Are you?”
“Very much. If Laura is anything like Dora (and being her sister I
take it she will be) we ought to have an amusing evening. This fellow
Pat Doyle sounds quite an entertaining sort of chap, too. I’ve never
met a journalist before, least of all an Irish journalist. The
combination ought to prove remarkable.”
Cynthia turned round to look at her husband. “You are a funny old
thing, you know,” she observed with a smile.
“So you frequently tell me, my dear. Why particularly in this
instance?”
“Well, you’re so unexpected. I should have expected you to hate
meeting strangers, but you positively revel in it.”
“Of course I do! I collect strangers. What you never seem to realise,
my otherwise admirable Cynthia, is that I am profoundly interested in
the human animal. I like to observe his little squirmings and watch
his reactions to all the ordinary, and still more to the extraordinary
things of life. And the more strangers I meet, the more I recognise
what a lot there is still to learn.”
“I’m glad I’m not a psychologist,” Cynthia returned. “It must be
awfully uphill work.”
“All women are psychologists,” retorted her husband sententiously.
“They may not know it, but applied psychology is part of their
stock-in-trade.”
“Humph!” Cynthia did not encourage her husband to air his views upon
women, about whom she considered he knew less than nothing. She
allowed him to call himself a psychologist because she was a kind and
tactful girl, but her own word for him so far as her sex was concerned
would have been idealist; and she had enough sex-loyalty not to wish
to shatter his illusions. “Well,” she went on, changing the subject
brightly, “hold the magnifying glass over Mr. Doyle as much as you
like, but I’ll just give you one word of advice before it’s too late;
beware of Laura, and beware of Dora, but above all, beware of Laura
and Dora!”
“And now,” said Guy, throwing the end of his cigarette carefully out
of the window, “explain that somewhat cryptic remark.”
“Well, you know Dora, don’t you?”
“Fairly well, I thought. She’s stayed with us—what was it?—three times
during the last two years.”
“Well, you know how demure and soulful she always looks, as if butter
wouldn’t melt in her mouth, when all the time it would disappear just
as fast as you could put it in with a shovel?”
“I know that Dora’s appearance is a little deceptive, yes,” gravely
agreed Guy, who knew all about his wife’s ideas regarding his own
views on her sex but would not have let her guess so for the world.
“Dora, if she wants to, can be a little demon,” amplified Cynthia
frankly. “Well, Laura is a worse edition of Dora, that’s all. Apart,
they’re demons, but together they’re positively diabolical. I warn
you.”
“Query,” Guy murmured, “when is a demon not diabolical? When it’s
apart.”
“And when should a purist cease to be pure?” smiled Cynthia. “In his
wife’s bedroom, I should have thought, at least.”
“Mrs. Nesbitt, you shock me,” Guy cackled in high glee. Cynthia’s
occasional lapses into pleasant vulgarity he privately considered one
of the most delightful things about her. He uncurled his length from
the chair. “Well, thank you for warning me. I’ll be on my guard
against this diabolical pair. Let us hope that the presence of her
fiancé will be a restraining influence upon Dora’s demoniacal
tendencies.”
“What a lot of long words my husband does know,” confided Cynthia to
her hair-brush. “Where are you off to now? They’re not due for another
twenty minutes.”
“I must see about the wine,” Guy replied reverently, and retired. Wine
and his wife were about the only two things in this world which Guy
really respected.
Chapter II.
From Cocktails to Criminology
It has been said, no doubt with truth, that to make her mark in these
overcrowded days a girl must adopt a line and stick to it like grim
death. She may be languid, she may be sporting, she may be offensively
rude, she may be appealing and doll-like, and she will find success,
but she must never be purely and simply herself; that is the
fundamental mistake. Such criticism could not be applied to the Misses
Howard.
Our semi-civilised conventions have their disadvantages. In a more
enlightened age the Misses Howard might have been compelled to go
through life wearing horns and a barbed tail and a passable imitation
of cloven hooves, as a timely warning to unsuspecting strangers not to
take these two innocent-looking maidens at their face-value, charming
as that was. Dissimulation, as practised by the Misses Howard, was
more than a fine art; it was a hobby. The unsuspecting stranger (of
the male sex, of course; female strangers are never unsuspecting, and
the more strange they are the more they suspect), catching sight of
one of the Miss Howards would swell his manly chest and pat his manly
back, and say to himself in his manly tones: “Here is a poor,
frightened little thing who looks at me as if I were a god. Who knows?
Perhaps I am a god. I am very much inclined, when this helpless and
pretty little thing looks at me like that, to think that I am. Out
with the lance and armour! Are there any dragons about? Or, failing
dragons, mice? At any rate, it is palpably up to me to protect this
delectably timid small person from something, and that pretty
quickly.”
And twenty minutes later, if he had interested the timid little thing
enough, he would be wondering ruefully if certain words of hers really
meant what they had implied, or whether they were intended to convey
something quite different and impossibly puncturing to the gallant
balloon of manly self-esteem. If he did not interest her enough, he
would be wondering still more ruefully how he could ever have imagined
such a frigid block of sarcastic ice to be incapable in any
conceivable way of looking after, not merely herself, but the entire
universe as well. The Misses Howard may perhaps most politely be
described as “stimulating.”
Nevertheless, the family of Howard had done one good thing—it had
brought Guy and Cynthia together. George Howard, the brother of the
two demons, a large, solid person, as unlike his sisters as the
elephant is unlike the mosquito, had been Guy’s worshipping disciple
at school and at Oxford; Dora and Cynthia had been “best friends.”
George had now taken for the summer the cottage at Duffley whose
garden adjoined Guy’s. He had moved in only three days before this
story opens, and the fate of Duffley still hung in the balance.
Laura, younger than her sister by a couple of years, had shouldered
the responsibilities of her lot and the family’s orphanhood by
accompanying her brother George about wherever he went and insisting
upon keeping his house for him, much to that simple soul’s sorrow; on
the whole, George would rather have had his house kept for him by a
combination of Catherine of Medici and Lucretia Borgia than by either
of his sisters. George was the sort of person who likes to know where
he is at any given moment, and has a rooted distaste for dwelling upon
a volcano. Laura, therefore, was now wasting her gifts upon the rustic
life of Duffley. Dora, investing her talents to better purpose, had
gone on the stage, where she had confidently expected to multiply them
sevenfold.
The British stage is a mass of curious contradictions. It lives upon
humbug, it exploits humbug, and it is itself more taken in by humbug
than any other institution. If a penniless actress lays out her last
ten shillings in a pair of new gloves and a taxi-fare to the
stage-door, the stage will say to itself as often as not: “Ha! Trixie
Two-shoes is going about everywhere in taxis now, is she? She must be
getting on, that girl. There is evidently more in her than I thought.
I must have her for my next show, at double the salary she’s getting
now. Good!” The stage then buys four cigars at five times the price it
usually pays, in order to impress the financial magnate after lunch
with the strength of its own position.
But when humbug was offered to it of such rare and golden quality that
its exploitation should have been repaid a hundred times over, the
stage would have none of it. Dora had been unable to penetrate further
into the legitimate drama which she felt herself called upon to
enrich, than the stage-door-keeper’s box. Refusing to be beaten (she
had no need of the money, but she was determined by hook or by crook
to get on that elusive stage), Dora had abandoned the idea of
legitimate drama for the time being and expressed her willingness to
adorn the chorus of a revue, comforting herself with the reflection
that not a few great stars have risen from the musical ranks to
legitimate heights. She had at once obtained the position to which her
face and figure entitled her and, after a year in the provinces, had
for the last six months been adorning the front row of the Mammoth
Chorus at the Palladeum. She was now rehearsing a production which was
to open the following week, and so was at liberty to present herself,
with her fiancé, at a Saturday to Monday housewarming for George.
Only once had either of the Miss Howards met their match, and that was
when a certain Mr. Doyle irritably besought Dora five months ago,
within twenty minutes of the opening of their acquaintance, “for
Heaven’s sake not to try and pull that moon-eyed, baby-voiced stuff on
him. He wasn’t born yesterday, and he didn’t like it. In short, her
artless behaviour left Mr. Doyle not only cold but weary.” Dora was so
taken aback that for the first time in her life she became perfectly
natural with a complete stranger.
The sequel was inevitable. When four days later the volatile Mr.
Doyle, touched apparently by this complimentary change of front,
besought her hand in marriage, she kept her whirling head long enough
to accept him on the spot; she felt she had at last met her master,
and the sensation though novel was by no means disagreeable. Since
then they had remained engaged, in spite of all expectations to the
contrary, their own included; indeed, Mr. Doyle had gone so far as to
inform his fiancée with engaging candour that this was the longest
period he had ever been engaged to any one girl. They were now even
beginning to think quite seriously of the possibility of really
getting married some day if Mr. Doyle could scrape together the
capital on which to do so.
In spite of Cynthia’s assurances, Guy Nesbitt was not on hand when the
quartet arrived. With a face like a high priest’s he was performing
solemn rites in the dining-room over a bottle of port and a decanter,
and Cynthia had to welcome her guests in the drawing-room alone.
She cast a somewhat anxious eye at the sisters as they marched
decorously into the room on the heels of the maid’s announcement,
their faces both ornamented with the same shy smile. Although she had
known them most of her life and Dora was her closest friend, Cynthia
never felt she knew quite where she was with them. In their rear
walked Mr. Doyle, and behind him George Howard. Where Cynthia cast one
anxious eye, George cast two. In spite of his elder years George knew
even less where he was with his sisters than Cynthia did.
“Hallo, Lawks!” smiled their hostess. “Hallo, Dawks!” To be admitted
to the circle of those permitted to address them by these pseudonyms,
which George had invented with simple pride at the age of eight, was
the highest privilege the two had to bestow. The number so allowed
was, for each sister, twelve, and no one fresh could be received
within the magic circle until a suitable vacancy occurred. Cynthia did
not know Laura nearly so well as her sister (the two had, very wisely,
been despatched to different schools), but was permitted the honour in
view of her position as Dora’s Best Friend.
Laura smiled her greeting, and Dora motioned Mr. Doyle forward. “This
is my appendage, Cynthia,” she remarked frankly.
“He isn’t much to look at perhaps,” Laura amplified, “but his heart’s
in the right place; at least Dora says it is, we haven’t had him
vetted yet. His name’s Henry Aloysius Frederick Doyle, but never mind
about that; he answers much better to the name of Pat. He’s Irish.”
Mr. Doyle, a slightly-built, clean-shaven young man with black hair,
turned in the act of bowing to Cynthia. “I’m not!” he said
indignantly.
“Yes, you are,” his future sister-in-law contradicted him. “How could
you help being, with a name like Pat Doyle?”
“But my name isn’t Pat Doyle. It’s Henry Doyle. Pat’s a nickname,
goodness knows why. I’ve told you a hundred——”
“Stop arguing and shake hands with the lady,” the younger Miss Howard
interrupted. “Goodness knows your manners are bad enough at the best
of times without making them worse. And we did want you to shine a
little to-night. That’s why I told you not to speak with your mouth
full, like you usually do, and not to wave your fork in the air when
you argue. Of course you’re Irish!”
With a somewhat heightened colour, which told Cynthia that these
candid remarks were not without their substratum of truth, Mr. Doyle
completed his greeting of his hostess. George, trying hard to look as
if he had heard nothing, took Cynthia’s slim hand in his huge paw and
told her, with remarkable earnestness, that it had been a topping day;
he also expressed his hopes that it would be as topping a day
to-morrow. One gathered that George was being what he considered
tactful.
Cynthia embarked upon her share of the unnatural conversation that
takes place between intimate friends before a rather formal dinner.
Glancing surreptitiously at Dora from time to time, Cynthia decided
that the engagement had done her friend good. Dora seemed quieter. Not
subdued, or anything like that, but tasting her enjoyment of life with
a rather more detached, almost a lazy air. In contrast with the more
bounding spirits of Laura, Dora seemed far older than the two years
between them would have suggested. Cynthia was conscious of a certain
relief.
Five minutes later Guy came hurrying in and paused for a moment in the
doorway, blinking benignly round through his glasses. “Sorry I’m so
late,” he apologised. “Hallo, Dawks. Good-evening, Laura. The bottles
were disgustingly dirty, and I had to go and wash again.”
“Never mind washing, in a good cause,” murmured Mr. Doyle, and came
forward to be introduced.
The cocktails which Guy then proceeded to dispense played their usual
helpful part (what would civilisation be without its cocktails?) and
the little gathering moved into the dining-room. Dora seemed, for such
a self-possessed young woman, acutely conscious of the presence of her
fiancé, on trial, as it were, before the Best Friend, and was in
consequence refreshingly innocuous; Laura, who was only meeting Guy
for the third time and was not yet quite sure what to make of him, was
equally tentative. Cynthia was able to take her seat at the bottom of
the table with the happy confidence that her party was going to be a
success. Cynthia was more right than she imagined.
The dinner proceeded much in the way of all dinners, and the ice, to
which the cocktails had already dealt a sound blow, was gradually
smashed into diminishing smithereens.
As the port was placed before him and the maid withdrew, Guy glanced
with satisfaction round his dinner-table, on whose polished mahogany
the candles in their heavy silver stands gleamed softly. The meal had
gone off well, the guests had been exceedingly cheerful, and Cynthia,
in a black velvet gown which admirably enhanced the white beauty of
her arms and shoulders, was looking her very best. The host in Guy was
full of content, the husband no less so. He poured himself out a glass
of port as the decanter reached him from Dora, and beamed round once
more.
The young man Doyle had pleased Guy particularly. He had shown signs
of a tendency towards argument which was most gratifying; rather
voluble, perhaps, and occasionally a little excitable, but good, sound
argument; and if there was one form of mental exercise which Guy’s
soul loved beyond all others it was argument. In the dreamy
contentment that follows a perfectly good dinner he listened to
Cynthia rolling the conversational ball at her end of the table and
meditated on a new subject to attract Doyle’s attention from his
fiancée.
“By the way,” Cynthia was remarking to George, “Monica and Alan are
coming to stay with us the week after next for a few days, George. We
must get up a river picnic for them.”
“Thank goodness,” Laura took it on herself to reply. “We’ve only been
in Duffley three days, but I’m bored stiff with the place already. I
feel wasted here. There are possibilities in a river picnic.”
“Oh, rather,” George murmured dutifully, concealing his blenches in
his port-glass.
As Cynthia’s brother and sister, and consequently Guy’s brother and
sister-in-law, Alan and Monica undoubtedly had every claim upon him;
but he was not unduly elated at Cynthia’s news. Duffley was a nice,
peaceful place, where one could get a tolerably good game of golf and
smoke a quiet pipe or two in the country round. It seemed a pity to
have it turned upside down, even for a few days.
George had met Alan and Monica before; the meeting had taken place two
years ago, but George would never forget it. “Oh, rather,” he repeated
sadly, wondering whether there were many frogs in the neighbourhood of
Duffley. The last time they had met, Alan had done his best to endear
himself by putting a frog in George’s bed. Neither George nor the frog
had altogether appreciated the jest. George had had something of a
fellow-feeling for frogs ever since.
Cynthia turned to her other neighbour. “Will you still be here, Pat?”
“Mr. Doyle,” had been dropped, on command of the sisters, before the
champagne had been round twice.
“I doubt it,” observed Laura darkly, from the other side of the table.
It appeared that Laura had taken it upon herself to entertain the
gravest doubts as to the engagement lasting for more than a few hours
in the immediate future, and to give voice to those doubts upon every
possible occasion. When she was not doing this, she was trying to
correct, with an air of patient despondency, certain faults which she
professed to see in her future brother-in-law’s manners. “For,” as she
told her indignant sister, “you may be going to marry him, but I’ve
got to be a sister to him; and I never could be a sister to a man who
eats and drinks at the same time.”
“No, Cynthia,” said Mr. Doyle with emphasis. “I shall certainly not be
here then. Why?”
“What a pity! I couldn’t help thinking you’d be so useful,” Cynthia
smiled. “I mean, anybody who can manage to engage himself to
Dawks—well, Monica ought to be child’s-play to him.”
“Are you meaning,” inquired Mr. Doyle carefully, “that you want me to
get engaged to your sister as well as Dawks? I’m a very obliging man,
and I do my best to be kind to my friends, but the trouble is that
I’ve never been properly trained as a bigamist. Besides, don’t you
think Dawks might have something to say about it?”
“She will,” interposed that young lady’s sister promptly. “She’ll say,
‘Get to it, my lad, and step briskly!’ That’ll be all right, Cynthia.
He’ll be free for Monica days before she comes.”
Cynthia laughed tactfully and proceeded with her exposition. “No, I
wasn’t meaning that you need go so far as to get engaged to her; what
I did think, though, was that you might be able to—well, what is known
as _handle_ her, perhaps.”
“Man-handle her, more like,” put in the faithful Greek chorus.
George stifled another groan in his wine-glass. The last time he had
encountered her, Monica had handled him, with a hose-pipe, causing him
to dance at her commands as madly as any dervish on the front lawn of
her house half an hour before the ceremony, on pain of having his
wedding garments drenched, what time the wedding-guests stood about in
the background feebly beating their breasts; and all because he had
bestowed a brotherly tug at the thick plait which hung down her back—a
thing to George’s ideas that was almost inevitable etiquette in the
presence of a flapper. George had singularly few pleasant
recollections of Monica.
Mr. Doyle seemed to have caught something of the spirit of George’s
apprehensions. He groaned faintly and ran a hand through his long
black hair. “You don’t mean—you don’t mean that your sister is
anything like——?” He paused. “Oh, no!” he said with decision. “You
must put her off. Remember, Dawks might come down for another
week-end, and then there’d be three in the place at a time. Duffley
couldn’t stand it. The whole village would vanish in a cloud of blue
smoke, and we with it. You must put her off, Cynthia.”
“Are we,” Laura inquired carefully of her sister, “are we, do you
think, being insulted, Dawks? Are we being insulted by this wretched
Sein Feiner you’re trying to smuggle into the family?”
An apprehensive look appeared on Cynthia’s face. She loved the
sisters, and she loved to see them ragging; but she did not love the
idea of their ragging across her dining-room table.
Help came from an unexpected quarter. Dora, who had been unwontedly
silent during the last half-hour, smiled lazily at her sister. “When
are you going to grow up, Lawks?” she asked gently.
Nobody but herself could have posed such a question and retired
unscathed. As it was, Laura was half out of her chair before she sank
back feebly, turning incredulous eyes up to the ceiling.
“The woman’s nerve’s all gone,” she murmured in a faint voice. “She’s
got soft. It’s young love, I suppose. She’ll be asking people to call
her Miss Howard soon. Well, Heaven preserve me from ever getting
engaged, that’s all!”
“On behalf of the sex,” remarked Mr. Doyle piously, “which I so
unworthily represent, Amen!”
Laura’s pose altered abruptly, and her eyes sparkled with battle, but
before she could translate her feelings into action, Guy, catching a
frantic signal from his wife’s eyes, interposed with a change of
subject. “Cheer up, George,” he said hastily. “What’s the matter? You
look as if you’d committed a murder, and couldn’t decide what to do
with the body.”
“I think he’s just seen a ghost, and is being tactful about it,” said
Laura, her attention successfully diverted.
George, roused abruptly from his meditations concerning frogs and
hose-pipes, smiled wanly. “Me? I’m all right,” he muttered.
“I think you’ve guessed it, Nesbitt,” remarked Doyle, regarding his
future brother-in-law closely. “He has committed a murder. How awkward
for him! Now I come to look at him, he has got a criminal face, hasn’t
he? I wonder what type he belongs to. The Palmer, would you say? He
has that look of chubby innocence. But no, he’s too big and massive.
Now, who. . . ? Smith, perhaps? Smith was always the gent, wasn’t he?”
He prattled on happily. Thus great events from causes small do spring.
In Guy’s eyes an eager light had appeared, the light that must have
gleamed in Stanley’s eyes when he pretended to greet Livingstone so
nonchalantly. “I say, Doyle,” he said in hushed tones, “you’re
not—you’re not interested in criminology, are you?”
The light leaped into Doyle’s eyes. He looked at his host with
reverence and awe. “Are you?” he asked, in the same cathedral-like
voice.
“Yes. I’ve never met any one else who was before.”
“Neither have I!”
They gazed at each other in ecstasy.
“What’s your real opinion of the Thompson case?” Guy managed to
whisper.
“I heard an awfully interesting theory about the Mahon case,”
whispered Doyle at the same moment.
Cynthia coughed gently, “Have I caught your eye, Dawks? This, I think,
is where we three gracefully retire.”
They did so.
“Do _you_ think Seddon ought to have been convicted?” murmured Doyle,
closing the door as absently as he had opened it.
“Have you read the MacLachlan trial?” murmured Guy absently, producing
cigars. “The character of old Fleming is most absorbing. Of course he
did it.”
They opened the flood-gates of their hobby and the long pent tide
poured forth.
For a time George listened with interest, for murders, dash it, are
interesting, say what you like. Then he listened with less interest,
for murders, hang it, are a bit what-you-might-call boring, taken in
the mass; a good juicy mystery with his morning-paper George enjoyed
as much as any one, but one, in George’s opinion, was enough at a
time. Besides, after a fellow had done some one in and been well and
truly hanged for it, what on earth was there to go on yapping about?
George listened with growing boredom.
“What about a foursome to-morrow morning, Guy?” said George. “We can
get Dawks to make up the four. She doesn’t play at all too badly.”
“When are your sister and brother-in-law coming, Guy?” said George.
“I say, hadn’t we better be getting into the drawing-room?” said
George. “They’ll be wondering what’s happened to us.”
He might have saved himself the trouble; for when two or three
criminologists are gathered together, then is for them neither time
nor space, sweetheart nor wife, necessity nor law.
They talked on.
“I say,” said George, nerving himself for a supreme effort, “I’m
getting a bit fed up with all this chat about murder.”
Never once before in all his life had George so much as hinted that
anything his elder and superior did, came to him the least little bit
amiss; never before had the disciple ventured to criticise the master.
At school where there were three years between them (and three years
at school is an eternity) the small but beefy George, a stolid boy in
those days, had worshipped, humbly adoring, at the shrine of Guy, the
Head of his House. When Guy, who had only just scraped his second
fifteen cap, came down as an old boy to find George captain of the
school fifteen and runner-up for the captaincy of the cricket eleven,
George had all but wept for joy to hear himself addressed almost on
equal terms.
At Oxford, where Guy was a fourth-year man, the time of George’s
fresherhood had been brightened and sanctified by the presence in the
same town of his divinity. Had not George been permitted to be the
humble instrument for bringing about Guy’s marriage with the only
woman in this world remotely approaching worthiness, and had he not
been rewarded beyond rubies by being allowed to be the great one’s
best man—an honour he valued far more than the note from his captain
announcing that he had been awarded a blue for rugger? Yet, after all
that, here he was, red in the face and not unconscious of his
epoch-making action, saying gruffly that he was getting fed up with
all that chat about murder! Murder has turned people into
revolutionaries before George.
The two ghouls paused in their banquet and turned glazed eyes upon
George. Had they heard aright?
“_Fed up?_” demanded Doyle incredulously.
“Yes,” replied the mutinous George. “Too much of a good thing.”
“_Too much?_” repeated Mr. Doyle. He exchanged pitying glances with
Guy.
“My dear chap,” that gentleman took up the tale, rather in the tones
of one addressing a small and particularly foolish infant (thus do all
criminologists address on this particular subject those who are not of
their own persuasion, which accounts largely for their unpopularity.)
“My dear chap, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It isn’t
the mere _act_ of murder which interests us, it’s the state of mind of
the murderer. The particular psychology, in fact, which finds its
culmination in murder. The motives, the amount of premeditation, the
lack of premeditation even more, the psychology of the victim, the
network of circumstance, and a hundred other things—_those_ are what
makes murder the most absorbing of all psychological studies.”
“Oh!” said George. But he was impressed. George had never realised
that murder had a psychology at all. George was learning things.
Guy saw that the faithful hound was beginning to think of coming once
more to heel, and carried on with the good work.
He leaned back in his chair, joined his finger-tips and regarded his
now uneasy disciple over his glasses with some severity.
“Let me put it in this way,” he said, striving conscientiously to
speak in words of not more than one syllable. “Suppose _you_ committed
a murder, George. Suppose you were playing with the vicar, and he
foozled his tee-shot to the last green and the whole match, and
half-a-crown, depended on it; and suppose, unable to live in the same
world with such bungling incompetence, you smote him on the head with
one of your clubs, so that he died. Are you supposing all that?”
“Ye-es,” said George, supposing manfully.
“Well, what would interest us is not whether you smote him with your
mashie or your niblick, or how much he bled, or whether his
death-agonies removed any divots from the fairway. Nothing like that
at all, George. Simply the state of your mind which showed you in one
moment of blinding revelation that nothing short of murder was
demanded by the situation.”
“But I’m not a murderer,” said George, putting his finger on the weak
spot.
“No, George, at present you’re not; at least, so we hope. But if you
ever happened to murder anybody, then you, yes, even you, George
Howard, would be a murderer; and we should be studying the intricate
psychology which caused you to snatch at your niblick and lay the
vicar low just as eagerly as we now discuss the singular mentality of
Mr. George Joseph Smith, who drowned a woman in her bath one minute
and strummed on the organ in his sitting-room the next.”
“What he means,” Mr. Doyle chimed in, “is that the really interesting
thing is the reactions of the ordinary person to the idea of murder.
What he feels like,” he amplified kindly, “after he’s done it, in
fact.”
“And before,” Guy amended.
“And before,” Mr. Doyle agreed. “Look, in short, upon this picture and
on that. Mr. Howard before murder, same gent after murder. The cross
marks the spot where the body was found.”
“So now do you understand, George?” Guy inquired.
“I think so,” George responded, trying to look as if he did. “You
mean, you like probing into the mind of a chap who’s committed a
murder?”
“In a nutshell!” approved Mr. Doyle.
“But unfortunately we have to do our probing at second-hand,” Guy
lamented. “Or rather, we have to let others do the probing for us and
then try to draw our own deductions. What wouldn’t you give, Doyle,
for the chance to probe yourself? To psycho-analyse a murderer before
the law got hold of him and messed his mind up?”
“Oh, don’t!”
“To have him under observation right from the time of the crime,” Guy
gloated wistfully. “To know exactly what he thought and felt and did.”
“Don’t tempt me, Nesbitt! I’ll be getting George to murder you in a
minute, if you go on like this. I promise I wouldn’t give you away,
George, if you’d only let me psycho-analyse you afterwards.”
“That’s right,” Guy said. “George is just the person, of course. The
ordinary man is far more interesting than your sordid murderer for
gain or your mentally kinked. The reactions of the ordinary man to
murder! That’s the crux of the whole thing. And so few murderers are
ordinary men, unfortunately. What do you imagine he’d do, Doyle? I
believe the ordinary decent man would go straight to the nearest
police-station and give himself up.”
The light of argument kindled in Doyle’s eye. George’s heart sank.
“That depends on the circumstances. You must postulate those first. Do
you mean, if the murder was a more or less unpremeditated one, and
without witnesses?”
“Yes, certainly. Any circumstances you like. Your ordinary decent
man’s impulse would be to give himself up at once.”
“Not he!” retorted Mr. Doyle with much scorn. “If there are no
witnesses and no evidence against him, he’s going to make one
arrow-flight for home and safety.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Guy hunched his head between his shoulders
till he looked more like an ill-omened bird of prey than ever. His
glasses and the top of his head shone with enjoyment. “I don’t agree
with you. He wouldn’t stop to consider whether there was evidence or
not. He’d assume that there must be; he’d take it for granted that
he’d be found out. He’d give himself up, without hesitation. In a way,
you see, it’s a shelving of responsibility, and the ordinary decent
man avoids responsibility like the plague. Besides, he’d have too
great a respect for the law.”
“Your ordinary decent man sounds to me uncommonly like a spineless
worm,” retorted Mr. Doyle. “Now this is what he probably _would_
do. . . .”
The argument raged delectably.
It continued to rage.
It developed heat.
George’s heart sank till it could sink no further. He poured himself
out another glass of port and recklessly consumed it side by side with
his cigar, an action that would have caused Guy in his saner moments
the utmost pain and distress; as it was he never even noticed it.
George squirmed, he wriggled, he writhed. Seven times he said, “I
say!” and seven times said no more.
“I say!” said George loudly for the eighth time. “I say, if you’re so
jolly keen on knowing what the wretched chap would do, why on earth
don’t you stage a murder and find out?”
George had a large voice. In spite of their preoccupation his words
penetrated into the minds of the other two. They actually stopped
arguing to look at him.
“Do what?” said Mr. Doyle.
“What do you mean?” asked Guy.
So far as he knew, George had not meant anything, except a desperate
endeavour somehow to break the thick cord of this interminable
argument, but desperation sharpens the wits and George saw in a flash
what he must have been meaning. “Why,” he explained modestly, “carry
out an experiment, of course. A psychological experiment,” he added
with pride. “Not a real murder, of course. Just fix things so that a
chap thinks he’s committed a murder, you see. Oughtn’t to be so
difficult. You could hammer out half a dozen different ways of working
it, Guy, with your gumption.”
They stared at him in respectful silence. George, who was by way of
sharing their respect, stared back.
“By jove!” exclaimed Mr. Doyle softly. One gathered that the idea
appealed to him. He looked at George with new eyes.
That gentleman obliged with another brain-wave. “Do you remember that
time when you wondered what a Dean would do if he found a girl in his
rooms after the coll. gates were locked, under the impression that
she’d been invited to stay till morning, so to speak, Guy? Well,
something like that.”
Guy, remembering his innocent curiosity on that point and the means he
had taken to gratify it, began to laugh silently, stealing jam with
every appearance of joyful guilt. Across his delighted vision strayed
the germs of three separate and distinct plans for making an innocent
citizen imagine that he had murdered a fellow. “The ordinary man’s
reactions to murder, eh?” he chuckled. “It _could_ be done. Upon my
soul, it could! What do you say, Doyle?”
What Mr. Doyle should have said is: “Nesbitt, your cocktails were
good, your champagne better, your port superlative. Of all have we
drunk, and in consequence we are not a little elated. Let us realise
the fact, and not toy with fascinating impossibilities.” He said
nothing of the sort. What he did say, tersely, was: “Every time!
Let’s!”
Guy jumped to his feet, grinning madly. “I think—yes, I think I see
it! I shall want a female accomplice. Let’s go and hear what the
others have got to say about it.”
They joined the ladies.
There, five minutes later, Guy was being accorded the highest honours,
as an enlivener of the tedium of Duffley’s daily round, amid hearty
shrieks which effectively drowned the one half-hearted dissentient
voice in the room.
“Guy, I hand it to you,” Laura was shrieking. “And to mark the
occasion I’m going to create a precedent. I’ve got no vacancy in my
inner circle, but I must do something. I’m going to create an entirely
extra place for you and make a baker’s dozen of it. Henceforth I am
Lawks to you, and Lawks only!”
“Lawks it is!” beamed the gratified Guy, and winked broadly at his
wife. “Thank you.”
That lady, watching his narrow back as he drew up chairs for the
conference, had no difficulty in correctly interpreting the wink. It
said quite plainly: “What price my ideas about feminine psychology
now?”
With much ceremony and clinking of glasses (a bottle of Benedictine
was specially opened for the occasion and ruthlessly carried into the
drawing-room in defiance of all decent convention) Guy was sealed of
the tribe of Howard.
“Oh!”
An exclamation from Mr. Doyle caused all heads to turn in his
direction. He was smiting the back of a chair with clenched fist.
“_I_ know the man for us!” cried Mr. Doyle. “The very fellow! As
ordinary and decent as you like, and the sort of man whose reactions
it’s almost impossible to predict. And it’d do him all the good in the
world, too. He wants shaking up badly. It might be the saving of him
to imagine for twenty-four hours that he’d killed a man. A fellow
called Priestley. . . .”
Chapter III.
Mr. Priestley Is Adventurous
To say that Mr. Priestley had been seriously perturbed by the
vegetable accusations that had been hurled against him, would be to
overstate the case; to say that he dismissed them immediately with
complacent assurance from his mind, would be to trifle with the truth.
During the few days that followed the young man’s visit Mr. Priestley
was at some pains to prove to himself over and over again that he
could not, by any stretch of imagination, be truthfully termed a
turnip. The outburst he explained with complete satisfaction as the
spasmodic attempt of a nervous mentality, disordered by love, to
convert the whole world to its own way of thinking and being; and he
put the whole thing out of his mind as unworthy of serious
consideration, exactly forty-eight separate times.
Yet these baseless insinuations of our friends, dismiss, explain or
shelve them as we will, have a habit of rankling. We _know_ that they
are baseless, because of course they are; but they rankle—perhaps out
of their own sheer baselessness. It is extraordinarily annoying of
them.
Without his quite realising the fact, a spirit of restlessness began
to pervade the ordered round of Mr. Priestley’s daily life. He did
things he had never done before. He snapped at his perfectly good man;
he sniffed the spring air, while vague and foolish aspirations filled
his bosom; several times he looked almost with distaste at the
unoccupied chair on the other side of his hearth, instead of
congratulating himself as usual on its emptiness; he conceived
something approaching dislike for the pleasantly impossible idealism
of Theocritus, and substituted the cynical Theophrastes as his bedside
book.
On Saturday evening things reached a climax. Shattering into small
fragments the record of years, Mr. Priestley shook the dust of his
flat off his feet (or performed the motions of shaking dust off feet,
in the total absence of the commodity itself) and went out to dine at
a restaurant! No snail, Mr. Priestley felt sure, ever forsakes its
house to dine at a restaurant. His vindication was surely complete.
The restaurant Mr. Priestley chose as the scene of this epoch-making
meal was in Jermyn Street, a quiet, pretentious place, where the
high-priestlike demeanour of the head-waiter amply justified the
length of the bill. High-priestlike head-waiters are worth their
weight in extras. Mr. Priestley, with a wisdom beyond his experience,
allowed the high-priest to choose his dinner for him and his
half-bottle of burgundy.
Now, Mr. Priestley did know something about burgundy, and his
knowledge told him that this was very excellent burgundy indeed. So
impressed was Mr. Priestley with the excellence of this admirable
burgundy that he readily agreed to the high-priest’s suggestion that
one paltry half-bottle was not enough for a man of palate. He had
another half-bottle.
The high-priest was delighted with Mr. Priestley’s palate. He
mentioned at the end of dinner, in the tones of one chanting a solemn
anthem, that there was some Very Special Brandy in the cellars which
even such a palate as Mr. Priestley’s would receive with awe and
wonder. It was a Chance, the high-priest intimated, which would Not
Occur Again. Mr. Priestley, now as mellow and glowing as an October
sunset, fell in with the idea at once. He gave his palate its chance.
The high-priest then chose Mr. Priestley a cigar, superintended the
seven underlings who helped him into his overcoat, pocketed his
remuneration with the air of one accepting alms for the deserving
rich, and turned Mr. Priestley out into the night.
His very expensive cigar between his teeth, Mr. Priestley ambled down
Jermyn Street, at peace with the world. His case was proved for the
forty-ninth time, and now without a shadow of doubt; he was _not_ a
vegetable-marrow. Do vegetable-marrows dine alone in expensive
restaurants, knowingly discuss palates with high-priests, and smoke
the best cigars procurable? They do not.
“And neither, confound it!” observed Mr. Priestley aloud with sudden
vehemence, “do snails!” And he winked surprisingly at a passing
respectable matron. He was shocked at his action the next moment, but
he was also guiltily pleased with it. Even Pat would admit that a
hermit practically never winks at respectable ladies, even of safely
mature years.
Mr. Priestley ambled on, feeling something like a cross between the
devil and the deep blue sea.
The entrance to the tube station attracted his attention and he turned
into it. It would be pleasant, he thought, to stroll through and have
a look at the lights of Piccadilly Circus. For some reason obscure to
him Mr. Priestley felt that he wanted lights, and plenty of them. He
might even linger for a few minutes in Piccadilly Circus. It was a
mildly devilish thing to do, he knew.
He took up his stand at the Circus entrance of the station and gazed
benevolently out upon the scene, crowded with hurrying late-comers to
the neighbouring theatres.
A lady with a very white nose and very red lips looked at him and
diagnosed the two half-bottles under his waistcoat.
“Hullo, dear!” said the lady, with a winning smile.
Mr. Priestley started violently and plunged back into the station
behind him like a rabbit into its burrow. The lady, diagnosing this
time that she had failed to please, passed on. Mr. Priestley emerged
again, properly ashamed of himself.
“That,” observed Mr. Priestley to himself, with considerable severity,
“was the action of a snail. I ought to have returned that woman’s
greeting and taken her off to some place of refreshment. A glass of
port would probably have purchased her story, and I should have
undergone an interesting and unprecedented experience. I should, in
fact, as Pat counselled me, have had an Adventure. Never mind, the
opportunity will probably occur again.” Which, as Mr. Priestley was
communing with himself in the Piccadilly entrance of the Underground
Railway, was no less than the truth.
As even Mr. Priestley had surmised, he had not long to wait. Almost
the next moment a voice spoke at his elbow—a pleasantly modulated
feminine voice this time, though not altogether free from irritation.
“Well, here you are at _last_!” said the voice. “I was beginning to
think you never were coming. I’ve been waiting round about here for
nearly twenty minutes.”
This time Mr. Priestley had better command of himself. He did not
start violently, he did not bolt for the lift like a mole for its
hill, he did not even pause to reflect upon what he was doing. He just
turned round and gazed with interest at the pretty, flower-like face
that was upturned to his and the innocent blue eyes, just clouded with
what must have been pardonable exasperation. Then he smiled benignly.
Some sage has already put it upon record that circumstances alter
cases. He did not add that some circumstances can take a case, jump on
it, turn it inside out, roll it out flat and then build it up
backwards; yet this is what his own circumstances were doing for Mr.
Priestley’s case. A week ago Mr. Priestley would have raised his hat,
turned a bright brick-red and stammered out to the owner of the
trusting, flower-like face the error of her ways. As it was he
descended blithely to such depths of duplicity as at that remote time
he would have deemed incredible. This was his chance! This was to the
life-stories of improper ladies over glasses of port as that burgundy
had been to red ink! This was an ADVENTURE not merely with a capital
“A” but in block letters a mile high! This was Heaven-sent
Opportunity!
Wherein Mr. Priestley erred. It was not Heaven who had sent him the
opportunity, but a much more unscrupulous agency.
“I’m exceedingly sorry I’m so late,” replied the adventurous Mr.
Priestley, and continued to beam. Limpet indeed!
If this answer brought a tinge of astonishment into the girl’s eyes,
if she lifted one cheek out of the fur in which it nestled as if
incredulous that she had heard aright and wanted the remark repeated,
if she then involuntarily stepped back half a pace and scrutinised Mr.
Priestley’s face with something not unlike acute misgiving, if her
delicately slender form finally quivered slightly and she bit her lip
as one making violent and drastic efforts to control the muscles of
her face—if these things happened, I say, then Mr. Priestley was far
too occupied in admiring his own devilishness to notice them. He was
the sort of person to shut both eyes and wrap his head up in a rug if
he saw an adventure approaching him, was he? Huh!
By an impartial observer the girl might have been thought to pull
herself together with an effort. “Well, now you are here,” she said,
and her voice expressed nothing but asperity, “where can we talk?”
Mr. Priestley looked at the face of his unexpected companion and found
that it was good. He looked round at the lights of Piccadilly and
found that they were good. He bestowed a casual glance on the world in
general, and found that it was good, too. “Talk?” he said. “I should
think we might talk anywhere.” He looked round Piccadilly Circus again
and his surmise was confirmed; it was simply full of places where this
charming person and he might talk.
“We don’t want to be overheard, you know,” the charming person
reminded him, with a touch of austerity.
Mr. Priestley was in entire agreement. “Oh, no. Of course not. Good
gracious, no!” While he was still speaking he knew vaguely there was
something he wanted to ask; the next moment he realised what it was.
Why, after all, did they not want to be overheard?
“What about the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace?” suggested the girl,
before he could frame the question.
“Admirable!” said Mr. Priestley with enthusiasm, his question
completely forgotten before his interest in the particularly
delightful way in which his companion’s brows just did not meet as she
frowned her perplexity over this serious matter. The thought occurred
to him that for all he knew the world might have been full of feminine
brows that delightfully just did not meet when their owners were
charmingly perplexed, and he had never noticed this remarkable
phenomenon. The next moment he knew for a certainty that there was
only one possible pair of brows that could behave like that and his
life hitherto had not been really wasted after all.
The next coherent thing that Mr. Priestley knew was that he was
sitting before a small table in the Piccadilly Palace lounge and
ordering coffee. To the waiter’s bland assumption that liqueurs would
be required as well the girl shook her head in a decided negative; and
Mr. Priestley, who detested platitudes almost as much as false
quantities, reminded himself that enough was as good as a feast, and
shook his head in a decided negative too.
The breathing space before the coffee arrived gave Mr. Priestley time
to collect his hitherto somewhat scattered wits and conquer the
dream-like state of his mind. This was not an illusion, he pointed out
to himself half-incredulously during his companion’s fortuitous
silence; he really was sitting in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace
with a particularly charming young woman who was labouring under the
impression that he was some one else. Whom she had mistaken him for,
or what she wanted to talk to him about, he could neither imagine nor
very much cared; for once in his life he was living only in the
present. The explanations which must inevitably come later, would be
awkward no doubt, but they could take care of themselves; in the
meantime he was going to take unscrupulous advantage of the situation
for just as long as he possibly could. Did somebody once mention the
word “limpet”?
The coffee, which arrived with singular promptitude, helped Mr.
Priestley to dispel the slight mistiness from his brain. Glancing
covertly at his companion, he now consciously perceived what had
before been an unconscious impression, that her prettiness had a
quality of wistful charm which was particularly appealing. One saw at
once that her dainty fragility was not fitted to cope with the harsh
realities of this world. She needed looking after. Somebody, Mr.
Priestley decided with mild indignation, _ought_ to be looking after
her; it was extremely remiss of somebody not to be looking after her.
A feeling that was not exactly paternal, not at all brotherly, and
perhaps not so entirely disinterested as its owner imagined, took
possession of him: he would look after this eminently protectable
small person. The feeling was, in fact, that of the prowling
knight-errant who comes across the prepossessing maiden who has been
stripped and tied to the tree by robbers; he rescues her with eager
zest, but he does not look upon her like a father.
At present the distressed maiden’s childlike features wore an
expression of stern resolve which sat upon them, Mr. Priestley
thought, with pathetic incongruity. She was quietly, but even to his
uninitiated eyes, expensively dressed, in pleasant contrast with his
late encounter, whose clothes had cleverly combined the maximum of
loudness with the minimum of cost. Hitherto, except for a few murmured
commonplaces regarding sugar and milk and such trifles, she had not
spoken since they entered the place. Mr. Priestley awaited her next
words with ill-suppressed eagerness.
She sipped at her coffee, set down the cup and turned to look at him
fairly and squarely. “You know,” she said with a certain charming
diffidence, “you’re not quite the sort of person I expected.”
“No?” beamed Mr. Priestley warily, drawing rapid deductions.
“In fact, if it hadn’t been for the carnation, I should certainly
never have recognised you.”
Mr. Priestley threw a surprised glance towards his buttonhole.
Certainly there was a carnation in it, of a rather uncommon mauve hue;
equally certainly there had been none when he left his own
carnationless abode. Evidently the high-priest must have set it there,
as a floral tribute of respect to such an uncommon palate. Mr.
Priestley’s heart warmed still more towards that dignitary.
“What sort of person did you expect, then?” he ventured, greatly
daring.
The girl laughed a little awkwardly. “Oh, well, you understand,
surely. I mean, we needn’t really have met there after all. I wouldn’t
mind being seen with you anywhere.”
“Thank you,” murmured the mystified Mr. Priestley. The tone was that
of a compliment, but it seemed to him that the words might have been
better chosen.
“You see you’re not—well, not very like the description you gave me in
your letter, are you?”
Mr. Priestley affected to consider the point. “Well, not _very_ much,
no,” he admitted.
“_I_ shouldn’t call you sturdy and powerful-looking, six-foot high and
forty round the chest,” pursued the girl with innocent candour.
“Did I say that?” murmured Mr. Priestley, aghast.
“You know you did,” said his companion with gentle severity. “Why?”
Mr. Priestley hesitated. This was becoming very difficult; very
difficult indeed. “Well,” he floundered, “because I thought—because it
seemed more likely that—because I hoped——” He drew his handkerchief
from his sleeve and mopped his brow.
“You mean, because you thought I should be more likely to give you a
favourable reply in those circumstances?”
“Exactly!” Mr. Priestley said with relief. “Yes, that was it.
Exactly.”
“It wasn’t very straight of you,” the girl commented in severe tones,
but there was just a suspicion of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
Mr. Priestley caught sight of the smile and took heart. “No,” he
agreed contritely, drawing more deductions, “I—I’m afraid it wasn’t. I
see that now.” Had the unhappy girl been answering an advertisement in
a matrimonial paper, or what? Most decidedly she wanted all the
looking after she could get. What were her brothers doing? Perhaps she
hadn’t got any. Then what had her parents been doing not to give her
some? Most certainly somebody was very much to blame.
“But after all, I suppose one could hardly expect straightness from
_you_, could one?” surprisingly remarked the object of his solicitude.
Mr. Priestley started slightly. “No, no,” he assented, playing for
safety. “No, of course not. Naturally. I quite understand that.”
There was a short pause while the girl sipped her coffee with a
thoughtful air and Mr. Priestley tried hard to imagine who he was
supposed to be, what the favourable reply had been about, and why one
could hardly expect straightness from him. He did not succeed.
“Well, I suppose you’ll do,” remarked the girl at last. She spoke
without any degree of enthusiasm. It appeared that she had been
debating the point.
“Er—good,” said Mr. Priestley, also with a marked lessening of
enthusiasm. It may have been that the effects of that second
half-bottle were beginning to wear off, it may have been due to the
unexpected complication in what had promised to be a straightforward
little episode, but the truth was that the Adventure was rapidly
losing its light-hearted aspect. For some reason Mr. Priestley felt
sure that quite serious developments were in the wind, and he was
wondering uneasily just how he was going to cope with them.
The girl turned to him with a quick movement. “Did you bring your
tools with you?”
“My—my _tools_?” echoed Mr. Priestley in bewilderment. Surely he had
not been mistaken for a plumber?
“Yes, I should love to see them. But I suppose you don’t carry them
with you usually, do you?”
“Oh, very seldom,” said Mr. Priestley firmly. “Very seldom, indeed.” A
dim recollection came to him. “My—er—mate, you know,” he murmured.
“What a pity! Still, it doesn’t really matter, because you won’t be
wanting them to-night, as I told you. I can show you a very easy way
into the house.”
Mr. Priestley’s blood, already somewhat chilled, dropped several
further degrees. For a moment he stared dumbly at his pretty
companion. Then he took his bull by its horns.
“Perhaps you had better tell me the—the whole story,” he said a little
huskily.
The girl’s eyes widened in innocent surprise. “But I told you
everything, in my letter!”
“Yes. Oh, yes,” mumbled Mr. Priestley. “Quite. But I—I think you had
better tell me _again_, you see. Letters are never very satisfactory,
are they? I mean, perhaps I should understand it all rather more
clearly if you—if you told me again, you know!”
“I thought I’d made it clear enough,” said the girl in puzzled tones.
“We were to meet here to discuss anything necessary, and then go down
in my car to break into the house while they’re away for the week-end.
What else is there you want me to tell you?”
Mr. Priestley’s blood retired a little farther into cold storage. His
mild blue eyes remained fixed on his companion’s face in a horrified
stare. “To—to break into the house?” he repeated faintly.
“Of course! I explained it all in my letter. Why, you’re looking quite
startled.”
Mr. Priestley strove to pull himself together. “Well, it—it is a
little bit startling, isn’t it?” he said with a ghastly attempt at a
smile. “Just a little bit. To—to break into the house, so to speak.”
The girl’s lips twitched and she turned her head hastily away,
apparently to contemplate with every sign of interest an
under-developed palm-tree in an opposite corner of the lounge. When
she turned back to Mr. Priestley again a moment later her face once
more wore an expression of guileless bewilderment.
“But what else should I want to hire a burglar for?” she asked,
reasonably enough.
Mr. Priestley swallowed. “Of course, there—there is something in
that,” he conceded, endeavouring to assume the air of one debating an
interesting point. “Oh, yes, I quite see that.”
He cast a hunted glance round. The Adventure was beginning to assume
the aspect less of an adventure than a nightmare. Protection! There
was certainly one person at their table who required all the
protection that could be got, but it was not the one at his side;
appearances, Mr. Priestley reflected wildly, _are_ deceptive. The
sooner, in fact, that he got away from this promising young criminal,
the better. Should he make a plain bolt for it at once, or——
“Well, is there anything else you want to ask me?” the girl’s voice
broke into his agonised thoughts. “Because, if not, hadn’t we better
be making a move? We don’t want to be _too_ late getting back to
London, do we? I’ll pay the waiter, of course, if you will call him.”
And she began to refasten the fur at her throat and collect her
various impedimenta by way of a hint that was anything but mistakable.
“After all, I can tell you the details just as well in the car going
down, can’t I?” she added.
Mr. Priestley moistened his dry lips. The second half-bottle was very
little in evidence by this time. “Er—Miss—er—Miss—er——”
“Spettigue, I think you mean,” the girl rescued him gently. “Didn’t
you get that letter I wrote you at all, Mr. Mullins?”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Priestley-Mullins replied hastily. “Yes, of course,
Miss—er—Spettigue. But I don’t—that is——”
The girl came as near to showing impatience as a creature so demurely
angelic could. “It’s half-past nine already,” she said plaintively.
“We really must not waste any more time, Mr. Mullins. Isn’t that our
waiter over there? Do please call him.” And she fixed Mr. Priestley
with a look that should have caused even milder men than he to write
fiercely to _The Times_ about the dragon-shortage in these degenerate
days, and can’t something be done about it? She also rose to her feet
with a decision that left no room for further delay.
Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Mr. Priestley followed suit. Somebody
(he never knew who) paid the waiter, and they made their way out into
the open air again.
“The car’s in a garage up in Maida Vale,” remarked the girl. “We’d
better take the Underground.”
“I think, perhaps a taxi——?” suggested Mr. Priestley, in whose
harassed brain a plan was now beginning to form.
The girl looked at him with appealing helplessness. “I do so _much_
prefer the Underground,” she said wistfully. “It’s so much safer.”
They took the Underground.
Now Mr. Priestley was a chivalrous man. Even as his Adventure had
turned out, he could not bring himself to slip out of it, as he easily
could have done already, without a word of explanation. He had been
responsible for this tangled skein; it was equally his responsibility
to leave it in a properly tidied condition. Without going so far as to
make a clean breast of his own baseness, he yet felt it necessary to
explain that this evening at any rate was a close season for burglars.
For the rest, any faint feelings of curiosity which he might have
entertained regarding the ultimate intentions of this charming but
nefarious maiden had now been quite swamped in the urgency of his
anxiety not to be mixed up in them. Even to himself Mr. Priestley
could not but admit that he would make a remarkably poor burglar.
A taxi would have suited his purpose much better, but he had to do the
best he could with the Underground. Fortunately, there were only one
or two people in the carriage, and Mr. Priestley was able to deliver
himself with no fear of being overheard. “Miss Spettigue,” he began,
in the low, firm voice of the Man who will Stand No Nonsense. “Miss
Spettigue, I fear I have some unpleasant news for you.”
The lady curved a small hand round an invisible ear. “Did you say
anything?” she inquired at the top of her voice.
Mr. Priestley abandoned the low, firm voice and substituted a louder
edition. “I fear I have some unpleasant news for you,” he roared above
the din of the train. Chatty conversation on the Underground is best
carried on between a retired fog-horn and a bull from Bashan.
“If it’s your tools,” the girl howled cheerfully, “I——”
“It isn’t my tools,” bellowed Mr. Priestley with a testiness which
quite surprised him. “It’s this. I regret that I shall be unable
to—er—to break into this house for you.”
“Unable to——?” The girl looked at him with astonishment. “What do you
mean?” she shrieked.
At that moment the train considerately slowed down to approach a
station, and the interchange of ideas became easier.
“What do you mean?” repeated the girl, in more normal tones.
Mr. Priestley wriggled uneasily. “I—I’ve reformed, you see,” he
mumbled.
“You’ve _what_?”
“Reformed. I—I’m not going to burgle any more.”
“Why ever not?”
Mr. Priestley fixed a hot gaze on an advertisement containing some
pithy advice to mothers. “I—well, I don’t think it’s right,” he said
uncomfortably.
There was a short but tense silence. The train shrieked to a
standstill.
“I think I’d better get out here,” murmured Mr. Priestley unhappily,
still learning what to do if he ever became a mother.
“Here’s your ticket,” muttered Mr. Priestley, now blushing miserably
all over.
The silence full of unutterable things into which his companion had
retired, her face turned away from him, was broken by a curious sound.
It was not exactly a sniff, nor was it a gulp, and it certainly was
not a choke; but in some curious way it combined the essential
elements of all three. Mr. Priestley, taken by surprise, turned and
looked at her. As he did so he gave a violent start and quite forgot
that the train was on the point of moving on from the station where he
had planned a graceful exit. Her shoulders were heaving, and she was
fumbling blindly in her ridiculous little bag. The next moment she
drew out a still more ridiculous handkerchief and applied it to her
eyes.
“God bless my soul!” Mr. Priestley petitioned.
“Good gracious me!” observed Mr. Priestley.
“Well, I never!” Mr. Priestley remarked.
“Here, I say, you mustn’t do that!” ordered Mr. Priestley, aghast.
“Please don’t cry!” Mr. Priestley implored, and incontinently
abandoned all lingering thoughts about exits.
The girl turned a woebegone face towards him, her lower lip trembling
pathetically. Anything more utterly helpless and appealing could
hardly be imagined. “Then you’re—you’re going to leave me in the
lurch, Mr. Mullins?” she asked, in a funny, shaky little voice.
Mr. Priestley squirmed. It appeared to him with sudden and unexpected
force how remiss it was of him not to be a burglar. It was not playing
the game. Here was this charming girl expecting to meet her burglar,
never dreaming that she was doing anything else but meet her burglar;
and there was Mr. Priestley going about the place not being a burglar
at all. His conduct had been despicable, that was the only word for
it—despicable!
Still, the fact remained that however contemptible it might be of him,
he certainly was not a burglar. “I’m afraid I must,” he replied
uneasily.
The girl had recourse to her handkerchief. “I think it’s most c-cruel
of you,” she quavered. “After all, you can’t c-count my letters as
b-burgling! I think you’re horrid. And after you p-promised, and I
sent half your f-fee in advance.”
“My f-fee?” repeated the bewildered Mr. Priestley. “Your l-letters?”
“Yes. Oh, how can you be so unk-kind?”
That is just what Mr. Priestley was wondering. But he was wondering a
large number of other things as well. In any case, he really had to
find out more about this mysterious business first. “Look here,” he
said desperately, while the train gathered speed, “will you tell me
the whole thing from beginning to end as if I didn’t know anything
about it at all? I—I’m afraid I must have been mixing you up with—with
somebody else. I have—er—so many clients, you see.”
Bright hope was dawning in the face which the girl turned eagerly
towards him. “And you’ll get my letters for me, after all?”
“I can’t make any promises,” returned Mr. Priestley cautiously, “but
let me have the—er—the facts of the case first.”
With renewed animation the girl proceeded to give them to him, telling
her story as much as possible between stations but not sparing her
larynx even in the tunnels.
Mr. Priestley listened to her with mingled feelings of relief and
uneasiness. The relief was due to the fact that she was not, after
all, the promising young criminal for which he had taken her, the
uneasiness to the realisation that the matter was very much more
complicated than he had ever imagined; she was planning to commit
burglary, true, but it was, so to speak, a white burglary.
Briefly, the story which Mr. Priestley learnt with gradually
increasing indignation was to the effect that Miss Spettigue had, when
a younger and exceedingly foolish virgin, written certain letters to a
man who had turned out subsequently to be, if not a wolf, at any rate
a fox in sheep’s clothing.
“Nothing actually wrong in them, Mr. Mullins,” she explained with
touching earnestness. “Just—well, just _silly_.”
“Oh, quite,” murmured the temporary Mr. Mullins uncomfortably.
“Precisely.”
The disguised fox had since married; but, on being approached with a
view to surrendering his trophies of Miss Spettigue’s girlish
affections, had refused point-blank to do anything of the sort.
Matters had begun to look serious, for the Fox, this time approaching
Miss Spettigue himself, had hinted very plainly that, if she wished to
regain possession of her compromising effusions, she must be prepared
to pay for the privilege, and very handsomely too.
Miss Spettigue here paused to dab her eyes again and gulp.
“The scoundrel!” exclaimed the horrified Mr. Priestley.
The lady flashed him a look of gratitude and continued her tale.
A sum had actually been named, far in excess of her possibilities, and
there the matter had rested—with the unpleasant threat in the
background that if the money were not paid by a certain date “steps
would be taken.” As the money could not be paid, it was obviously a
matter of some urgency to obtain possession of the letters by other
means.
“You’re engaged to be married, no doubt?” observed Mr. Priestley
half-abstractedly, when the recital was finished. His thoughtful gaze
was fixed on the opposite side of the carriage and he seemed to be
debating his immediate future. “Of course, you could hardly tell your
fiancé. I quite see that.”
His companion bestowed on him a sidelong and somewhat anxious look.
Mr. Priestley was far too preoccupied to notice it, but a shrewd
observer might have summed it up as the calculating look of one
hastily reckoning up comparative values.
If this were so, she made her decision with commendable promptitude.
“I am not engaged to be married, Mr. Mullins,” she said, “I _am_
married.”
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley, looking at her with new
eyes. Somehow he could not associate this flower-like innocence (as it
was after all now plainly proved to be) with the coarsities of married
life. She might be of marriageable years, no doubt she was; but in
essence she was still a child—and children are forbidden to marry. So
should grown-up children be too, thought Mr. Priestley, reluctantly
abandoning in favour of its legal owner the rôle of protector which he
had been beginning again to contemplate. The next instant he hastily
picked it up again. Of course she needed protection, now more than
ever —from this coarse, obtuse, gross-bodied husband of hers! Mr.
Priestley had no doubt at all that this must be a correct description
of the absent Mr. Spettigue. “God bless my soul!” he repeated.
With intuitive genius the girl must have been following the line of
his thoughts. A frightened look appeared in her lustrous eyes as she
gazed at him in mute entreaty.
“That’s the awful part, you see,” she faltered. “If I were single
it—it wouldn’t matter so much, but my husband——!” She choked. “He’d
never forgive me!” she concluded mournfully—but not so mournfully that
she was precluded from watching Mr. Priestley’s reactions to this
interesting piece of news very closely indeed. It was the crux of the
situation, and if Mr. Priestley did not recognise the fact, his
companion certainly did.
A genuine tear glistened in her eye. “My life would be ruined!” she
quavered. “Absolutely ruined!”
Mr. Priestley drew a deep breath. “Don’t distress yourself, my dear
young lady, please,” he implored. “We—we must see what can be done.
Tell me the rest of the story.”
The girl drew a deep breath also. In an artistically shaky voice she
proceeded to tell the rest of her story.
It had been impossible to confide in her husband. “He —he wouldn’t
quite _understand_,” she explained with pathetic dignity, and Mr.
Priestley nodded violent agreement. So, she had decided that the best
thing to do was to get some one to burgle the Fox’s lair for her, and
had therefore inserted the newspaper advertisement which Mr. Mullins
had answered. Their subsequent correspondence was, of course, fresh in
his memory. In the meantime she herself had not been idle. She had
found out where the letters were kept and, by an intelligent system
connected with a certain inmate of the household itself, was able to
keep herself informed of its master’s doings. Through this medium news
had reached her of the projected week-end visit and the consequent
closing of the house, and she had arranged the raid accordingly.
“I see,” observed Mr. Priestley very thoughtfully. “Yes, all this
certainly must make things very much clearer.”
The recently married Mrs. Spettigue leaned towards him and impulsively
laid a small, gloved hand upon his. “Now _do_ say you’ll get my
letters for me, Mr. Mullins!” she beseeched, her pretty eyes fixed on
his in a look of infinite entreaty. “You can’t possibly pretend it’s
real burgling, can you? _Please!_”
The good red blood leapt in Mr. Priestley’s veins as it had not done
for fifteen years. After all, what did it matter? The cause was just
enough in all conscience, and even if things did go wrong, his own
name would not be brought into it. But, bother all that—what did
anything matter beside the good name of this poor, charming creature,
whose little hand still lay so trustfully upon his?
“I—I’ll do my best,” he promised huskily. “My dear young lady, I’ll
certainly do my best.”
His companion’s relief was undisguised. “Oh, you _dear_!” Her little
hand gently squeezed Mr. Priestley’s in touching gratitude. She smiled
at him through her tears. “I _knew_ you wouldn’t let me down when it
really came to the point.”
Many heroes have had less reward.
For the rest of the journey, and during the long ride through the
darkness in the powerful two-seater, Mr. Priestley remained strangely
silent. As a matter of fact he was trying hard to remember anything he
had ever read which might prove helpful to one about to commit a
felony. Wasn’t there somebody once called Charlie Peace? Or was it
Charlie Raffles?
Chapter IV.
Red Blood and Red Ink
The girl backed the car skilfully up an almost invisible lane, and
switched off the engine.
“We’d better get out here,” she said, in matter-of-fact tones. “The
house is only a few yards away.”
They got out and walked down the road. Behind trim hedges, broken by
white gates, loomed up dimly the shadowy masses of substantial houses.
Before one of the white gates Mrs. Spettigue paused.
“Here we are!” she observed, in a low, thrilling voice.
“Oh!” said Mr. Priestley, unable altogether to prevent himself from
wishing they were not. “I—er—I see.”
“What do we do now, Mr. Mullins?”
Mr. Priestley pulled himself together and did his best to vanquish the
curious sinking feeling at the pit of his waistcoat. He must not
forget that he was a professional burglar. The reputation of the
absent Mr. Mullins rested on his shoulders.
“We go in,” he replied, with a decision which he was far from feeling.
They went in.
As they walked up the short drive Mr. Priestley pondered very
earnestly. Now it came to the point, how on earth _did_ one break into
a house? The nearer he got to the building, the more solid and
impenetrable it looked. Weren’t there cunning things to be done with
knife-blades and window-latches? And treacle and that he had never
come at all and being remarkably glad that he had. Anyhow, turnip
indeed!
With infinite care they crept into what seemed to be a passage and
listened. Not a sound was audible. If ever a house was deserted, Mr.
Priestley reflected, surely this one was. A small hand clutched one of
his, and he clutched back. They began to move soundlessly down the
dark passage.
A penetrating squeak brought Mr. Priestley’s heart for a moment into
his mouth. Then he saw that the girl had opened a door on the right of
the passage. Through the aperture a pair of French windows on the
farther side of a fair-sized room was faintly illuminated by the
moonlight.
“This is the library,” said the girl in a low voice and drew him
inside, closing the door behind them.
Mr. Priestley’s first action was the result of his ponderings. One
item of criminal lore at least he had remembered—always provide for
your way of escape! He walked swiftly across the room and opened the
French windows.
“Oh, Mr. Mullins!” exclaimed the girl with soft admiration, when, not
without pride, Mr. Priestley had explained the reason for his action.
“What a thing it is to have an experienced burglar to help me. I
should never have done that by myself.”
Mr. Priestley began to think that perhaps he would not have made such
a bad burglar after all.
“Now, then, where does he keep those letters?” he asked, in brisk,
businesslike tones.
“In one of the drawers of the writing-table,” said the girl softly.
“Would it be safe to turn on the light, do you think?”
“No!” replied Mr. Priestley with firmness. “It wouldn’t.”
“Did you bring an electric torch?”
“Er—no, I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Well, just strike a match, and I’ll show you the drawer.”
It was against Mr. Priestley’s instincts of preservation, but he
complied. The flaring match gave him a brief glimpse of a big,
comfortable room, and Mrs. Spettigue standing in front of a large
writing-desk against one wall. Then it died down and Mr. Priestley
prudently extinguished it.
“Did you see?” came the girl’s voice. “This one—second from the top on
the right-hand side. It’s locked, unfortunately.”
“Bother!” said Mr. Priestley with feeling. How on earth did one tackle
a locked drawer? Ah, of course! “Do you think you could get me the
poker, if there is one?” he asked, feeling his way over to the table.
He heard the girl move across the room and a minute later a stout bar
of iron was in his hands. He touched the drawer with it tentatively.
Nothing much happened.
“Bother!” said Mr. Priestley again.
“What a pity you didn’t bring your tools, after all,” observed Mrs.
Spettigue in a thoughtful voice.
Mr. Priestley gave the drawer a smart rap. The noise which resulted
seemed as if it must have awakened the Seven Sleepers. Mr. Priestley
hurriedly abandoned this method of approach.
“I think perhaps, if we——!”
He broke off abruptly, for at that moment the electric light flooded
the room and a gruff voice remarked, in somewhat jerky tones, “Ah,
Chicago Kate—er—um—I suppose? I was—er—um—expecting you.”
There was a terrified squeak from the girl at his side, and Mr.
Priestley, spinning hastily round, found himself confronting, as it
seemed to his horrified gaze, the biggest man he had ever seen.
This formidable-looking personage now standing in the open doorway was
in full evening kit, with a broad blue ribbon across his shirt-front
and an imposing decoration hung about his neck, evidently the insignia
of some important order. And these were not the only striking things
about him; the big black beard that covered his cheeks and chin and
was trimmed to a neat point some three inches below his collar-stud,
added considerably to the strikingness of his appearance. The fact
that he fingered this beard with a gesture that was very like
nervousness, and that his halting, almost reluctant tones were in
strange contrast with the general fierceness of his aspect, Mr.
Priestley was far too agitated to remark.
Mr. Priestley was, in fact, glued to the piece of floor on which he
was standing in sheer horror, bereft of the powers both of movement
and speech. Not so his companion. With an incoherent expression of
emotion she flung herself on her knees before the big man in a gesture
that was undoubtedly dramatic.
“Spare us, sir!” she exclaimed in heart-rending tones. “Do not send
for the police! We were hungry, and came in to see if we could find a
crust of bread. We have not tasted food for three days, either of us.
Scold us, if you must, but don’t send us to prison!”
The big man, whose face during this speech had been a study in
conflicting emotions, ranging from embarrassed bewilderment to painful
efforts to control his features, looked the relief of one who has
recognised an unexpected clue. “I know you, Chicago Kate,” he growled
mildly. “I had word of your arrival in this country. You have been
after my miniatures before, but this time—er—this time——” He hesitated
and looked strangely uncomfortable. “Gimme that poker!” he remarked
suddenly, and advanced to twitch the weapon out of Mr. Priestley’s
nervous hand. “Have you broken open the drawer in which I keep them?”
he demanded over his shoulder of the still kneeling Mrs. Spettigue.
That agile young lady followed him across the room on her knees,
wringing her hands. “No sir! Before God and this gentleman here, I
haven’t! I wouldn’t do such a thing, not if it were ever so!”
“What is the name of your dastardly companion, whose face is strange
to me?” asked the large man with a despairing expression, as of one
this time who has lost all cues and never hopes to find another.
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Spettigue earnestly, “I don’t think he’s got
one.”
“Then I shall telephone for the police,” said the other, with an air
of relieved finality. “If—er—if either of you attempts to escape from
this room, you will be shot. I mean—er—biffed on the head with this
poker.”
It was then at last that Mr. Priestley, to whose dazed mind this scene
had fortunately conveyed little or no meaning, came to his senses. At
the same moment he found his voice. His brain had turned in an instant
from boiling hot into icy cold. Perfect indignation casteth out fear,
and Mr. Priestley suddenly discovered that he was very indignant
indeed.
“Yes, send for the police, you—you scoundrel,” he squeaked fiercely.
“Send for the police, and I’ll give you in charge myself. You
villain!” He turned round to the girl. “This is the man you were
telling me about, I suppose?”
The girl jumped up from her knees. “Yes, it is!” she wailed,
continuing to wring her hands. “Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?”
Her anguish added fuel to the flames of Mr. Priestley’s wrath. He
sprang forward and flourished an inexperienced fist a couple of inches
below the black beard. “Blackmail!” he spluttered. “Open that drawer
and hand over those letters at once, or it will be the worse for you,
my friend. You—you hound!”
There was no mistaking the large man’s bewilderment. “Letters,” he
repeated doubtfully. “There are—er—um—it’s my miniatures in that
drawer, you know. Besides,” he added with an appearance of acute
discomfort, “I’ve got to ring up the police. Must. Er—duty, you know,
and all that.” The thought appeared to strike him that he was perhaps
not being quite effective enough. He assumed a terrific scowl,
brandished the poker and laid his hand on the telephone.
Mr. Priestley sprang forward as if to forestall him, but his companion
in crime was quicker. With a piercing shriek she flung her arms about
Mr. Priestley’s neck and clung to him desperately.
“Save me, Mr. Mullins! Save me!” she cried hysterically. “My husband
would never forgive me if I got three years—never! He’s so dreadfully
conventional. Oh, save me—save me!”
His fair burden embarrassed Mr. Priestley not a little in his efforts
to reach the telephone. For a moment he struggled frantically. Then he
became aware that she was trying to whisper something into his ear. He
ceased his efforts and listened.
“Draw your revolver!” she was whispering frantically. “We must get
away! That story about the letters was all nonsense, because you’d
reformed. It was the miniatures I was after. If he sends for the
police we’ll get five years’ imprisonment! For Heaven’s sake draw the
revolver and fire it at him! It’s only blank, but he’ll be frightened
and we can get away before he realises.”
For an instant Mr. Priestley’s long-suffering brain seemed to go
suddenly numb. He had been taken in—tricked—bamboozled. . . . There
were no letters—it was a criminal enterprise he was engaged on! Five
years in prison!
Then his mind ceased to think and became one single emotion—the
overpowering desire to get _away_. He whipped the revolver out of his
pocket, fired it blindly in the direction of the big man and dragged
the girl with him towards the open French window, all in one movement.
A horrified exclamation from his companion did not check him. A
second, and more urgent one, did. On the threshold of the window he
turned and looked back. To his horror he saw the big man leaning on
the writing-desk in a curiously sagging attitude, one hand to his
chest; and below the hand an unmistakably red stream trickled slowly
down across his white shirt-front. Before Mr. Priestley’s horrified
eyes he crumpled slowly up without a word and collapsed on to the
floor, where he lay hideously still.
The girl was staring at him too, one hand pressed to her mouth. Slowly
she turned a horrified face to Mr. Priestley and gazed at him with
wide eyes. “It—it must have been loaded after all!” she whispered in
strangled tones.
Suddenly she darted forward, fell on her knees by the big man’s side
and ripped open his shirt-front, inserting a small hand. For a moment
both she and Mr. Priestley were as still as statues, hardly daring to
breathe. Then:—
“I—don’t—think—his—heart—is—beating!” she muttered jerkily. “You come
and feel!”
Mr. Priestley shook his head speechlessly, hardly conscious of what he
was doing.
“Come and feel!” ordered the girl, more peremptorily.
Mr. Priestley went.
The girl took his hand and held it where hers had been. That this
happened to be on the right of the corpse’s chest instead of the left
he was far too agitated to notice.
“Can you feel anything?” asked the girl anxiously.
“No,” Mr. Priestley had to admit.
The girl sat back on her heels. “He’s dead,” she said, with horrid
finality.
They stared at each other.
“Good God!” muttered Mr. Priestley distractedly. “What on earth had we
better do?”
The girl gave him no help. “It’s murder,” she said shortly.
“But—but—good God, I never _meant_ to kill him! It isn’t _murder_. I
thought the revolver was loaded with blank ammunition, as you said.”
“So did I!” said the girl helplessly. “I’m sure I told my maid to load
it with blank. But you wouldn’t believe how careless that girl is. I
knew she’d be getting me into trouble one of these days.”
The corpse’s face twitched spasmodically, but Mr. Priestley was
fortunately still engaged in staring at the cause of all his trouble.
“And it won’t help you in the least to say you thought it wasn’t
loaded,” that lady told him frankly. “They’ll know we came here after
those miniatures. You’re known to the police, I suppose; and of course
I am. It’s not much good saying we shot him by mistake; it’s murder
they’ll try us for. If we’re caught, it’s a hanging job for both of
us.”
“There’s no need,” said Mr. Priestley slowly, “for you to appear in it
at all. After all, it was I who shot him; nobody’s going to know there
were two of us. We’d better separate, and you can——”
“’Ullo!” said a gruff voice from the open window—a really gruff voice
this time. “What’s all this about, eh?”
Both of them started to their feet. Just inside the room was a burly
policeman, flashing a quite unnecessary lantern. They stared at him
aghast as he advanced upon them.
“’Eard a scream comin’ from ’ere, not above two minutes back,” went on
the policeman sternly, “an’ then a shot. Or sounded like a shot, it
did. So I thought as ’ow——” He caught sight of the corpse on the
floor, which had hitherto been partially hidden by an arm-chair, and
broke off abruptly. His bulging eyes contemplated it with incredulity.
The girl was the first to recover herself. Clapping her hand to her
mouth, she turned hastily about and her shoulders heaved as if under
great emotion; the next moment she faced the guardian of the law, her
face still working painfully.
“We didn’t do it, constable!” she cried wildly. “We found it here. We
heard the shot too, and came in like you. We didn’t do it!”
The constable took no notice of this dramatic cry. His eyes were still
fastened on the sprawling corpse, upon whose white shirt-front the
large red stain showed up with ominous distinctness. He continued to
contemplate it.
Mr. Priestley, fastened once more to the ground, contemplated it also.
In his paralysed brain one thought only found place—“murder will out!”
In his more intelligent moments Mr. Priestley might have noted with
interest that the more dramatic the situation became, the more he had
recourse to platitudes to express his feelings; as it was, he could
not even have told you what a platitude was.
“Is ’e—is ’e _dead_?” asked the constable in awed tones.
“I’m afraid he is,” replied the girl more soberly.
With an effort the constable’s eyes disengaged themselves from the
body and roved slowly over the room. They fell on the revolver which
Mr. Priestley in his agitation had dropped. With an exclamation of
pleasure the constable picked it up.
“This ’ere’s the weapon,” he remarked acutely.
The corpse took advantage of his and Mr. Priestley’s preoccupation
with the revolver to direct an expressive glance towards the girl,
uneasy and interrogative. The glance said, as plainly as glances may,
“What the blazes are we to do now?”
The girl contorted her pretty features into a prodigious wink. The
wink said, as clearly as a wink can: “You just lie doggo and leave it
all to me. This is an unexpected development, I admit, but advantage
may yet be derived from it. Take your cue from me and go on emulating
a door-nail.” The corpse did so.
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” observed the policeman, continuing to stare at
the revolver. A gleam illuminated his stolid face. “Murder!” he
exclaimed. “Murder —that’s what it is! And this ’ere’s the weapon that
did it.” He looked with sudden suspicion on the guilty couple. “Now
then,” he said in an official voice. “What’ve you two got to say, I’d
like to know? And I warn you that anything you say will be taken down
and used in evidence against you.” He scowled upon them darkly.
“Then we won’t say anything, constable,” replied the girl brightly.
“But we really didn’t do it, you know. Can we go now, please? We’ve
got an appointment with——”
“Are you sure he’s dead, constable?” Mr. Priestley interrupted, in not
too steady tones. His mind had begun to work again and the glimmerings
of a plan had appeared to him. “You haven’t—er—examined him, you know.
He may not be dead at all.”
“But the young lady said he was,” objected the constable, with the air
of one scoring a distinct point.
Mr. Priestley almost danced with impatience. “Well, examine him, man,
and find out for yourself!” he cried. The habit of obedience was
strong in the constable. This was how he was accustomed to being
addressed, and then he just went and did as he had been told. He did
so now, and turned his back on the other two in order to advance
towards the corpse.
Now it had been Mr. Priestley’s plan, as soon as this large back was
turned, to grab the girl by the wrist and make a bolt for it, trusting
to the darkness and the waiting two-seater to make a clean get-away.
What was to come after that, or what his own future course was to be,
he had not had time to consider; for the present the future could take
care of itself. He dived forward to grab.
The girl must have been a singularly obtuse young woman. Apparently
she had not gathered the faintest inkling of Mr. Priestley’s deep
scheme. Instead of waiting to be grabbed she had actually darted
forward herself and forestalled the constable at the corpse’s side.
“His heart isn’t beating at all!” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees
again and guiding the constable’s large hand inside the corpse’s
shirt.
It is remarkable how emotion derives us of a large proportion of our
horse-sense. The constable’s emotion had a different basis from that
of Mr. Priestley, but neither did he notice that he was anxiously
feeling the corpse’s right wing instead of his left.
“And his pulse isn’t beating either,” amplified the girl, submitting
the corpse’s inert wrist to official inspection.
“It isn’t that,” agreed the constable solemnly. He was perfectly
right. Pulses very seldom do beat on the wrong side of the wrist.
“Let’s try a feather on his nose,” suggested the girl. “Have you got a
feather? No? Well, I suppose a hair will do.” She plucked one from her
own head and laid it delicately across the corpse’s nostrils; it did
not quiver. She waited a few moments till signs of incipient apoplexy
became apparent in the corpse’s features, then lifted the hair and
examined it closely. “It never moved,” she announced. “Here,
constable, you’d better keep this. It’s a valuable piece of evidence,
you know. Have you got a pocket-book?”
The constable took the hair and placed it carefully between the blank
pages of his notebook. He was not quite certain as to its precise
importance, but he was very amenable to suggestion. “’E’s dead all
right,” he announced portentously.
In the background Mr. Priestley was hovering uneasily. The aching to
escape was getting almost unbearable. Whatever this extraordinary girl
might or might not be, her continued proximity to the representative
of the Law was intolerable. Escape first, and explanations, perhaps,
afterwards; but anyhow, escape first! He cast agonising glances from
her to the invitingly open window, and from the open window to her.
The ridiculous child did not seem even to understand the awful gravity
of her position.
Casting discretion to the winds, he caught her eye with his own
rolling optic, jerked his head backward and then nodded it towards the
window; he could not make his meaning plainer without words.
He had made it only too plain. The constable might not have possessed
the brightest intellect in Duffley, but Mr. Priestley’s agitated eye
and jerky leaping would have conveyed suspicion to the most
charitable. The constable rose portentously to his feet. Mr. Priestley
edged towards the window. The constable followed him.
Unfortunately for Mr. Priestley’s plans it was his opponent this time
who had the revolver. Nor did he scruple to employ it. “You stand
still!” ordered the constable in a dignified bellow, the inner meaning
of the situation growing plainer to him every minute. Here was a
perfectly good murder, and here were two people in a state of
considerable agitation, and here also was a revolver. This wanted
looking into. “You stand still!” he repeated, advancing to look into
it.
Mr. Priestley stood still; but he did not stand silent. “Run!” he
shouted suddenly to the girl, unawed even by the menacing revolver.
“Run for it—window—I’ll look after this chap! Get away!”
“Ho!” said the policeman, and promptly placed his burly body between
the girl and the window. “Would, would you? You’ll ’ave to
comealongerme, both of you. Now then, ’ands up!”
It is difficult not to accede to the request of a formidable man when
his demand is emphasised by a judiciously wielded revolver, and there
was no doubt that the constable was now a very formidable man indeed.
The state of affairs had become even clearer to him. Here were not
only two murderers, caught quite literally red-handed, but here also
was himself, and at the business end of a revolver. Even the constable
could put this two and two together and make the answer “sergeant.”
After a momentary hesitation, Mr. Priestley’s hands wobbled up. After
a still longer hesitation, those of the girl did also. The happy,
carefree expression had departed from her face; she looked like a lady
who had made advances to a cow and found that she was toying with a
bull. The corpse took a hasty glance round and uttered a faint,
strangled sound, but spoke no word; his not to reason why, his but to
do and die. He went on dying.
By means of a series of brisk commands, punctuated by prods of the
revolver, the constable manœuvred his captives into line facing the
door. They jumped nimbly to execute his pleasure. Then their wrists
adjacent to one another were gripped, there was a sharp click, and the
sound ensued as of a heavy body stepping back with satisfaction.
“Now you can take ’em down,” observed the constable almost
benevolently, regarding his handiwork with modest pride. “And stand
still while I make out me report, _if_ you please. An’ don’t you try
any more monkey-tricks with _me_.” He drew out a stub of pencil from
his pocket, seated himself at the desk, laid the revolver in front of
him and contemplated the two with a truculent eye.
They returned his gaze gloomily, even Mr. Priestley. Mr. Priestley had
never before been tethered by the wrist to that of a particularly
charming young woman, and he might have been pardoned for feeling a
little exhilaration in the idea; yet his countenance was completely
lacking in exhilaration. A large number of emotions, it is true, were
represented there, but exhilaration was not among them. Nor did the
young woman evince any greater delight in being tethered to Mr.
Priestley. Handcuffs evidently brought her soul no joy. By her
expression, anybody less addicted to the use of handcuffs would have
been hard to find. She now wore the air of one who has stepped gaily
into a train labelled Birmingham, and finds herself in Crewe; a blend
of dismay, annoyance, bewilderment as to the precise whereabouts, and
anxiety regarding the return to the starting-point. The corpse was now
prudently keeping its eyes tightly closed.
And then events happened with a rapidity that would have done credit
to an American Cinema producer. With one dive Mr. Priestley was at the
desk, and the revolver in his hand. With another he was at the nearest
door, and lo! it was open. The young woman, having no option, followed
his movements about the room with the jerky leaps of a fish manœuvring
in mid-air, at the end of a line; this was not the moment to consider
feminine deportment, and Mr. Priestley quite rightly did not stop to
do so.
The door he had flung open was not that by which they had entered the
room; it gave access to a shallow cupboard, having shelves across its
upper half and tolerably empty below. Mr. Priestley viewed it for
one-fifth of a second with exultation, then he turned back to the
thoroughly bewildered constable. Rural constables get very little time
for attending the cinema.
“Get in there,” said Mr. Priestley very grimly to the constable, “as
you value your life.” And he in turn pointed his words by a recourse
to the _argumentum ad hominem_.
The constable did value his life. He did not know very much of what
was happening, but he did know that. He got in.
Mr. Priestley closed the door on him and turned the key. Then he bent
down, jerked the young woman’s right wrist somewhere into the
neighbourhood of the small of her back, and curved his free arm round
her knees. The next moment she was swung off her feet and hoisted up
in the air, while this new cave-man edition of Mr. Priestley trotted
with hasty, if slightly wobbly steps out into the night. Thus did the
knight not only rescue his lady, but even carried her off with him in
the orthodox way.
The corpse was so far galvanised as to sit up and stare after their
swaying figures. Then he, too, rose and fled into the night, uttering
strange noises.
Chapter V.
Confusing the Issue
In the shadow of a shrubbery two hitherto respectable English citizens
clutched one another with ecstatic fingers, moaning feebly. Through
uncurtained French windows just in front of them a large policeman
could be seen, flourishing a revolver. The words, “You stand still!”
floated out into the peaceful night.
“Oh, my sacred _hat_!” moaned the shorter of the two citizens in the
shrubbery. “This is better than the films—far, far, better. Why go to
the cinema, when you can stage this sort of thing in your own home?”
The other citizen, a tall, lanky figure with bowed shoulders, removed
his pince-nez, misty with emotion, and polished them hastily. His long
body quivered with guilty joy. “Yes, but look here, Doyle,” he said
reluctantly, “what’s going to happen? We can’t have Laura taken off to
the police-station.”
“Why not?” asked that young woman’s future brother-in-law unfeelingly.
“It’d do her all the good in the world. And I wouldn’t bail her out
either. Oh, sportsman!” he added, as more words floated out on the
still air. “He’s trying to get her to bolt for it, see? Strikes me
that old Priestley’s coming through this with colours flying.”
“He is,” agreed Guy. “But I really think we ought to intervene now,
you know. Matters have been taken rather out of our hands, with this
ass of a policeman interfering. We don’t want to get involved in a
conspiracy to make a bigger hass of the law than it usually is. We’d
better go along and explain before things get worse.”
“Good God, _no_!” croaked Mr. Doyle with emotion. “For Heaven’s sake
don’t spoil things now, Nesbitt. They’re just beginning to get
interesting. We couldn’t have got a policeman into it more neatly if
we’d plotted for a month. Just think how his presence is going to
intensify our friend’s reactions, my dear chap!”
“That’s true enough,” said Guy quivering again.
“And you needn’t worry about things,” pursued Mr. Doyle earnestly.
“Not so long as Laura’s on the spot. You leave it to her. I’d back
that girl to— Hullo! What the blazes is happening now?”
In the lighted room two uneasy backs now confronted their audience.
The constable could be seen approaching them with awful determination
in every line of his massive form.
“Great Scott!” observed Mr. Doyle a moment later, in tones of respect.
“He’s _handcuffed_ ’em. Handcuffed ’em together. Handcuffed Laura
to—well, well, I’ll be blowed!” One gathered that the person who
ventured to handcuff Laura had earned Mr. Doyle’s deepest veneration.
Guy began to chuckle silently. The idea of a handcuffed Laura appeared
to appeal to him too.
“Keep still!” Mr. Doyle implored, recovering from the first shock of
this novel spectacle. “Oh, Nesbitt, keep still! We mustn’t interrupt
this. Oh, sacred pigs, how gorgeous! Look, he’s going to make out a
report. My dear chap, _can_ you see Laura’s face? We’ll rescue ’em
later somehow, but—oh, _cripes_!” He clung to a laurel-branch and
abandoned himself to helpless giggling.
Guy, scarcely less self-controlled, caught at his arm. “Look! That
friend of yours is turning the tables. Oh, well done, man, well done!
Look—he’s going to put him in the cupboard. He—well, I’ll be hanged!”
With damp eyes they watched Mr. Priestley’s imitation of an American
film-drama. An instant later a heavy body in swift if somewhat
unsteady motion, lumbered past their hiding-place; peeping cautiously
out, they were just able to catch the look of alarm and despondency
which was being worn by the most disconcerted damsel in England at
that moment. They clapped their hands hurriedly over their mouths and
clung to one another again. Then came George.
“Did you fellows see?” demanded George weakly. “_Did_ you see?”
“We did, oh admirable corpse,” moaned Mr. Doyle and promptly clung to
this more solid support. “And do you mean to say you lay through it
all and never gave yourself away?”
“Don’t think I did, no,” replied George modestly. “But look here, I
say, what on earth are we going to do? That bobby’s rather messed
things up, hasn’t he?”
“We’ll give them ten minutes to get away,” Guy grinned, “and then
we’ll liberate him. It’s all right, I think. Laura will take her cue
from that handcuff, and see the game’s up. She’ll bring him back here,
and we’ll have to file the thing off. Do you know, I wondered all the
time whether it would come off at all (the plot, I mean, not the
handcuff), but I never dreamed it would fail as gloriously as that.”
“She got him up to scratch all right,” George observed. “Something to
do with letters, he was babbling about. Anyhow, he pooped off like a
good ’un. Well, what about wandering along to the drawing-room and
telling the other two what’s happened? I say, we’ll have to let that
bobby out soon, or he’ll have the house over. Listen to him!”
They listened. Through the French windows now came sounds as of a
large person in distress, whoopings, bellowings and thuds, mingled now
and then with muffled solos on the policeman’s whistle.
“We’ll give him five minutes,” Guy decided. “Come on, then.”
Doyle caught his arm, his face alight with new excitement. “I say,
Nesbitt,” he spluttered, “don’t go in yet. I—I’ve had a tremendous
brain-wave. Look here—don’t you see what the gods have sent us?”
“Beyond a bellowing bobby,” said Guy, “and an awkward pair of
handcuffs, I don’t, no.”
“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Doyle, now almost incoherent with excitement,
“why, don’t you see? A detective story in real life! The stock
beginning of half the thrillers ever published! Mysterious stranger
murdered, bobby surprises suspicious couple who may or may not be
guilty, couple turn tables on bobby and make their escape, and when
bobby is released—_the corpse has disappeared_! Man, it’s great! We
must make use of it somehow!”
They stared at each other. George stared at both of them. He was not
quite sure what was happening, but as long as they did not want him to
put on another false beard or spoil another white shirt with red ink,
he was perfectly game.
Over Guy’s features spread an unholy smile. “This wants looking into,”
he agreed. “Let’s to the drawing-room.”
Disregarding the muffled frenzy from the library, they went.
Two agitated women rose at them as one girl, and danced before them.
“Guy, dear,” demanded that gentleman’s wife, “what _has_ been
happening? We heard the shot, and then. What _is_ that curious
whistling noise?”
“Pat, tell me the whole story,” Miss Howard danced with impatience,
“or I’ll _scream_! I couldn’t have stood it a minute longer. I don’t
care how strict your orders were, we were coming out the very next
minute. Weren’t we, Cynthia?”
With all possible haste Guy put them out of their misery. He went on
to mention Mr. Doyle’s brilliant scheme.
“Oh, dear!” Cynthia collapsed weakly into a chair. “Guy, this is too
silly. _Poor_ Laura! Handcuffs! Oh, _dear_!”
But Miss Howard was made of sterner material. Disregarding her
sister’s interesting predicament, she concentrated on the matter in
hand. “Clues!” she announced, wrinkling her own pretty forehead in the
same way as that which, in her sister’s case, had led directly to Mr.
Priestley’s undoing. “Wait a minute—let me think! The body’s gone.
Yes, but how did it go? It was dragged! Where to? Obviously the river,
where there was a boat waiting in readiness to receive it. How’s
that?”
The others looked at her with respect.
“But look here,” George interposed, “what’s it all about? I mean, what
are you getting at? What’s the idea?”
The others looked at him, without respect.
“They want to set the scene for an ordinary conventional
shilling-dreadful, George, in order to find out what would really
happen in actual life instead of fiction,” Cynthia told him gently.
“I’m not at all sure that I approve. Anyhow, never mind those
children; come and sit here and tell me how you liked being shot. But
do, for goodness’ sake, take off that dreadful beard!” she concluded
with a little squeak, collapsing again.
George did as he was bid, and tugged manfully at his spirit-gummed
beard. Having tugged the tears into his eyes, he gave up the effort in
despair and continued to wear his face-embroidery.
The others were busily conferring.
“A sack of potatoes is what we want,” Doyle remarked. “We don’t want
to have to drag George on the seat of his trousers, but unless you can
suggest anything else——!” He looked inquiringly at Guy.
“I don’t think we have a sack of potatoes,” Guy replied, “and there’s
always the possibility that George might object. What about a rug,
with George sitting on it? That ought to give the right track.”
“That’s fine,” Dora agreed breathlessly. “Come on, George; you’re
wanted.”
“At once, do you think?” Doyle demurred.
“Of course, idiot!” retorted his fiancée frankly. “We must let him
_hear_ the corpse being dragged out.”
“Dora,” said Mr. Doyle, “you’re a wonder. Come on, George!”
Not altogether willingly, George came.
In the hall Doyle held up his hand. “We’re murderers, don’t forget,”
he whispered. “Now, where the murderer in real life usually goes wrong
(the one who gets caught, I mean) is, as my fellow criminologist will
tell you, through insufficient attention to detail. Take care of the
details, and the body takes care of itself. Let us therefore
concentrate upon details. We are a couple of genteel desperadoes,
aren’t we? Therefore, we’re in boiled shirts and dinner-jackets. Good!
But we are on a river-trip, and we don’t want to be recognised by
stray passers-by; therefore we wear overcoats and hats, and mufflers
across our mouths. Overcoats, hats and mufflers forward, please?” He
grabbed his own coat and began to struggle into it.
“Is that really necessary?” asked George plaintively.
“Not for you. You’re only a corpse. For us, yes. Ready, Nesbitt? Then
you creep very softly in by the door here, George, and take up your
former position. We will enter by the French windows, talking in gruff
voices in a foreign tongue, to match your beard and decorations. We
are, as a matter of fact, inhabitants of Jugo-Chzechovina, and
converse almost entirely in ‘z’s’ and ‘x’s.’ Let her rip!”
George crept dutifully off, and Guy, pulling his soft hat well down
over his eyes, led the way down the passage. Mr. Doyle hovered near
his fiancée, who was keeping a superintendent’s eye upon all of them.
“Do you realise this means our furniture, old girl?” he grinned at
her.
“Furniture? Pat—what do you mean?”
“Why, isn’t this the chance of a life-time? I’ve got a scoop here,
backed by that bobby’s evidence, that’s going to be worth a whole
houseful of furniture, and a watering-can for the garden as well. What
else do you think I’ve been engineering it all for? Thzmx zp! as they
say in Jugo-Chzechovina.” He sped after his host, winding his muffler
across the lower part of his face as he went. Dora gazed after him
with a very different expression on her face from that usually seen by
the public.
When the two approached the French windows a moment later, the noise
was still in full swing, though now spasmodic and conveying a somewhat
dispirited effect; but they had hardly stamped over the threshold and
exchanged a few gruff “z’s” and “x’s” before it ceased abruptly.
“Eel ehcoot, ler jongdarm, sxs zz,” grunted the shorter of the two
Jugo-Chzechovinians. “Oo eh ler zbodyx? Ahxha! Venneh soor, Zorx! Soor
ler mattoh-x, zzz.”
With stealthy movements and sibilant noises they spread a mat beside
George and rolled him on to it. Refusing to wait in the wings this
time, Cynthia and Dora appeared in the doorway to watch the
performance, the latter going so far as to lend a helping hand,
tapping about on the parquet flooring with her high heels; for, as she
very reasonably pointed out to her fellow-conspirators as they bent
over the corpse together: “Il faut absolument xsx avoir une vamp,
zzz?”
The inert George was then conveyed on his rug across the floor, over
the threshold into the garden (involving a four-inch drop on the small
of his back) and across the lawn to the river at the bottom. There Mr.
Doyle caused all four of them to jump energetically about, so as to
leave the choicest collection of footprints that any sleuth could
desire, after which they returned to the house.
From the cupboard in the library all this time had come a silence even
more eloquent than the former protestations.
“Anything else to be done?” asked Mr. Doyle, thoughtfully, when they
had returned again to the hall. He seemed to have taken charge of
affairs for the moment and Dora, observing the gleam in his eye, had
no difficulty in understanding why. She gave her fiancé the credit of
being an artist; he was, she knew, quite capable of arranging the
whole thing purely for art’s sake. But the vision of that elusive
furniture was a very powerful aid to art.
She was very ready to encourage him. “Clues!” she said, wrinkling her
forehead again. “We must have some more clues. But what?”
“It’s a pity we’ve got to do things in such a hurry,” remarked Guy.
“This sort of affair wants properly thinking out. I don’t see how
we’re going to arrange a real set of interdependent clues, on the spur
of the moment.”
“Well, I can think of one at any rate,” said Mr. Doyle thirstily.
“Blood! When all’s said and done, there’s nothing like blood. The
river was all right, but blood is well known to be thicker. Some
blood, please, somebody!”
“No, I’m hanged if I will,” said George with decision, catching the
predatory gleam in his eye. “I’ve done my share.”
“But only in red ink, George,” Mr. Doyle pointed out wistfully. But
George, muttering about “this infernal beard,” was already on his way
upstairs and to the bathroom.
“I suppose you haven’t got a spot of blood to spare, have you?” Mr.
Doyle inquired politely of his host.
“Pat, I won’t have you after my husband’s blood,” Cynthia interposed.
“Besides,” added her husband, “I gave away most of mine yesterday. I’m
afraid I’m almost bloodless at the moment.”
“And it’s practically useless trying to get any out of a stone, I
understand,” said Mr. Doyle thoughtfully. “How exceedingly awkward. I
shall have to furnish some myself. I take it that you have at any rate
a lethal weapon of some sort on the premises; a safety razor, for
instance. Lead me to the slaughter, then, please.”
“Don’t bleed to death, darling one, will you?” remarked Dora with
anxiety.
“Dora, you touch me,” said her fiancé with emotion. “This solicitude
is admirable. No, for your sake, my dearest, I will try very hard not
to bleed to death.”
“I was thinking of the furniture we’re going to get out of this,”
retorted his fiancée frankly. “We don’t want it wasted.”
Mr. Doyle moved with dignity upstairs.
Guy, following him, looked back over his shoulder. “I think you’d
better turn the library light out,” he said. “We don’t want any more
unwelcome visitors. And turn all the other lights out as well, will
you, Cynthia? I’ve been thinking that we may want an _alibi_ later.”
Cynthia turned into the drawing-room to carry out this request; Dora
made her way out into the garden to enter the library once more. She
was an astute young woman, and she had recognised that a light turned
out by somebody entering the library from the house instead of the
garden might give the policeman material for thought upon the wrong
lines.
Guy’s chance reference to further visitors proved to be not wide of
the mark. As Dora was tap-tapping out into the garden again after
extinguishing the light, a form loomed up out of the darkness in front
of her.
“Hullo, Mrs. Nesbitt,” observed the form cheerfully. “Bit late to
call, I know, but I saw a light as I was passing (seems to be out now)
and it’s rather urgent, so I thought you wouldn’t mind. Oh, I—I beg
your pardon. I thought it was Mrs. Nesbitt.”
If Dora had been nonplussed it was only for a moment. In rather less
than a second and a half she had determined on her line of action.
Drawing the chiffon scarf she was wearing across the lower part of her
face, she clutched violently at the form’s arm. “Murder!” she
exclaimed tensely. “There’s been murder done in there. No—don’t go in,
you’ll only make matters worse. Go for the police—quick!”
The form (a thick, short form it was) staggered back. “_M-Murder?_” it
echoed. “Good gracious, you don’t mean Mr. or Mrs. Nesbitt?”
“No!” Dora replied impatiently. “They’re out of the way. They’ve been
got out of the way, if you must know. It’s nothing to do with them.
It’s the Crown Prince of—no, I daren’t tell you. My own life hangs by
a hair. Quick, I must go; I can’t keep _them_ waiting any longer. The
police—run for the police!”
“Th-th-_them_?” repeated the now thoroughly agitated form. “Good
Heavens, do you mean the—the murderers?”
Dora laughed bitterly. “You can call them that, of course. They call
themselves executioners. It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. But I
mustn’t stay a moment longer. If _he_ caught us we shouldn’t be alive
another second!”
“Who is _he_?” gasped the form.
“The Man with the Broken Nose,” Dora replied in sardonic tones.
“You’ve never heard of him, I suppose? Oh, God, would that I hadn’t
either!” Her voice broke with considerable artistry. Dora was
certainly wasted in revue.
“But look here!” squeaked the form. “Who is—the Crown _Prince_? Good
gracious, but——”
Dora shook his arm with awful agitation. “Hush!” she whispered
tensely. “He’s coming. Run, man—run for your life! And for the police,
of course. Run!” With a final shake she broke away from him and darted
in the direction of the river.
The form stood for a hectic moment gazing after her. Then it too
lumbered away at a brisk jog-trot. It did not lumber in the direction
of the library.
Considerably pleased with herself, Dora returned to the house. Only
Cynthia and George (now beardless) were available, sitting, a little
uneasily, on the couch in the now darkened drawing-room. Guy and Mr.
Doyle were still about their bloody business.
“George, I’m surprised at you,” remarked Miss Howard facetiously, when
this state of affairs had been made known to her. “Sitting there and
holding hands with Cynthia in the dark. Why haven’t you been up and
busy, like me? Listen to what sister’s been doing for the cause.” With
no little zest Dora embarked upon an account of her encounter with the
form.
She was just finishing it when the other two conspirators returned,
Mr. Doyle complaining bitterly of weakness and requiring his fiancée
to support him on his feet. Shaking him off, that unfeeling young
woman promptly began to recite her adventure over again.
“But who on earth was it?” Cynthia wondered.
“Search me!” responded Miss Howard tersely. “I didn’t stop to ask him
his name and address. Anyhow, you see what I’ve done. Provided a new
and independent witness, and filled him up with just the sort of tale
we wanted—Crown Prince and executioners and gangs and distressed
damsel and all the rest of it. The Man with the Broken Nose! Do you
know, I’m rather proud of that title; I feel there’s a good thriller
behind that title, simply waiting to be written. Oh, by the way,
here’s a souvenir,” She tossed a handkerchief into Cynthia’s lap. “I
extracted it from his coat-sleeve in the intervals of shaking same. I
could have relieved him of his watch and chain if I’d wanted too, and
probably his collar and tie as well; he was far too dithery to notice
little details like that. Most useful knowledge I’ve gained, if I ever
take to crime in real earnest.”
Cynthia was examining the handkerchief by the light of a candle which
Guy had lit. “R.F. in one corner,” she announced. “Who on earth is R.
F., Guy?”
“Reginald Foster!” replied her husband promptly. “The biggest bore in
creation.” He began to shake again with unholy glee. “Have you any
blood left, Doyle?”
“Precious little, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m not parting
with it. There may be a few scrapings in the cup, though. Why?”
“Just an idea. Here, George; something you can do. On the hall-table
you’ll see a cup, bearing traces of blood. Wipe that handkerchief
round inside it, and then go and drop it on the river’s brim—where
we’ll hope that not even the Inspector from Scotland Yard will mistake
it for a primrose. Hurry, won’t you?”
George hurried.
“I think you’re being perfectly horrible, Guy,” said his wife. “Why
couldn’t you go on using red-ink, like civilised human beings?”
“Because red-ink when analysed does not respond to the tests for human
blood, wife.”
“But good gracious, you’re not expecting matters to get as far as
that, are you?”
“I was once a Boy Scout, Cynthia,” Mr. Doyle intervened, “and my motto
was ‘Be Prepared.’ It still is. Another of my mottoes,” he added
thoughtfully, “if I remember aright, was ‘Zing-a-zing, Bom Bom!’ But
don’t ask me what that means, because I never could discover. It’s
probably Jugo-Chzechovinian.”
“But what did you _do_ with the blood?” Cynthia pursued.
“Oh, just sprinkled it about in convenient dollops, like the gentle
dew from Heaven, you know.”
“Well, goodness knows what’s going to come of all this,” Cynthia
sighed.
“I say,” remarked George, with the appearance of careful thought,
“wouldn’t it be a good idea to put your brother and sister off now?
Er—supposed to be coming on Tuesday, aren’t they? Yes,” said George
weightily, “if I were you I should put them off.”
“We’re certainly going to get into the most dreadful mess,” said
Cynthia, not, however, relieving George’s mind.
“Your library carpet’s got into that already,” said Mr. Doyle
consolingly.
“Enough of this chatty badinage!” Dora broke in. “Do you know that Mr.
Reginald Foster has gone galloping off for the police? He won’t find
him, because he won’t think of looking in your library cupboard, but
he’ll ring up the nearest station; and then things are going to get
busy. We’ve got to work out a plan of campaign. Remember I’ve had it
put on record that our host and hostess were lured away from the
house.”
“Well, there’s nothing to contradict that,” Guy agreed. “It’s lucky we
gave the maids the week-end off, just in case of emergencies.
Emergencies seem to be arising every minute. I’ve thought out a plan.
I’ll get George and you, Doyle, to help me push the car out of the
garage and a little way down the road, and then I’ll come driving
back, making as much noise as I can, and generally enact the
householder arriving home after a long ride. I surmise that those
strange sounds, which seem to have died away altogether, will then
break out with renewed force from the library, and I shall liberate
our prisoner. I will then deal with any other emergencies as they crop
up. It doesn’t matter about our stories coinciding, because your
household won’t have heard or know anything at all. So, after you’ve
helped me with the car, you three sneak home and go straight to bed.”
“All except me,” murmured Mr. Doyle, “who will be summoned to the
telephone a few minutes after the prisoner has been liberated.
‘Knowing that such a distinguished journalist was in the vicinity, Mr.
Nesbitt, etc.’”
Guy grinned at him guiltily. “You’re not going to make a newspaper
story of it too, Doyle, surely?”
“You bet I am,” rejoined Mr. Doyle grimly. “And a houseful of
furniture too. My motives, let it be understood, are entirely
mercenary.”
“Well, good luck to them! Now then, here comes George; are we all
ready?”
“I say,” said Cynthia suddenly. “I wonder what’s happening to poor
Laura all this time? It’s nearly half-past eleven. Oughtn’t we to do
something about her? But I suppose we can’t!”
It was the first time anybody had given a thought to poor Laura for
almost an hour.
“By Jove, yes, Laura,” agreed her husband. “We must keep an eye open
for her. I hope she doesn’t bring that fellow gaol-bird of hers back
at an awkward moment. And what the deuce are we going to do about
_him_?”
Had Guy but known it, that question was already in process of being
answered for him at a spot some considerable distance away.
Chapter VI.
Adventures of a Pair of Handcuffs
When Mr. Priestley performed his masterly retreat from the scene of
his crime it was without any definite plan in his head beyond reaching
the waiting two-seater and reaching it very quickly. Blundering
through shrubberies and over flower-beds, his speechless burden still
in his arms, he made his way by a sort of blind instinct to the hedge
that bordered the road. Through it he plunged manfully, heedless of
the prickly twigs which scratched his face and hands and the dangling
legs of his companion (a fact of which the companion herself was
anything but heedless), and then at last set his burden on her feet.
But even then there was no time to waste in useless explanations or
converse. Grabbing her handcuffed hand with a brief grunt, Mr.
Priestley, that suddenly transformed man of leisure, set off at a
round pace down the road. His companion, having no say in the matter,
and no breath to say it with had she had one, followed. They reached
the car and fell inside in a congested bundle.
The fact that it was Mr. Priestley’s left wrist which was tethered,
made things a little awkward. For them to sit decorously side by side
in the orthodox manner was out of the question, for the car’s
gear-levers were on the right.
“I’ll stand on the running-board,” Mr. Priestley panted, “till we’re
safely out of the way.” He scrambled nimbly over the side and did his
best to anchor himself against it.
Laura started the engine, backed the car out of the lane and set off
up the road. Getting into top gear, she drove steadily ahead at a
rapidly increasing pace, her face as grim and set as she imagined that
of an accessory to murder and professional thief should be. At her
side Mr. Priestley bounced unhappily up and down, clinging desperately
to the side of the car with his free hand and expecting every moment
to be jerked backwards into the road. That in such an event his
companion would be neatly extricated from the car to share his fate
afforded him no consolation. Fortunately he was far too preoccupied
for the moment in saving his own life at every twist or jolt in the
road to be in a fit state to think coherently about what had happened
since he last saw this car.
Laura, on the other hand, was thinking rapidly. Once the confusion had
subsided of that wild rush from the house and her ignominious part in
it, her brain had found itself free again to return to business. It
was now working overtime.
Two thoughts were foremost in Laura’s mind. One was that this affair
had turned into the most glorious rag that the mind of man (or girl)
could conceive, and that nothing must be done to spoil it by so much
as the set of a hair. The other was that Mr. Matthew Priestley had
acquitted himself really most surprisingly, almost incredibly well. He
had not only risen to the occasion and obligingly fired off the
revolver, he had not only turned the tables on that ridiculous
policeman and rescued the two of them from a situation which, if it
had been as real as he thought it, would have been a remarkably
ticklish one, he had not only proved himself in spite of
circumstantial evidence to the contrary to be a man of courage,
determination, decent feelings and resource, but (and perhaps this
appealed to Laura more than all the foregoing catalogue of Mr.
Priestley’s surprising virtues) his first thought from beginning to
end had been for her alone, and that even after she had led him to
think her a professional thief and therefore, according to the social
code, of no personal account whatever. Laura felt herself warming
quite a lot towards this normally mild little man with the heart of a
bulldog.
But that did not go to say that she enjoyed being handcuffed to him.
She did not. Indeed, in the presence of those handcuffs, it was
difficult to see how this glorious rag was going to continue.
Obviously they must be removed, and as soon as possible; or else they
would have to go back and⸺
At this point Laura became aware that words were coming towards her,
jerkily, over the side of the car.
“N-not so f-fast!” came the words spasmodically. “I can’t—hold
on—m-much longer!”
Laura glanced at her speedometer; the needle was hovering between
forty and fifty. She hastened to pull up at the side of the road.
“I’m so sorry,” she said contritely, as Mr. Priestley sobbed for
breath and relief. Travelling outside the shelter of the windscreen at
fifty miles an hour does knock the breath out of one.
“’Sallright,” gasped Mr. Priestley, drooping like a wet blanket over
the side of the car. “But I thought—’f I fell out—you’d have to
come—too—oof!”
“Good gracious!” observed Laura, much impressed. “Do you know, that
simply never occurred to me.”
“No?” panted Mr. Priestley politely. “But it—would have done—oof—’f
I—had. Oh, _oof_!”
A minute or two was devoted to Mr. Priestley’s pursuit of his lost
breath.
“Well, Mr. Mullins,” Laura then remarked brightly, “now perhaps you’ll
tell me what is the next move?”
“To get rid of this infernal handcuff,” said Mr. Priestley without
hesitation.
“Yes, I’d thought of that too. But how?”
“File it off!” returned Mr. Priestley promptly. “Have you got a file
in your tool-box?”
“No, I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure I haven’t. Oh, Mr. Mullins,
this is a terrible business! What _are_ we to do?” The look of
appealing helplessness that Laura turned on her fellow-adventurer was
not what might have been expected from a young woman who had just been
driving a car at nearly fifty miles an hour along an unlighted road.
Fortunately Mr. Priestley was in no state to notice such
discrepancies. “Don’t you worry, my dear young lady,” he said
paternally. “You shall come to no harm. Now, let me see, is there any
other way we can arrange ourselves? I really think we should push on a
little farther before we see about getting hold of a file, and this
running-board is really a most uncomfortable way of travelling. How
can we manage?”
“Supposing you knelt in front of the seat with your back to the
engine?” suggested Laura. “We might be able to manage like that.”
“Humph,” replied Mr. Priestley, to whom the idea did not seem to
appeal. “No, Mrs. Spettigue, I think —by the way, I suppose you’re not
Mrs. Spettigue now?”
“I’m afraid not,” Laura confessed with much contrition.
“You’re not married at all?”
“No,” said Laura, hanging her head. One saw that she was now
overwhelmed with shame at the thought of her base deception.
“Then who are you?”
“I’m—I’m usually known as Chicago Kate,” Laura said in a very small
voice. “I’m supposed to be the cleverest woman thief in the world,”
she added with simple pride, brightening a little.
“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, gazing at her with renewed
interest. She looked very young for so notorious a person.
As he gazed Mr. Priestley felt a guilty thrill run through him.
Abandoned she might be, but indubitably she was charming; and he was
committed to a desperate adventure with her. His fate was linked with
hers, in fact, not only literally but metaphorically too. They were
joined together not only by a handcuff, but by the joint secret of
what Mr. Priestley even now could not bring himself to regard as
murder. Dash it all, he had never _meant_ to kill the man! He would
never have dreamed of firing if he had even distantly suspected the
revolver of being loaded. Manslaughter, perhaps, and most
reprehensible; but certainly not murder.
It came to Mr. Priestley with a shock of surprise to find how
singularly lightly this man’s death sat upon his conscience at that
moment. Probably reaction would come later and he would be properly
horrified, but just at the moment his mind was far busier with other
matters.
“Well,” he resumed briskly, “what I propose is that we push on a
little farther, and then set about borrowing a file. Of course we must
take obvious precautions. We must not stop at a place which is likely
to be on the telephone, and as we shall appear to be—h’m!—holding
hands, I think we should have some story prepared to account for any
awkward questions.”
“Oh, Mr. Mullins,” exclaimed his companion delightedly, “it’s a
positive pleasure to crack a crib with you. You think of everything.”
Mr. Priestley, who was also of the opinion that his strategy was not
too short-sighted, blushed modestly. It was on the tip of his tongue
to reveal the fact that he was not Mr. Mullins at all, but a private
citizen of hitherto unblemished reputation, but foreseeing
embarrassing queries as to the exact identity of the hitherto
blameless citizen, he chose the path of prudence. Mr. Priestley had
always been jealous of his good name, and it looked as if he would
need in the near future all the jealousy he could muster.
“And you don’t look like a burglar a bit,” continued the girl warmly.
“No wonder they call you Gentleman Joe. I must get you to tell me some
time about that time when you stole the Countess of Kentisbeare’s
diamonds, disguised as a dumb waiter, and knocked out two policeman
and the butler. Ah, yes, you see I know all about you. These things
get round the underworld. By the way, do you work on cocaine or
morphia? Personally I always use strychnine; a little strychnine in
half a tumbler of soda makes me feel capable of anything. That’s how I
escaped from Sing-sing, as you’ve probably heard.”
“Erh’rrrrrm!” coughed Mr. Priestley, somewhat uneasy at the technical
turn of the conversation; he did not feel yet quite up to a
professional chat with this nefarious young woman. “Yes, yes, of
course. Now what about moving on? How are we going to dispose
ourselves?”
“Well, if you don’t want to kneel on the floor,” said the nefarious
young woman regretfully, “I’m very much afraid you’ll have to stay
where you are. I’ve been thinking, and I really can’t see any other
way.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Priestley, without joy. He brightened as an idea
occurred to him—a wicked idea, quite in keeping with all his other
devilry. He spoke in an exceedingly airy way. “How would it do,” said
Mr. Priestley very airily, “if I sat where you’re sitting, and you
sat—er—on my knee?”
“I’d love to sit on your knee, Mr. Mullins,” said the young woman
frankly. “It would be great fun. But unfortunately I couldn’t drive
the car at the same time, you see; I couldn’t reach either the pedals
or the gears. Besides, it is rather a whole-time occupation, isn’t it?
Which do you think is the more important?”
From the slightly mocking tone in her voice Mr. Priestley understood
that his wickedness had been unmasked. “Yes—er—quite so. Then perhaps
we had better go on as we are. But this time,” he added in heartfelt
tones, “please don’t drive quite so fast.”
They went on, at a pace round but reasonable.
This time rational converse was more possible.
“Where are we going?” asked Laura, who had been taking a mild pleasure
during the last three miles in changing her gears as often as
possible, causing Mr. Priestley each time to dive hurriedly over the
side of the car as if trying to catch crabs in a pool.
In the intervals of diving, Mr. Priestley had been debating this
question with some anxiety. So far as he could see there was only one
course open to them. It was a course which he did not choose with any
degree of eager gladness, but he could find no other.
What was in Mr. Priestley’s mind was the plain fact that for two
people, linked together by an obviously official pair of handcuffs, to
call in at the village blacksmith’s and request the use of a file was
to invite suspicion—more, to stand up and loudly demand suspicion.
However simple a village blacksmith may be expected to be, there are
some things which become obtrusive to the most half-witted mind, and
of these, handcuffs take pride of place. Naturally Mr. Priestley had
cast about for a plausible story to explain away these awkward
ornaments, but it is surprising how thin the most plausible story
explanatory of handcuffs can sound.
No; the thing to do was to stop ostensibly for some other reason, and
to demand a file by way of an afterthought or make-weight. And where
could the complement of a two-seater more reasonably stop than at a
wayside hostelry, demanding food? To ask for a file in order to effect
a minor adjustment to the car’s interior while the meal was being
prepared, was the most natural thing in the world. Almost anybody can
stop at a wayside hostelry and order a file with his dinner without
incurring the slightest suspicion.
Mr. Priestley communicated the sum of his reflections to his
cuff-mate.
To his relief she gave a ready assent.
With some trepidation he went on to elaborate his theme.
“And—er—touching the story we ought to have ready,” he went on with
painful nonchalance, “I think it would be best if we pretended to
be—that is, if it came to the point when it was advisable to—er—to be
anything, so to speak—I think we had better—that is to say, I _feel_,”
said Mr. Priestley with a good deal of earnestness, “that we should
pretend to be—h’m!”
“I give it up; what’s the answer?” remarked the young woman, hurriedly
changing her gear.
Mr. Priestley caught a crab and returned to the surface. “An—an
eloping couple!” he gulped. “A—a honeymoon couple,” he amplified, “who
have eloped.”
Once again Mr. Priestley was charmed and relieved at the way in which
his companion received his suggestions. “Oh, good!” she exclaimed.
“What a brilliant idea! You mean, because we shall have to hold hands
whenever any one’s looking at us?”
“That’s right,” beamed Mr. Priestley, who had meant that very thing,
but had not quite liked to say so. Mr. Priestley was a man of very
delicate susceptibilities.
“And look!” cried the girl, checking the car’s speed so abruptly that
Mr. Priestley was all but thrown off his perch. “Look, isn’t this an
inn just here? Yes, I’m sure it is. We’ll put our fortunes to the test
this very moment.”
She came to a halt a few yards past the house in question, and got out
of the car, Mr. Priestley following her politely in over the side and
out through the door.
They approached the house and tried the front-door. It was locked.
Over their heads an inn-sign creaked, but no life was visible. The
windows were black masses and no sound could be heard. His heart
bumping strangely, Mr. Priestley rang the bell. Nothing happened. He
rang it again. Then he knocked, loudly.
A window above his head opened and a large voice asked him what he
wanted.
Somewhat apologetically Mr. Priestley intimated that he would like a
little nourishment.
Without any signs of apology the large voice told him very plainly
that he could not have any, that couldn’t he see the place was closed,
and what did he think he was doing, knocking respectable people up at
that hour? Before Mr. Priestley could reply, the window was closed
with a bang of finality.
“So now,” said Mr. Priestley with unabated optimism, “we’d better try
somewhere else.”
They tried a little farther down the road. The village in which they
had now discovered themselves to be, possessed, as do all
self-respecting villages, one public-house to every three private
ones. There were six houses in the village, and an inn at each end.
They repeated the procedure at the second one.
They went on repeating it.
“I’m all in favour of early hours for our rural population,” observed
Laura with some feeling, as Mr. Priestley beat his fifth tattoo on the
door, “but this seems to me to be overdoing it.” And her teeth
chattered slightly for the night was getting cold, as early April
nights will. She began to think rather longingly of her snug little
bed, now some thirty odd miles away, and in an unknown direction.
Mr. Priestley, who had been introducing some pleasing variations on
his solo on the front door (an unmusical instrument at the best of
times) by a few tasteful effects in bell-ringing, now added to his
orchestra the human larynx. “Hi!” chanted Mr. Priestley. “Hi! Ho! Oi!”
The reply was speedy, if not all that could be desired. It took the
form of a pitcher of cold water and it was directed with equal
accuracy at both the musician and his attendant.
“Well, I’ll be _damned_!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, and the intensity
of his feelings may be gauged from the fact that this was the first
expletive he had employed during the whole of this memorable evening.
“Tl break the door down after that. I’ll—I’ll——”
“Perhaps that’ll learn you to stop your monkey-tricks, Joe Pearson,”
observed an irate female voice, not without a certain satisfaction.
Once more a window was forcibly closed.
“I’m drenched,” said Laura, quite calmly. “Are you?”
Her casual tone impressed Mr. Priestley. She might have been remarking
that the evenings were beginning to draw out now. He began to see how
this young woman had risen to such an eminent height in her
profession.
“Oh, quite,” he answered, striving to imitate her nonchalance. “H’m,
yes, quite. Er—I wonder what we’d better do now.”
“Well, I think we’ll move away from here first. She may have a bath
handy, mayn’t she?”
Somewhat depressed, they made their way back to the car. The desire to
borrow a file in our rural districts is apparently attended by the
most unforeseen results.
“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” said the indomitable Mr.
Priestley. “We must try somewhere else.”
As they scrambled mournfully aboard Laura began for the first time
seriously to contemplate giving up the whole thing. The tables had
been turned on her. She had gone forth in the lightness of her heart,
and she had been received with cold water. She felt she had a more
than ordinarily big grievance against the wielder of that pitcher. Why
couldn’t the idiot have seen that she was having a glorious rag with
Mr. Priestley and played up accordingly? It was most annoying. And now
she was wet through, chilled to the bone, and very hungry, her teeth
were chattering, her hands were cold, and she didn’t like handcuffs
one little bit. Why not chuck the whole silly joke (as it was now
quite plainly displaying itself to be) and go back to warmth, comfort,
and files? Guy would have squared that blundering policeman by this
time, and the coast would be clear. Her heart began to rise from its
gloom.
Then it sank abruptly. Home was thirty certain miles away, and unknown
miles at that—probably sixty before they had finished losing their
way. At least two hours, if not more. And in two hours’ time, in the
present state of things, Laura had no doubt she would be a solid block
of ice, and still handcuffed to another block of ice. Oh, _drat_!
“Well, where are we going?” she asked quite peevishly as they left the
ill-omened village behind them.
Mr. Priestley was surprised at the peevishness. It did not harmonise
with the height of the profession. Also he mildly resented it. It was
as if she were blaming him for that confounded water.
“Te try our luck somewhere else, I suppose,” he replied almost tartly.
“Unless you can think of a better plan?” he added nastily.
It was on the tip of Laura’s tongue to reply that she certainly could
not have thought of a worse one, but she refrained. She was just a
girl, and she did realise that Mr. Priestley had not emptied that
water over himself and her on purpose. She said nothing.
They drove on in moody silence.
“A file!” cried Mr. Priestley to his immortal soul. “My bachelor flat
for a file!”
“A fire and food!” rose Laura’s silent wail. “This whole silly joke,
and all future rights in hoaxing the Police Force, for fire and food!”
They drove on and on and on.
And then, almost at the last shiver, their luck turned. Looming up out
of the darkness was another unmistakable inn, this time not in a
village but standing alone on the high road. A delectable inn, it
seemed, set back just a little from the highway and with—oh, ineffable
joy!—a brilliantly lighted upper window. Hope once more bubbling up in
their chilled bosoms, the adventurers disembarked.
Mr. Priestley’s very first knock brought hurrying footsteps.
“Who—who’s there?” asked a somewhat quavering feminine voice from
inside.
Mr. Priestley was so delighted to hear tones of anxiety rather than
abuse that he bestowed on the hand which he was already prudently
holding, an involuntary squeeze. The hand squeezed back. Its owner had
sensed beautiful warmth and delectable food on the farther side of
that door and she was ready to squeeze anything. The thought of dry
warmth and food was already making Laura feel her own girl again.
“Friends!” said Mr. Priestley briskly. “I mean, travellers. Can you
give us something to eat, and———” He checked himself. It might be
suspicious to touch upon the subject of files quite so soon, “—and
drink,” he amended.
There was the sound of bars unbolted and creaking locks and the door
swung open. Framed in the doorway against a background of warm glowing
red was a small woman of late middle-age, her features beaming joyous
welcome.
“Well, there!” said the small woman. “And I thought it might be
robbers. What with my husband being away and me alone in the house, as
you might say, Annie not counting one way or the other, I was just
beginning to get that scared. Couldn’t bring myself to go to bed; I
couldn’t! And then when you knocked, ‘They’ve come!’ I said to meself.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it mightn’t be, after all. P’raps I’d better see.’
But I was trembling like a leaf as I came down the stairs, and then——”
“Er—did you say your husband is away?” Mr. Priestley broke in upon
this harangue. Somehow, it made him feel very happy to learn that the
small woman’s probably large husband was away. And Annie, it appeared,
did not count one way or the other.
“Yes, that he is,” replied the small woman volubly. “First time he’s
slep’ away from me for nigh on fifteen years, but business is
business, he said, and—— But what am I doing, keeping you on the
doorstep? Come in, sir, you and your lady. And a blessing it is to see
you, I _will_ say. I like a man in the house at nights, I do. You’ll
be wanting a bedroom, of course. Well, there’s one all ready. Clean
sheets and pillow-cases on this morning, I put, just in case. One
never knows, does one? And some food, you said? Well, there’s only——”
“We shan’t want—er—a bedroom,” Mr. Priestley interrupted again, “We
shall be going on again. We just want some food—anything, it doesn’t
matter what—in a private sitting-room, and—er—a file. Our car has
something wrong with it,” explained Mr. Priestley earnestly, “and
we’ve run out of—I mean, we want a file. Have you got a file?”
“Well, yes, sir, I think so,” said the little landlady rather
doubtfully. “If you and your lady will just come inside, I’ll run and
look in the box my husband keeps his tools in. And a sitting-room?
Well, there is a sitting-room, of course, but seeing what a cold night
it is wouldn’t you rather have something by the kitchen fire? Not if
you wouldn’t like it, of course, and there’s plenty that wouldn’t; but
just step in, sir, and——”
“No,” said Mr. Priestley firmly. “We won’t come in yet. We’re very
anxious to get our car repaired first. If you’ll get us the file at
once, we can be getting on with it while you’re laying our supper.
Don’t you think so—er—my dear?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Priestley’s newly adopted dear. “And we’ll have
our supper in the kitchen, I think, darling,” she added with a large
shiver. She had not spoken before, because she was curious to see how
Mr. Priestley would handle things, but she was not going to leave that
fire to chance.
Mr. Priestley blushed pleasantly at this wifely endearment and
coughed.
“Very well,” the landlady acquiesced. “I’ll get you the file at once
then and your supper will be ready in ten minutes. But wouldn’t the
lady like to come in and get warm while you’re doing the motor, sir?”
“Oh, no, thank you,” Laura explained gravely. “My husband always likes
me to hold the car for him while he’s doing anything to it.”
The landlady looked upon this charming couple, holding hands
affectionately on her very doorstep, and her heart warmed towards
them. Obviously they were very much in love, and probably quite
recently married. The glamour of their romance threw itself round her
own thin shoulders.
“Very well,” she said again, this time with a particular smile for
Laura’s benefit—the smile which an elder married woman bestows upon a
newly married one who, though a stranger, is yet one with her in the
freemasonry of the married woman. It means: “So now _you_ can see
through the funny old things too!” And still smiling, the little
landlady scurried off in search of a file.
“At last!” breathed Mr. Priestley on the doorstep.
“We’ll s-soon be warm n-now,” chattered Laura. “Is pneumonia _very_
unp-pleasant, Mr. Mullins?”
Evidently the absent landlord possessed a proper feeling for the
emergencies of life. In one minute his wife returned, an unmistakable
file in her hand.
“There you are, sir,” she beamed. “It’s the only one. Will it do?”
Mr. Priestley took it in a quivering grasp. “Oh, yes,” he said. “It’ll
do. Thank you.”
As they vanished hastily from her sight the landlady contrived to
throw another understanding smile at Laura. This smile said, as
eloquently as a smile may: “We have to humour them, don’t we? You and
I know better than to go playing with files, but if they like it—well,
bless their funny old hearts! Let them enjoy themselves.” It was a
very eloquent smile indeed.
The next moment the two were safely round the corner in the shadows,
the precious file gripped tightly in Mr. Priestley’s chilled hand. He
set to work on a link of the chain which held the two cuffs together.
Their position was not an easy one and the rasping of the file chafed
both their wrists unpleasantly, but it was no time to worry over
little things like that.
Ten minutes later he was still working. But by now he was nice and
warm.
Laura, on the other hand, was still cold, and getting colder every
minute.
“Is it going to take a dreadful time?” she asked at last, her lips
blue and her teeth chattering volubly.
Mr. Priestley desisted from his efforts. He felt the file with his
fingers and then, confirming a horrid theory, held it up against the
light from the window. “I’m afraid it is,” he said dolefully. “At
least, with this file. You see, the steel of the handcuffs is
evidently harder than the file. What is happening is that the cuffs
are filing away the file.”
“Oh!” said Laura, and thought unprintable things.
“And she said it was her only one,” remarked Mr. Priestley morosely.
“_Damn_ that policeman!” he added with sudden vehemence.
They stared at one another.
“Well, anyhow,” said Laura, “I’m not going to step outside any longer.
I’m going in. You can tell the landlady anything you like—that we did
it for a bet, or that we only got married this morning and the
clergyman put them on by mistake instead of the ring. I don’t _care_.
I’m going in to that fire. Come on!”
Mr. Priestley, having no option except brute force, came.
The landlady was still bustling about in the kitchen as they entered
her presence, walking delicately and with hands still affectionately
clasped. Under their coat-sleeves the handcuffs nestled out of sight.
“Well, sir, have you mended your motor?” asked the little landlady
cheerfully, adding in the same breath, “Your supper’s quite ready. If
you want me, just call up the stairs. I know you’d like to be alone,
wouldn’t you?” This was said with an arch smile, to which both her
guests failed signally to respond.
“Thank you,” mumbled Mr. Priestley. “Thank you.”
A solicitous look replaced the arch expression on the kindly little
woman’s face. “Why, good gracious me!” she exclaimed in horror.
“You’re wet through, both of you!”
Mr. Priestley moved uneasily. “Yes,” he muttered. “A—a little bit,
yes. We—er—ran into a storm.”
“Well, you can’t have your supper like that, and that’s a fact,” said
the landlady with unwelcome decision. “You just slip your wet things
off and put them to dry in front of the fire, and I’ll run up and get
you each a nice warm coat or something. You’ll catch your death of
cold if you’re not careful.”
Mr. Priestley’s uneasiness became more pronounced. It also says much
for Laura’s state of mind that she had not to trouble to hide a smile.
Laura was not feeling very like smiling at the moment.
“Oh, I—er—please don’t bother,” said Mr. Priestley hastily.
“We’re—we’re not a bit wet underneath, thank you. We’ll just have our
supper, and then we’ll be getting along; and we can dry ourselves
quite nicely by the fire as we are. We’ll call you if we want you,” he
added with sudden firmness, noticing signs of voluble expostulation
appearing in the landlady’s face.
His firmness was rewarded. She retired. With obvious reluctance, but
she did retire.
“This is a nice state of things,” muttered Laura, in tones that were
only just not accusing. Laura’s sense of humour was succumbing at last
to the severe shocks it had been receiving.
It was on the tip of Mr. Priestley’s tongue to retort with tartness
and truth that she had only herself to blame for it, but he desisted.
Instead he said: “Well, _you_ haven’t killed a man.”
If she could have thought that it would help the situation in any way,
Laura would have retorted: “Well, neither have you, you silly little
man! You’ve been hoaxed, if you want to know.” But she could not see
that it would be the least use to her. Besides, why should she do all
the suffering? Let him think what he did think, and be as worried
about it as he liked. She had, furthermore, not the least wish to hear
Mr. Priestley pointing out that the hoax seemed to have recoiled on
its perpetrator’s head.
“Well, let’s have some food anyhow,” she said ungraciously, “we’re
both in the same box.”
“And the same handcuff,” replied Mr. Priestley humorously, striving to
cheer things up.
Laura did not smile.
They held the bread together, while Mr. Priestley cut it. The meal
began in silence.
It continued mostly in silence too. Any necessary remarks were
exchanged curtly. Only once did either of them give way for a moment,
and that was when Laura’s intention to drink her cocoa coincided with
Mr. Priestley’s desire for more butter. The result was that Laura’s
cocoa plunged hastily into her lap, where it mingled with the water
that had already found its billet there. She drank Mr. Priestley’s
cocoa instead, on that gentleman’s firm insistence, but it did not
really appease her.
When they had finished they steamed gloomily in front of the fire for
a space. Their garments hung clammily upon them.
There is nothing like clamminess to bring out the worst in a man or
woman. Mr. Priestley felt clamminess invading his very soul, and the
more clammy his outer person became the more sore he felt inside. Here
had he, a respectable citizen, been inveigled by this abandoned and
now thoroughly distasteful young woman (_had_ he really at one time
for a fleeting moment thought her charming? Had he _really_?) into an
attempt at barefaced robbery, he had killed a man for her sake, he had
locked a policeman in a cupboard, he had rescued her from an extremely
awkward set of circumstances so that she was indebted to him not only
for her liberty, but possibly for her life as well—he had done all
this, and what was his reward? To have his hot cocoa drunk for him,
and be snapped at for offering it! Life looked a gloomy proposition to
Mr. Priestley.
“I suppose you’ve tried to wriggle your hand out?” he asked, when the
silence had threatened to become too embarrassing.
“Am I a complete fool?” asked the lady shortly.
The question had certainly not been a very brilliant one, but then
neither was the answer tactful. Mr. Priestley’s reply was still less
so. He did not say “Yes!” because that would have been rude; he just
said, quite politely, “That remains to be seen.”
Laura snorted.
The snort seemed to nerve Mr. Priestley. He started slightly, looked
at his companion, and then strode towards the door. Laura followed
him. Mr. Priestley, radiating stern decision like the men wearing
electric belts in the advertisements, flung open the door and called
up the stairs.
“Mrs. Errh’m!” called Mr. Priestley. “I’ve changed my mind. We’ll have
that bedroom of yours after all. Will you take some hot water along
there, please?”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir, certainly, sir,” floated down from above.
Laura flung the door to and stared at this new version of Mr.
Priestley. It was as if she were trying to look through his head to
see the horns which must be sprouting there, and his boots for the
cloven hoofs which must be hidden inside them. Her face grew
interestingly crimson.
“How—how _dare_ you?” she gasped. “Are you a complete cad?”
Mr. Priestley grew crimson also. “What on earth’s the matter?” he
snapped. “You’re not making a fuss about a little thing like that,
surely? _You_, of all people!”
Laura continued to gasp, this time speechlessly.
“If it’s your reputation you’re thinking of,” nastily continued Mr.
Priestley, who really was extremely annoyed, “it’s a pity you didn’t
think of it long ago, before you took to thieving. Reputation, indeed!
Fine reputation you’ve got, haven’t you? The cleverest woman thief in
the world, indeed!” It must be admitted that there were no excuses for
Mr. Priestley, but no man likes being called a cad, and Mr.
Priestley’s horizon at that moment was bound with red; moreover, he
was in an acute state of nerves. He had, you must remember, killed a
man; and a thing like that is liable to upset the most equable of
temperaments.
Laura opened her mouth, but no words came. Perhaps because there were
none to come.
“But I see through you by this time,” Mr. Priestley went on, lashing
himself as he went. “You took me in at first with your pathetic story
about stolen letters, but you don’t take me in again, young woman!
You’re a hypocrite, and that’s the long and the short of it. At one
moment butter won’t melt in your mouth, at the next you’re tricking me
into shooting a perfectly innocent man. It’s my belief that you knew
the whole time that that revolver was loaded. And if you think,”
concluded Mr. Priestley with incredible ferocity, “that I’m going to
let your hypocritical pretences of morality and reputation jeopardise
my safety, you’re making a very large mistake, young woman!”
It has been said that only once in her life had Dora Howard met her
match, and the consequences were drastic. The same important event had
now happened to Laura, and the consequences were designed to be, in
their own way, no less drastic. For the moment, with every
light-hearted word of her own recoiling heavily against her and
completely bereft of all argument or reasonable basis of
expostulation, she could do nothing but stand, very white-faced now
instead of crimson, and gasp in silence.
Into this pause floated again the voice of the landlady. “I’ve taken
the hot water along, sir. Are you coming up now?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Priestley grimly, flung open the door once more and
began to mount the stairs.
Willy-nilly, Laura went with him.
Chapter VII.
Inspector Cottingham Smells Blood
If anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve
o’clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt
to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important
newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been
provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would
have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly,
notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be
concocted in cold blood.
One does not remark casually over one’s second cup of tea: “By the
way, you people, an idea’s just occurred to me for hoaxing the British
Broadcasting Company rather neatly. Anybody care to give me a hand? I
shall tell them, you see, that I’ve got a trained rabbit that gives
organ recitals, and . . .” Certainly not. But give the average
law-respecting Briton (which Guy was not, nor yet Mr. Doyle, but
George was) a modicum of sound alcohol to titillate his sense of
humour into a slightly perverted form, taunt him through the mouth of
one friend with inability to carry the thing through, egg him on
through the lips of another to show the stuff he is made of, and smile
at him through his wife’s eyes as if to say, “Dear old Guy! Oh yes, my
dear, he often _talks_ like this—but bless you, he’d never _do_
anything. Oh, dear no!”—do these things to him, and then be very
careful not to answer for the consequences. For consequences will
certainly occur. In cold blood George would never have considered that
he possessed any corpse-imitating properties at all.
At twelve o’clock, then, two people stood in Guy’s drawing-room and
dithered; two others watched them happily. The ditherers were the
constable, who had been keeping it up for the last hour, and Mr.
Foster. These two victims of the modern cinema were being watched by
Guy himself, with critical appreciation of their efforts towards his
ends, and by Inspector Cottingham, of the Abingchester Police.
Inspector Cottingham was a fatherly man, with a large walrus
moustache, and he was very, very happy. He had not only smelt blood,
he had actually seen it. He had, not to disguise the truth, gloated
over it. Blood very seldom comes the way of a country Inspector of
Police.
Inspector Cottingham however, had been blessed above most country
Inspectors, for this was the second time blood had come his way. Many,
many years ago, when the Inspector had been a mere Sergeant, a small
village outside Abingchester had startled the placid neighbourhood by
becoming the scene of a particularly brutal and mysterious murder, and
Sergeant Cottingham had taken the matter in hand. To the admiration of
the neighbourhood, and the intense surprise of his superior officers,
the Sergeant, by a series of brilliant deductions, had followed an
obscure trail to the person of the murderer, who, sharing the
astonishment of the Sergeant’s superiors, had been so taken aback as
to confess at once to the crime.
This confession was very fortunate for the Sergeant. It obviated all
necessity to produce the person of a certain Ethel Wilkinson, a
labourer’s daughter, who had actually seen the murder committed, had
told the Sergeant all about it, and had pointed out to him the clues
which had so won the Chief Constable’s admiration—a series of facts
which the Sergeant had prudently concealed. Ethel Wilkinson, who had
no wish to be mixed up in such a sordid affair and help to put a rope
round a fellow-creature’s neck, had been grateful to the Sergeant for
keeping her name out of it and had never breathed a word of her
knowledge from that day; the Sergeant had been no less grateful to
Ethel Wilkinson. The Chief Constable, sharing in the general
gratitude, had come to the conclusion that he had misjudged a very
sound man and had caused the Sergeant to be promoted, by way of some
small reward, to the rank of Inspector. Ever since then Inspector
Cottingham had naturally been the district’s sage and authority where
the science of criminal detection was concerned.
He was now once more in his element, trying to obtain something
remotely approaching a connected story from the two chief witnesses.
He was an optimistic man, and he had no doubt that somebody must have
seen the murder committed once more.
Guy’s story he had heard already. That was simplicity itself. Guy had
been summoned away immediately after dinner by a note purporting to
come from an old friend of his who had just taken a house a few miles
away. He had gone off at once in the car with his wife, and after
spending nearly three hours in trying to find the house had come to
the conclusion that the address did not exist at all. He had thereupon
returned. In the course of his journeying the note had most
unfortunately been thrown away in disgust. Mrs. Nesbitt had
corroborated these particulars and then retired, somewhat hurriedly
(but that was hardly surprising), to bed. Cynthia, in fact, had chosen
the path of prudence rather than bravado. Otherwise there would have
now been three ditherers in the drawing-room instead of two. Cynthia
was very decidedly alarmed—and she was a poor liar.
“Be quiet, you, Graves!” bellowed Inspector Cottingham, rounding
suddenly with portentous authority upon his underling. “I’ve heard
what you’ve got to say, and the less you talk about it the better; it
don’t do you much credit, when all’s said and done. And how on earth
do you expect me to understand what this gentleman’s trying to tell
me, if you will keep on about that blessed cupboard? I’m sick and
tired of that cupboard.” Inspector Cottingham was also a little
jealous of that cupboard, but he could hardly tell a subordinate that.
The cupboard, Inspector Cottingham could not help feeling, was the
place where somebody ought to have contrived that he himself should
have been the whole time, if the game had been played according to its
proper rules.
“Now, sir, _if_ you please,” he added, turning back to Mr. Foster.
“The whole story right through, please, in your own words.”
Mr. Foster, who in any case had nobody else’s words in which to tell
his story, complied with alacrity. He was a tubby, rather red little
man, and at the moment he looked as if he were suffering from an acute
attack of apoplexy. His slightly prominent, pale-blue eyes stood out
farther than ever, his wide loose-lipped mouth gaped with the unspoken
words seeking egress, his sanguine countenance was mottled with
earnest perspiration. He swept himself along in the flood-tide of his
own speech.
Guy listened with puckish delight concealed beneath the grave
countenance proper to the occasion. His acquaintance with Mr. Foster
had not been long, but it had been very intense. Acquaintance with Mr.
Foster was like that. He pervaded as well as clung. One may dismiss
limpets with an airy gesture, one may disregard the crab affixed to
one’s toe, one may smile in an atmosphere of poison-gas; but one was
still unfitted to cope with Mr. Reginald Foster. And the desolating,
the heartrending, the utterly unforgivable thing was that Mr. Reginald
Foster meant so well. Give us malice, surround us with backbiters,
fill our house with blackguards; but Heaven defend us from the
well-meaning bore.
Mr. Foster spluttered on. He had a good story to tell, and he was
making the most of it.
“Crown Prince, eh?” interrupted the Inspector, now thoroughly genial
again. “Crown _Prince_?”
Mr. Foster nodded importantly. “That’s what she said, Inspector, yes.
Crown Prince.” The words slid smoothly off his tongue, like salad oil
off the poised tablespoon.
“Perhaps you misunderstood her, Foster,” put in Guy, who was not
feeling any too happy about the Crown Prince; he felt that to drag in
Royalty was really overdoing it a little.
“She _said_ Crown Prince,” persisted Mr. Foster. One gathered that, in
Mr. Foster’s opinion, what she said went.
“That’s right,” ventured the constable. “All covered with ribbons an’
things, he was. Medals, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Tl! take your statement later, Graves,” boomed the Inspector. The
constable retired.
“Crown Prince,” repeated Mr. Foster, with the air of one clinching a
point.
The Inspector was only too ready to have the point clinched. He
clinched it in his notebook. “Yes, sir?” he cooed. If a corpse and two
murderers make a sergeant, what does not a Crown Prince and a whole
gang make an Inspector? Besides, somebody was sure to turn up.
Mr. Foster continued, rapidly and with purpose.
“Man with the Broken Nose?” gloated the Inspector, and moistened his
pencil once more.
With reluctance Mr. Foster brought his story to a conclusion. As if he
had timed his entrance for the same moment (which, in point of fact,
he had) Mr. Doyle strolled casually into the room.
“Hallo, Nesbitt,” he said, as if not noticing the other three. “Saw
your lights on and your library windows open, so I walked over. Hope
you don’t mind. George wanted to know rather particularly whether you
could—but am I interrupting a conference or something?”
“Not a bit,” said Guy heartily. “Let me introduce you. Mr. Foster,
Inspector Cottingham—Mr. Doyle. You’ve just come at the right moment,
Doyle. The most extraordinary things have been happening here this
evening.”
“Really?” said Mr. Doyle with polite interest.
The Inspector’s frown had brightened, only to darken a moment later.
He tapped his pencil with his teeth. Evidently the new arrival was not
the person who ought to be turning up.
Guy hastened to put things on a different footing. “Mr. Doyle is
staying with our next-door neighbours,” he told the Inspector. “Just
the man you want to see. You’ll want to ask him whether they’ve seen
anything of all this business, won’t you?”
The Inspector, who had not thought of any such thing, brightened
again. Guy had spoken with such deference in the presence of the
expert that nobody could have taken offence. Instead, the Inspector
took the suggestion.
“That’s right, sir,” he agreed paternally. “I shall want to put a few
questions to Mr. Doyle in a minute.”
“Well, just give him an outline of the affair, Inspector, will you?
I’m going off to see if I can’t find a decanter of something. I think
the occasion requires it.” He went out of the room.
The Inspector, who had begun to look somewhat doubtful at Guy’s first
suggestion, changed his expression before the second one. Of course,
if they were all going to be friends together, as it were. . . . He
embarked on a brief résumé of the chief facts, as gleaned from his two
witnesses. Mr. Doyle commented fittingly.
When Guy returned Mr. Doyle was displaying the gifts which fitted him
for the exacting profession of journalism. “This is great, Inspector,”
he was saying warmly. “You’ve got the most magnificent opportunity
ever presented to an Inspector of Police. Properly handled, this
business is going to make your name for you.”
“It may do me a bit of good, sir, yes,” agreed the Inspector modestly,
wondering whether this engaging young man had ever heard of the
Garfield case, and if not, how he could tactfully enlighten him.
“Do you a bit of good! My dear chap, it’s going to make you famous.
And look here,” added Mr. Doyle very innocently, “I may be able to be
a little use to you. I’m a journalist, did you know? I can guarantee
you a couple of columns in _The Courier_, with your name splashed
about all over it. Nothing like publicity in a big London paper to
help a good man to get on, you know.” Mr. Doyle managed to convey the
impression that he had the editor and organisation of _The Courier_
attached to the end of a string, only waiting for him to jerk it.
The Inspector, who, less tactfully handled, might have repented of his
confidences on learning the newcomer’s identity, at once saw very
clearly that he need do nothing of the sort. More, he was able to
congratulate himself on his far-sightedness in making them. He was
quite well aware that important London newspapers can do a very great
deal for an able but unknown country policeman; quite well aware. He
accepted the offer, with dignified — careful nonchalance. Guy
interposed with interesting questions connected with the decanter and
siphon in his hands, and all was joy and loving-kindness.
“Extraordinary! Almost incredible!” remarked Mr. Foster, immediately
the conversation presented him with an opening for the insertion of
his own voice. “This affair is going to make the name of Duffley ring
throughout the length and breadth of the land, gentlemen.”
Mr. Foster was not unpleasantly aware that it would also make the name
of Mr. Reginald Foster reverberate in a similar manner. A happy old
age for Mr. Foster was assured, after a still more happy middle-age.
He saw himself for weeks on end surrounded by eager reporters, their
note-books at the ready; he saw his name familiar in men’s mouths as a
household word; he saw himself pointed out in the street for years to
come as “Oh, look, dear—there’s Reginald Foster! You remember—the man
who showed up so awfully well in that extraordinary business about the
murder of the Crown Prince of X at Duffley, years ago. They say he
goes to stay at the Palace every year on the anniversary. They say he
calls all the Royal Family by their Christian names. Of course he’s a
wonderful man, though. It was really he who got the murderers brought
to justice, you know. Yes, I believe there was a Police Inspector in
it, too, but, of course, it was Reginald Foster——” Mr. Foster’s
imagination ran blithely on, chased by its breathless owner.
“Indeed it is,” replied Doyle heartily. “I’ll see to that.” And he
looked at the Inspector as if to add that he would see that that
gentleman’s name rang in harmony with it.
The Inspector wondered harder than ever how to begin the enlightening
process.
“But who _is_ the Crown Prince?” demanded Mr. Foster earnestly.
“That’s what I want to know. _What_ Crown Prince? Now, it seems to me,
Inspector, that what you ought to do is to get on the telephone at
once to the Home Secretary, tell him what’s happened (I’ll corroborate
your story, of course), and ask him what Crown Princes are known to be
absent from their countries at the moment. Or perhaps the Foreign
Office would be better.
“Yes,” decided Mr. Foster, “I think it should be the Foreign Office.
Why, who knows what this may lead to? It may be another Serajevo! It
may precipitate another European war! Goodness knows what may not
happen. We must be very discreet, gentlemen,” said Mr. Foster
weightily. “Very discreet indeed. But, of course,” he added
thoughtfully, “we should do nothing to interfere with the freedom of
the press. Undoubtedly a full story must be got through to _The
Courier_ at once. Why not get on the telephone to them at once, Mr.
Doyle? Yes,” concluded Mr. Foster handsomely, “urgent though our
business with the Foreign Secretary is, I do think we should
communicate with the press first of all.” He ceased, because the most
determined men must draw breath sometimes.
The Inspector eyed Mr. Foster with distaste. Mr. Foster did not appear
to realise that he was not the person in charge here. If Foreign
Secretaries had to be communicated with, then the police officer in
charge was the man to take the decision, not a mere outsider who
happened to be invested with a fortuitous importance as a mere
corroborative witness. The Inspector felt decidedly that Mr. Foster
showed every sign of becoming a thorn in his flesh. And what does one
do with thorns in the flesh? Pluck them out, of course.
“I must ask you, sir,” said the Inspector, with none of his usual
geniality, noting with pleasure that Mr. Foster in his excitement had
drained his glass, “I must ask you to go back to your own house now. I
have some important questions, of an ’ighly—h’m!—of a highly
confidential nature to put to Mr. Nesbitt here, and it won’t be in
order for you to be present. I will communicate with you,” said the
Inspector with dignity, “when I want you.”
Mr. Foster’s face fell with an almost audible thud. He expostulated.
The Inspector was firm. He implored. The Inspector was adamant. He
argued. The Inspector became peremptory.
And then Mr. Foster made a very bad move. He asked point-blank whether
Mr. Doyle, a real interloper, was to remain while he himself, of vital
importance to the case, was thus summarily dismissed; and he asked it
very rudely. Not content with this, in the same breath he accused his
antagonist of favouritism and threatened reprisals. He further added
his doubts regarding the Inspector’s knowledge of his own job.
The breach was complete. The hero of the Garfield case turned to his
underling and became very official indeed. With technical efficiency,
the remains of Mr. Foster were removed by the underling from the room.
“You’re not—you’re not going to arrest him, Inspector, are you?” asked
Doyle, when he had recovered from the fit of coughing which had caused
him to bury his face in his handkerchief. Guy’s features, it may be
remarked, had expressed absolutely nothing at all beyond sympathy with
a public servant in the execution of a painful duty.
“Not this time,” replied the Inspector with paternal regret. “But if
he comes interfering with me any more in the execution of my duties
and trying to teach me my own job—well, I’m not saying what mayn’t
happen.”
“Quite right,” agreed Guy gravely. “Perfectly correct. Have another
drink, won’t you?”
The Inspector graciously accepted this aid to the readjustment of
ruffled plumes.
Constable Graves, returning a trifle heated, a few moments later, also
consented to be soothed in a like manner. It would be too much to say
that Constable Graves had been sulking with his superior officer; it
would not be too much to say that he had been feeling a trifle
resentful. This was his little murder after all; it was he who had
been enclosed in the cupboard; it was his astuteness which had bidden
him lie low while the body was being removed, in order to collect
invaluable evidence—yet here was the Inspector taking the whole thing
into his own hands, bellowing at him as if he had been the actual
criminal, and not allowing him to put a word in edgeways! Constable
Graves felt he had legitimate cause for resentment. He had been able
to work some of it off upon Mr. Foster and now felt a little better. A
contemplation of the generous allowance of whisky which Guy poured
into his glass made him feel better still.
The police were not the only persons to view Mr. Foster’s retirement
with complacency. Mr. Doyle was also glad to see him go. The
enlistment of Mr. Foster’s aid had seemed a mixed blessing to Mr.
Doyle; certainly his testimony was useful in one way, in another it
was embarrassing. While feeling all proper respect for his fiancée’s
nimble exploitation of the situation, he did agree with Guy that the
introduction of a Crown Prince was overdoing things a little. Besides,
this man Foster was such a consummate ass that he might make trouble
out of sheer well-meaning enthusiasm.
Another matter was also in the forefront of Mr. Doyle’s mind. So far
he had only heard the Inspector’s version of the constable’s story,
and that astute man’s sojourn in the cupboard had been glossed over a
little hurriedly; Inspector Cottingham seemed to feel that his
subordinate’s ignominy in this connection was reflected to some degree
upon himself. Mr. Doyle was now anxious to put a few questions on this
subject to the principal actor.
Permission to do so having been craved of the Inspector with tactful
humility and graciously given, Doyle drew the constable a little
aside. Guy, seeing what was in the wind, at once engaged the Inspector
in earnest conversation. Doyle found himself with more or less of a
free hand.
“While you were in the cupboard, constable,” he began, “I suppose you
heard these people moving about when they took away the body, didn’t
you?”
The constable smiled benignly. Here, at any rate, was somebody who
took him and his cupboard seriously. He expanded, both metaphorically
and literally, hooking a thumb in the front of his belt as if to guard
against expanding too far. “Heard ’em, sir?” he repeated benevolently.
“Bless you, I _saw_ ’em!”
With a praiseworthy effort Mr. Doyle refrained from leaping violently
into the air. “The deuce you did!” he exclaimed, a little faintly.
“Er—_saw_ them, did you say?”
The constable was pleased with the evident impression he had made. He
expanded a little further still, to the imminent danger of his belt.
“Yes, sir, that I did. Through the key-hole. Saw em as plainly as I
see you this very minute.”
“That—that’s excellent,” said Mr. Doyle, wriggling uneasily under the
constable’s kindly eye. He plunged at a question that was burning a
hole in his tongue. “And—and do you think you would recognise them if
you saw them again?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the constable heartily. “Ho, yes,
I’d recognise ’em quick enough. Desprit villains they was too,” he
added with gusto.
Mr. Doyle was recovering his grip on himself. “That’s very important,”
he said gravely. “You had a good view of them then?”
“Well,” said the constable with some reluctance, “pretty good, that
is, sir. I couldn’t see ’em all the time, because of how the key-hole
was facing, if you see what I mean. Just now and then I saw ’em.
Pulling the body out, f’rinstance. On a mat, they did. Pulled him out
on a mat. Wouldn’t ’ardly believe it, would you, sir? Now, I wonder
why they did that.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Doyle in feeble agreement.
The constable ruminated. “Might just as well ’ave carried him. Not but
what he wasn’t a tidy weight. Big man, he was. Crown Prince they say,
don’t they?”
“So I hear. But look here, about these—er—villains, could you describe
them, do you think?”
“Near enough, sir. There was two of ’em, a big feller and a little
un’. One of ’em was big, you see, and the other wasn’t; well, little
you might call ’im. Undersized.”
“Little will do, I think. Yes?”
“They was wearing ’ats and coats, so I couldn’t see their faces not
too well, I couldn’t, but you could see they were foreigners.”
“Oh? How?”
“Because they were talking a foreign language,” returned the constable
with triumph. “That’s ’ow I knew they were foreigners. They were
talking a foreign language. There was a girl too.”
“A girl, eh?” said Mr. Doyle uneasily.
“Yes. I’d seen her before, of course, and let ’er slip through my
fingers, I’m afraid. She knew I was in the cupboard too, but she
didn’t know I was watching ’er. Funny thing, too, she’d taken off her
hat and furs and things. Now I wonder why she done that?”
“Perhaps she was hot. Er—I suppose you’d recognise her again, wouldn’t
you?”
“I would, and all,” replied the constable grimly.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Doyle, without conviction. This was a snag he
had not foreseen. He blessed himself for the happy piece of foolery
which had caused Nesbitt and himself to dress for their part and cover
their faces with the mufflers. In the meantime Dora would certainly
have to lie low till she got back to London.
“Now, sir,” the Inspector’s voice remarked in rolling tones. “Now, Mr.
Doyle, if you’ll come with me down the road to where you’re staying,
I’d just like to ask the members of the household there if they heard
anything. Mr. Howard, isn’t it? Who else is there?”
For the fraction of a second Mr. Doyle lost his head. “Nobody!” he
said swiftly.
To his guilty mind it seemed as if the Inspector’s eye became suddenly
less genial. “What, nobody else?” he said.
“Nobody!” repeated the guilty one firmly.
“No maids, even?”
Mr. Doyle drew a breath of relief. “No, no maids. Their maids come in
by the day. Mr. Howard and I were quite alone this evening.”
“Who keeps house for him, then?”
“Oh, his sister. Er—Miss Howard. But she’s away for the week-end.” Mr.
Doyle cocked an anxious eye at the door, to reassure himself that
Laura was not coming down the passage towards them at that moment,
complete with handcuff and accomplice.
“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better
come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here
now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered
where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during
the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a
valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”
As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said
quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle
nodded.
Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.
“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very
airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through to
_The Courier_, wouldn’t you?”
Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing up _The
Courier_, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if
possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without
divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining
exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up
to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one of _The Courier_’s
own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make
almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they
provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to
have been exceedingly buoyant.
Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent
one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he
was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the
house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch,
before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.
Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.
“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they
turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir. It’s
like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a
railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts
once. . . .”
Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.
Chapter VIII.
Two into One Will Go
The truth was that Mr. Priestley had suddenly given way to his
overwrought nerves. He had a perfectly sound reason for wanting to get
himself and his cuff-mate securely alone inside that bedroom, but when
he heard himself being called a cad, before he had even had time to
explain (if explanation were needed) that his intentions were strictly
honourable, the words had simply frozen on his lips. The mildest of
men will show signs of unrest on hearing the word “cad” directed at
themselves from the lips of a pretty girl, and Mr. Priestley, as he
had already proved to his own surprise, was apparently not the mildest
of men. His subsequent outburst, the cumulative result of desperate
anxiety manfully suppressed and blank horror, simply followed.
Before they had preceded the landlady into the charming pink-and-white
bedroom, on whose hearth a fire was already miraculously burning,
sanity had returned and he was mildly penitent for the freedom of his
speech. Not very penitent, however, for the sooner some one told this
obnoxious young woman a few home-truths, the better for the world in
general.
Affectionately hand-in-hand they stood, while the landlady rapidly
praised her room and apologised for it in the same breath, and, intent
on their respective thoughts, heard not a single word. Mr. Priestley
was now far too anxious regarding the outcome of the next few minutes
to feel more than a passing embarrassment concerning that outcome’s
setting; while as for Laura, that humorous young woman was still
wondering in a dazed sort of way exactly what unpleasant consequences
this ridiculous joke was going to bring upon her, and how on earth she
was going to avoid at any rate the worst of them.
It had struck her with some force that to tell the truth now, as a
last desperate resource, was simply to invite ridicule. The truth, in
fact, sounded thinner than the thinnest story she could possibly
invent—far less plausible than the one she had so proudly originated
in the tube train about twelve years ago. Mr. Priestley would only
take it as yet another of her endless subterfuges and hypocrisies, and
no doubt wax correspondingly drastic. It was a singularly chastened
young woman who clasped her companion’s hand with mechanical fingers
and turned a dull ear to the stream of the little landlady’s
volubility.
“I think you’ll find the bed comfortable, mum,” the little landlady
was now saying. “Not but what it mightn’t be newer than it is, but——”
“Thank you, I’m sure we shall find it comfortable,” put in Mr.
Priestley, whose one anxiety was to get the landlady out of the room
and the door locked behind her.
Laura started nervously. Had she been mistaken, or was there a ring of
grim triumph in Mr. Priestley’s voice? For about the first time in her
life Laura began to feel seriously frightened.
With growing alarm she found her right wrist twisted round to the
small of her back as Mr. Priestley put his arm about her waist and
drew her towards him. She flinched, but the pressure was inexorable.
Her knees feeling unpleasantly wobbly, she allowed herself to be
pressed affectionately to Mr. Priestley’s side. As a matter of strict
fact, all that Mr. Priestley wanted to do was to consolidate their
joint front in order to advance upon the landlady in phalanx-formation
and force her out of the room; but Laura did not know that. It was
occurring to Laura very vividly that _really_ one simply didn’t know
where one was with men; the Girls’ Friendly Societies must be right
after all; and she _had_ thought Mr. Priestley of all men could be
trusted.
By sheer weight of numbers Mr. Priestley succeeded in driving the
landlady to the door. The landlady did not wish to go at all. Beside
her natural desire to give her tongue a little trot after having had
nobody to exercise it for her since four o’clock that afternoon,
except Annie (who didn’t count one way or the other), she was much
enjoying the spectacle of this nice couple, so unaffectedly lover-like
even in her presence. Why, they never left go of one another for a
single instant! It was a sight for sore eyes, that it was.
Still, when two persons relentlessly advance upon a narrow doorway,
the third, and smallest, member of the trio must give way. “Well, if
you’ll put your things outside the door in a few minutes,” she
smilingly covered her retreat, “I’ll see they’re nice and dry for you
in the morning. And I’m sorry about you not having no luggage with
you, but I hope you’ll manage with what I’ve put out on the bed.
Good-night, then, mum; good-night, sir.”
“Good-night,” said Mr. Priestley, and feverishly shut the door on the
good woman. He did not scruple to turn the key in the lock.
With a sigh of relief he turned back into the room. A voluminous red
flannel night-gown, draped chastely over the end of the bed beside a
still more voluminous white flannel night-shirt, caught his eye for
the first time and he smiled absently. Somebody (he had not the
faintest idea who) must at some time have explained away their absence
of luggage, and this was the good woman’s reply. He smiled again.
Laura saw the smile and trembled. To her alarmed eye it was the smile
of gloating anticipation. Her already enfeebled knees sagged a little
further.
“And now,” said Mr. Priestley, “to business!” and he walked briskly
towards the bed. The way to the wash-stand, it may be remarked, took
him past the end of the bed.
It was the last straw. Unable to bear this final blow, Laura’s
long-suffering knees collapsed altogether. She tottered into a chair.
“Please!” said Laura faintly. “Don’t!”
“Why not?” asked the surprised Mr. Priestley, who only wanted to go to
the wash-stand.
“Because—because—well, surely you see.”
“Upon my soul, I don’t,” said Mr. Priestley, his eyes fixed longingly
on the wash-stand.
Laura coloured deeply. For a young woman who prided herself upon being
above all things modern she found herself horribly embarrassed.
“Well,” she said desperately, “it—it isn’t playing the game exactly,
is it?”
“Why ever not?” asked Mr. Priestley in astonishment.
There was an uneasy pause.
“You’re—you’re stronger than me, of course,” Laura pleaded in her most
heartrending tones. Laura had often employed these useful tones with
malicious intent; now she was using them in deadly earnest.
“You’re—you’re stronger than me, and you know I can’t very well cry
for help. You know I’m in your power, if you do use force, but——” Her
voice, trembling with real terror, died away. She moistened her dry
lips.
Mr. Priestley began to get annoyed. Here he was, anchored to a chair,
when he wanted to be at that wash-stand. What on earth had the
wretched girl got into her head now? It was the last hope. Did she
_want_ to go on wearing these damnable handcuffs?
“I shall certainly use force,” he said crossly, “if you persist in
being so unreasonable.”
“I’m not unreasonable!” Laura cried, her fear giving way to indignation
before this distorted view.
“Indeed you are,” said Mr. Priestley with legitimate irritation.
“Extremely unreasonable. What’s the point? Besides, to put the matter
on personal grounds, I’ve surely done enough for you to enable you to
do this little thing for me.”
“_Oh!_” Laura gasped. “_Little_ thing!”
“Besides,” said Mr. Priestley quite angrily, “it may not even be
successful.”
“I’ll see that it isn’t!” said Laura grimly, when she had recovered
her breath.
“But we must try it, at any rate. Now, please come along, and stop
being so absurd.” And grasping her wrist, Mr. Priestley pulled.
Her eyes sparkling stormily, Laura pulled back. Now that it had come
to the point, her fears seemed to have left her. She was just
furiously angry.
“I—I warn you,” she panted, “if you use force, you—you brute, I’ll
fight back. I’ll—I’ll——”
Mr. Priestley stopped pulling and looked at her with something like
despair. “But, good Heavens!” he exclaimed. “In the name of goodness,
_why_ don’t you want to?”
Laura also stopped pulling in sheer amazement. She could hardly
believe her ears. Could this absurd little man really be as incredibly
conceited as all that!
“You dare ask me that?” she demanded, her bosom heaving.
Mr. Priestley rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He had heard a lot
about the unreasonableness of women, but he had never heard anything
that came within a mile of this. “Surely it’s an obvious question,” he
murmured resignedly.
“Well, then, I’ll answer it,” Laura snapped. “Because I hate the sight
of you! Now are you satisfied?”
It was Mr. Priestley’s turn to look incredulous. Besides being grossly
unfair, considering all that had happened that evening, the answer
appeared to be that of a complete imbecile. “That seems a very strange
reason for wanting to go on being handcuffed to me,” he articulated.
“Good Heavens, I don’t want to go on being handcuffed to you! There’s
nothing I want less in the world, you—you beast! I—_oh!_” And Laura,
the devilish-minded Laura, terror of her brother and all who knew her,
buried her face in the crook of her free arm and burst into real tears
of mortification and alarm.
Mr. Priestley stared at her aghast. So far as he could see, this
extraordinary young woman had suddenly gone off her head. After
threatening to fight him if he tried their last resource for getting
rid of the handcuffs, she was now apparently weeping at the idea of
not doing so. Women, in Mr. Priestley’s mind at that moment, was
represented by one large question-mark.
Then suddenly suspicion invaded him. She had pretended to weep once
before, and that time he had been taken in, with horrible
consequences. Was it not highly probable that she was doing exactly
the same thing again, relying on its previous success? What could
possibly be her objection to his proposal. Mr. Priestley was unable to
understand, but whatever it was it must be swept aside. He was going
to be trifled with no longer.
With sudden determination he gathered the drooping body up in his arms
and pursued his interrupted journey.
“Oh, no!” moaned a despairing voice from somewhere near his left
shoulder. For a young woman who had just expressed her determination
to fight to the death, Laura felt remarkably limp. But Laura was limp.
For some strange reason the stuffing had been knocked out of her just
as suddenly as it had arrived. She could not at that moment have stood
up to a blue-bottle; and Mr. Priestley was far more formidable than
any blue-bottle. Perhaps the strain of the evening had told on her
more than she had realised; she was still cold, she was still clammy,
her nerves were in shreds and her food had only given her indigestion.
She felt like one of her own wet stockings.
“_No!_” she moaned again, but without hope.
Mr. Priestley set his teeth. It was a heartrending cry and it did make
him feel a brute not to be able to heed it, but really——!
He carried her swiftly to the wash-stand, set her on her feet and,
keeping a wary grip on her wrist, reached for the soap.
“Now then!” he said triumphantly, dipping it in the warm water and
doing his best to produce a serviceable lather with one hand.
Laura opened her eyes and watched him dazedly. He seemed to be washing
one hand in the hot-water can. It was probably very devilish, but its
exact purpose escaped her for the moment. He began to soap her own
inert hand.
And then, in a series of blinding flashes, Laura’s mind was
illuminated.
Her first coherent thought was overwhelming relief. Her next an
equally overwhelming, but less reasonable, anger. She stamped her
foot. “Is this what you were meaning all the time?” she asked
wrathfully. From her tone one might have deduced that she was
suffering a fearful disappointment, yet this was not really the case.
“Of course,” said Mr. Priestley in surprise, lathering vigorously.
“Then why on earth didn’t you say so?”
“But I did! Half a dozen times.”
“You didn’t!”
“Didn’t I?” Mr. Priestley’s surprise was genuine enough, but he was
much more interested at the moment in his experiment with the soap.
“But surely I told you downstairs? What else do you imagine I wanted
this bedroom for?”
Laura brushed away the remnants of her tears with an indignant hand.
It is seldom given to mortal man, and still less to mortal woman, to
feel quite so incredibly foolish as Laura did at that moment. She did
not appear to appreciate the privilege conferred upon her.
“_I_ didn’t know what you wanted it for,” she said, with feeble
pettishness.
“But didn’t you understand what I was wanting you to come and do?”
asked Mr. Priestley, but a little absently, for he really was
extraordinarily interested in that soap. One might say that at that
moment Mr. Priestley’s heart was in his soap. “What did you think I
wanted, then?”
“Something else,” said Laura curtly, looking out of the window and
feeling that she would begin to scream very loudly if Mr. Priestley
asked her one single more awkward question on this topic.
Fortunately her powers of self-control were not to be put to such a
drastic test. “There!” said Mr. Priestley, with mingled satisfaction
and anxiety. “I don’t think I can get it any more soapy than that.
Now, I’m going to pull. I’m afraid it may hurt you.”
“Hurt away!” said Laura grimly. She felt as if it was quite time that
somebody hurt her—as indeed it was.
Mr. Priestley proceeded to gratify her wishes.
“Oh!” squeaked Laura, hastily changing her mind.
“Hold on!” exhorted Mr. Priestley through set teeth. “It’s nearly
off!” He resumed his efforts.
There were two more squeaks, and many others nobly repressed, and then
two sighs of triumph.
“Well played, by Jove!” said Mr. Priestley, with the wondering
admiration of every male for a female who can stand up to pain without
flinching.
“Thank God!” said Laura, tears of agony in her eyes. “And thank you,
Mr. Mullins, too,” she added. It has already been mentioned that Laura
was a just girl. So she was, quite often.
As if with a common understanding they dropped into chairs and
relaxed. The next moment, with a more uncommon understanding, they got
up simultaneously, drew their respective chairs as close as possible
to the fire and relaxed again.
“And now,” said Mr. Priestley, beaming at his companion with
benevolent triumph through his glasses, “now what are we going to do?”
It was not the least of Mr. Priestley’s achievements that evening that
through all its hectic developments he had managed to keep his glasses
intact upon the bridge of his nose, even when travelling at forty-five
miles an hour in the teeth of a miniature blizzard.
Laura looked at him with something that was not quite respect, and not
quite affection, but somehow, contained the ingredients of both. Now
that he had succeeded in freeing her of that odious handcuff, and been
displayed, incidentally, as the complete little gentleman he was,
Laura’s feelings towards him had undergone yet another revulsion. At
one bound Mr. Priestley had recovered his proper place m her
estimation. Handcuffs are an excellent substitute for a time machine.
Laura had only known Mr. Priestley, as time is ordinarily reckoned,
for a paltry half-dozen hours; she felt as if she had known him
intimately for as many years. And he really was rather a dear!
Undoubtedly, Laura now decided once more, it was a shame to be hoaxing
him in this way, when the poor man was taking it all so desperately in
earnest. For the hundredth time, but for different reasons on almost
each occasion, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth,
nearly the whole truth, and hardly anything but the truth. For the
hundredth time she refrained. The continuance of the beam through Mr.
Priestley’s glasses decided her this time. It was borne in upon Laura
that in a way Mr. Priestley really was enjoying himself, at any rate
he was living Life with a capital L; and she felt that, after the good
turn he had just done her, he did deserve something better at her
hands than such an anti-climax as the truth would be. Besides, Laura
reminded herself more sternly, it was probably all exceedingly good
for him.
“What shall we do?” she repeated meekly. “Well, that seems to be for
you to say, Mr. Mullins. I’m rather in your hands, aren’t I?” And she
edged uneasily away from some of her clamminess and suppressed a
shiver.
Mr. Priestley noticed both movements. “Very well,” he said promptly.
“I want to have a talk with you, of course, but it’s no good running
the risk of pneumonia. You must get out of those wet clothes of yours.
I’ll go down to the kitchen and do the same.”
Laura approved of this programme, and intimated as much with some
warmth. She had never felt much drawn towards red flannel before, but
just at that moment red flannel appeared the ideal material for the
manufacture of night-gowns. Nice, warm, dry, _beautiful_ red flannel!
What could a girl want more?
Besides, she was not sorry to put off her talk with Mr. Priestley till
the morning. It would give her time to collect her thoughts, and Laura
felt that her thoughts needed a good deal of collecting. It was nice
of Mr. Priestley to take it so naturally for granted that he should
spend the night in the kitchen. How she had misjudged that blameless
man!
“And I wonder if the landlady could run to a dressing-gown?” said the
blameless man, gazing thoughtfully at the now empty handcuff dangling
from his left wrist. It wore something of a wistful air. So did Mr.
Priestley.
“I’ll ask her,” Laura said, jumping to her feet. She went to the door
and made the noises of a person requiring the presence of her
landlady, while Mr. Priestley hastily tucked his handcuff up his
coat-sleeve.
The landlady was enchanted with the idea of producing dressing-gowns.
She produced two, one with pride and one with apologies. The first was
of blue flannel trimmed with white lace; the other was of fairly pink
flannel trimmed with fairly white lace. Her husband, it appeared,
dispensed with such formalities as dressing-gowns.
By common female consent the pink dressing-gown was allotted to Mr.
Priestley. He clutched it, and snatched up his night-shirt.
“I shall be back, my dear,” he said with dignity, “in about five
minutes.” He had not the faintest notion how long a girl takes to get
herself out of wet clothes and into a red flannel night-gown, but five
minutes seemed a liberal estimate.
“Lor’, sir,” remarked the landlady with frank astonishment, “you’re
not going somewhere else to change your clothes, surely? Not after
I’ve lighted this fire for you and all?”
“Five minutes!” squeaked Laura at the same time. “But—but you’re not
coming back _here_, are you?”
Mr. Priestley looked from one to the other uneasily. The landlady eyed
them both with undisguised surprise. Laura, realising that she had not
said quite the right thing so far as the landlady was concerned, began
to blush gently, swore silently at herself for doing so, and blushed
hotly. The landlady’s kindly eye grew less kindly; it clouded with
suspicion. The demeanour of either Laura or Mr. Priestley at that
moment would have roused suspicion in a blind woman; their very
silence was eloquent.
“I suppose,” said the landlady very slowly, “that you two _are_
married, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Really!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, trying hard to simulate anger.
“Really, this is preposterous. I won’t——”
“Seeing,” pursued the landlady in the same tones, her eyes now glued
to Laura’s left hand, “seeing, I mean, as the lady isn’t wearing no
ring nor _anything_!”
This was not true. The modern girl does not wear very much, but she
does wear something. Laura was wearing several things, each damper
than the others.
A hundred despairing schemes flitted through Mr. Priestley’s mind. Now
that the handcuffs were off, there was no need for them to pretend
they were married. Should he say they were brother and sister? But
then that would look suspicious, and real suspicion was the very last
thing they wanted to arouse. There would certainly be an account of
the crime in the next morning’s papers, and then if their behaviour
gave the landlady any inkling that——
Laura’s laugh interrupted his frenzied thoughts. “I see,” said Laura
quite naturally, “that we shall have to tell you the truth. No, we’re
not——”
What Laura was going to say was never revealed, for with a despairing
cry Mr. Priestley flung himself against this piece of suicidal
short-sightedness. “No!” said Mr. Priestley loudly. “No, we _weren’t_
married—at this time yesterday. Now we are. You’re right, my darling,”
he went on rapidly, with the resource of desperation, “we must tell
Mrs. Er-er-h’rrm the truth. We’ve eloped! We—er—we were married at a
registry office this afternoon, with—with a key, you know. Not even
time to buy the ring. Oh, quite on the spur of the moment, it all was.
Ha, Ha! Er—ha, ha!” He laughed without mirth, and waited breathlessly.
“Well, _there_ now!” exclaimed the landlady, her clouds completely
dispersed. “Well, isn’t that romantic? With a key, now! I’ve heard
tell of that before. Well, well! Eloped, did you say? Now, that is
nice. You know, I _thought_ there was something, I did. Fancy that! I
always was a one for romance, meself. Of course you go down to the
kitchen then, sir. You’ll find it nice and warm in there and when you
come up again in ten minutes I’ll have your lady all tucked up in bed
and dry and warm as toast for you.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Priestley wanly, taking some pains to avoid his
lady’s eye.
“The poor lamb!” continued the landlady fondly, eyeing that now fuming
young woman with delighted fondness. “Catching her death of cold, and
all on account of shyness, as you might say. I used to feel like that
once with my Will, I remember, but bless you, miss—or—mum, I _should_
say—you’ll soon grow out of that.”
“Indeed?” said the lamb coldly. It was a very cold lamb.
“I think I’ll be getting downstairs, d-dearest,” mumbled Mr.
Priestley, intercepting a most unlamblike glance. “Er—so long.”
“Wait a minute, sir,” put in the landlady. “I know the very thing—you
must have a glass of my elderberry wine first. I’ll get some this very
minute. That’ll stop you catching cold, both of you. Bless me, why
didn’t I think of that before? Never mind, I’ll have it up in a
minute.” She whisked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
The lamb turned irately upon its good shepherd. “Why on earth did you
butt in with that absurd story? I’d just thought of a splendid way of
breaking the news to her that we aren’t married.”
“Yes, and ruining everything!” retorted Mr. Priestley, stung to
annoyance once more. In brief, snappy sentences he showed this obtuse
young woman exactly why it was necessary for the landlady to continue
in her delusion.
His argument was unanswerable. Without giving her whole case away
Laura was unable to pursue that particular line. Woman-like, she
instantly directed her irritation into a fresh channel.
“Well, now you can hardly sleep in the kitchen,” she snapped. “Where
_do_ you imagine you’re going to sleep, I’d like to know?”
“Where I always did,” Mr. Priestley snapped back. “In here.”
Laura looked at him with wide eyes. “Don’t be absurd, please. That’s
out of the question.”
“Anything else is out of the question,” Mr. Priestley said angrily.
“It’s you who are being absurd. What you don’t seem to understand is
that this is a question of life or death.”
Once again Laura was up against a brick wall. “Well, anyhow, you’re
not going to sleep in here. Kindly get that out of your head once and
for all. As soon as you’ve gone I shall lock the door.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Priestley grimly, “I shall break it in.”
They looked at each other stormily.
Upon this Pleasing domestic scene the landlady returned.
The constraint in the atmosphere was obvious, but the landlady did not
mind that. Quite natural, most excitingly natural, in the
circumstances. She dispensed elderberry wine with a generous hand. The
occasion called for a generous hand, and the landlady did not fail to
respond. Her hand was more than generous; it was prodigal.
“My best respex,” said the landlady happily, raising her tumbler,
unlike the other tumblers only a quarter full.
“Uh-huh!” replied Mr. Priestley, with a brave attempt at a smile, and
raised his tumbler. Mr. Priestley, as we have already seen, had a
Palate. Elderberry-wine does not harmonise with a Palate. Life seemed
very bleak at that moment to Mr. Priestley.
He swallowed three large gulps like the gentleman he was, then set his
half-empty tumbler down. At precisely the same moment, with an
astringent face, Laura was setting her tumbler down. Instantly the
landlady pounced on them and re-filled them to the brim.
“That’ll put you as right as rain,” she announced.
Mr. Priestley looked at her with deepened gloom. “It was very nice,”
he lied manfully. “Very nice indeed. But I think I won’t have any
more, really.”
“And catch your deathacold, sir, instead?” retorted the landlady. “No,
you drink that up, and you won’t have to worry about colds.”
“I don’t think I will, really,” Mr. Priestley wriggled. “I’ll be
getting along now and——”
“If I were you, mum,” the landlady informed Laura, “I should _make_
him. Mark my words, you’ll have him on your hands with the influenza
if you don’t.”
“I think you’re quite right,” Laura agreed, a malicious twinkle in her
eye. “Drink it up at once, _darling_!”
Mr. Priestley gazed at her with mute appeal.
“If I were _you_, mum,” the landlady added, “I wouldn’t let him go
down to change ’is clothes till he had drunk it.”
“Darling,” said Laura, “you don’t go down to change your clothes till
you have drunk it.”
There was no real reason why Mr. Priestley should not have said
loudly: “Bosh!” and walked out of the room. But he didn’t. He drank up
his elderberry wine.
Then he walked sadly to the door. Once he had a Palate. . . .
“Half a minute, sir,” remarked the landlady. “Your good lady hasn’t
drunk up hers yet.”
Mr. Priestley stopped short in his tracks.
“If I were you, sir,” observed the landlady with much enjoyment, “I
should make her drink it. You’ll have her on your hands for a week
with the influenza if you don’t, you mark my words.”
“_Darling_,” said Mr. Priestley in italics, advancing towards his
adopted wife, “_drink up your wine!_”
“I don’t think I will, really,” Laura murmured, backing uneasily,
“I—I’ve had enough.”
“I’m not going out of this room till you do,” said Mr. Priestley with
triumph.
The battle of wills lasted only two minutes, but two minutes can seem
a very long time. At the end of it, with a slightly dazed look in her
eyes, Laura drank up her elderberry wine. Laura had not had very much
practice in doing what she was told, and it did not come easily to
her.
Then Mr. Priestley went downstairs.
The landlady watched him go, carrying as he did with him
three-quarters of a pint of her elderberry wine, with a triumphant
eye. She felt that she had done her duty, and not only as an
anti-influenza specialist; she felt that this couple would be grateful
to her the next morning, and not only because their noses would not be
streaming. The landlady had brought seven children into the world in
her time, and she was an expert in many things beside influenza.
In the traditional way she proceeded to put the bride to bed.
Going downstairs with that uneasy young woman’s wet clothes, she found
the groom hovering nervously. With words of homely encouragement she
sent him flying upstairs with cheeks as red as his lady’s night-gown.
Mr. Priestley was proving himself to be a man of singular resolution.
There were few things in this world that he wanted to do less than
turn the key on the inside of that bedroom door; yet he knew the key
must be turned. He turned it.
From the centre of the pillow in the large bed a small face, framed in
sheet, regarded him with ill-concealed alarm. Even the sight of Mr.
Priestley swathed in his pink flannel and lace appeared to bring it no
joy. Two round eyes followed his every movement, and as he advanced
towards the bed the sheet that framed the face took on a tense
appearance beside either cheek, as if two small hands were gripping it
convulsively. The face did not speak, for the simple reason that its
owner was totally incapable of uttering a word. It is very difficult
to inaugurate a chatty conversation when your throat has gone quite
dry and your tongue has apparently affixed itself irrevocably to the
roof of your mouth.
Carrying his pink flannel with the dignity of a Roman in his toga, Mr.
Priestley halted beside the bed and stared down into the silent face
with a look that was almost grim. “And now, young woman,” he said, in
a voice which matched his look only too well, “I want an explanation,
if you please.”
Reader, have you ever drunk home-made elderberry wine? Not a pale
imitation, I mean, but the real, genuine, honest article? Have you
gone still further and imbibed a full three-quarters of a pint of it?
For, if you have, there is no need for me to explain. However, in case
your life has been empty and vain, I will point out that home-made
elderberry wine (the real, honest stuff) does practically nothing for
about a quarter of an hour. During that period it just sits and
ruminates. Then it makes up for lost time.
Suddenly the sheet on either side of Laura’s face relaxed. She smiled.
“Yes, I expect you do,” she agreed.
Mr. Priestley smiled too. “I certainly do.”
Laura laughed. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to ask for
one.”
Mr. Priestley laughed too. In the space of a few seconds the whole
thing seemed to have taken on a completely different aspect. It was
not a tragedy at all; it was—yes, utterly incredible but perfectly
true—really quite funny!
Laura seemed to find it funny too. Her laugh degenerated into a
giggle.
Mr. Priestley sat down on the bed. “Of course, you know I’m not that
man Mullins,” he stated rather than asked. How very obtuse of him
never to have realised that before! Of course she knew it. “When did
you begin to find out?”
“I knew all the time,” giggled Laura. “Oh, dear, this is ridiculous,
isn’t it?”
“Quite absurd,” grinned Mr. Priestley. “I’m afraid, by the way, that I
must have been rather a handicap to you this evening.”
“Not at all,” said Laura politely.
“You see, I’ve never associated with professional criminals before. My
name is——” A glimmer of sense returned to Mr. Priestley, and he
withheld that confidence.
Laura was giggling again. “You know, I’m not _really_ a professional
criminal,” she volunteered. “I’m quite honest. Is that a dreadful
disappointment?”
Mr. Priestley beamed. “No, are you really? That is a great relief, a
very great relief. That’s really a load off my mind. But in that
case—well, would you mind telling me the real truth about this
evening?”
But Laura, though disposed to giggle, had not quite lost her head in
her newly awakened sense of humour. She hastily searched her mind for
a tale that should relieve Mr. Priestley’s mind as much as possible,
without betraying her trust.
“Well,” she said slowly, “what I told you first of all was near
enough. I knew you weren’t Mullins, of course, but I was desperately
anxious for some one to help me, so I just pretended to think you
were. Besides,” she added severely, “I thought it would serve you
right.”
“I deserved it, I know,” agreed Mr. Priestley, but with no signs of
contrition.
“That man _has_ got some compromising letters of mine. He may have
some miniatures too; I don’t know anything about that. But you needn’t
let your conscience worry you about having shot him. He was a thorough
blackguard, and you never did a better thing in your life.”
“That’s a relief too,” murmured Mr. Priestley thoughtfully. “So far we
seem to have been too busy for my conscience to have recovered from
its shock, but doubtless I should have had a very bad time to-night if
you hadn’t told me that. You’re—you’re sure he deserved it?
Blackmailer, eh? If he was a blackmailer I’m not only not sorry,” said
Mr. Priestley defiantly, “I’m glad. I’ve always considered shooting
the only cure for blackmailers.”
“He was, yes. Oh, he deserved it all right; please don’t worry about
that. By the way,” Laura added curiously, “what were you going to do
about it? Had you formed any sort of plan?”
“Well,” Mr. Priestley, replied with diffidence, “I’d rather thought
(after you were safe, of course) of going to the police and explaining
the whole thing. It wasn’t murder, you see; only manslaughter. As it
is, I’m not at all sure that I shall do anything.”
“Don’t!” Laura said earnestly. “You can’t do any good, and you may do
a lot of harm. Besides,” she went on, looking down her pretty nose, “I
don’t really want to be brought into it, you know, as I certainly
should be if you went to the police.”
Mr. Priestley started slightly. “You! By Gad, yes; I was forgetting
about that. Of course you mustn’t be brought into it. Your husband
would never forgive you. And for that matter——” He coloured modestly.
“Yes?” Laura encouraged.
“Only that the circumstances are a little altered. I was looking on
you as a young woman without—well, without a reputation to lose; in
which case it wouldn’t matter a rap that you should sleep in this bed
and I on the sofa over there in the same room. As it is, of course——!”
Laura raised herself discreetly on an elbow and thumped a hard pillow
into a semblance of softness. “Yes?” she said almost nonchalantly.
“Well, I mean,” Mr. Priestley amplified, a little uncomfortably, “we
don’t want to add divorce to our other crimes, do we?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” Laura said brightly. “I’m not
really married. I only said that because I thought it would make you
readier to help me. Look, there’s no mark even of a wedding-ring.”
She extended her left hand and Mr. Priestley, in order to examine it
the better, held its slim fingers in his. When he put it down on the
bed again he continued to hold its slim fingers. Mr. Priestley was a
very absent-minded man.
But he was not a man of the world. A man of the world would instantly
have said all the pretty things which this new piece of information
should require. Mr. Priestley only said, rather blankly; “But don’t
you see, that’s almost worse. You’d be hopelessly compromised. Of
course I shall spend the night in the kitchen.” He looked a little
wistfully at the sofa near the fire. It was not the most comfortable
sofa ever made, but compared with a Windsor chair in the kitchen it
was Heaven.
“On a hard chair, in a draught?” Laura smiled lazily. Her cheeks were
a little flushed, for the honest elderberry wine was hard at work now
making the place hot for influenza germs, and her whole body was
permeated with a pleasant warmth. She tried to put herself in Mr.
Priestley’s place and face a hard chair in a draughty kitchen. “It
seems to me I’m compromised quite deeply as it is. After all we’re
supposed to be married, you know. By the way, is that the door-key?”
She disengaged her fingers from Mr. Priestley’s and extended them
invitingly.
Mr. Priestley put the key into them.
Laura weighed it pensively in her hand. “You’re very conventional,
aren’t you?” she asked.
Mr. Priestley, who was under the impression that he had just killed
one of his fellow-men and was not in the least sorry for it, nodded.
“In some circumstances,” he said primly, “one has to be.”
“Well,” said Laura, as if arriving at a decision, “I’m not. Never! If
the people are all right, the circumstances can take care of
themselves; that’s my creed.” With a sudden movement she thrust the
key far down inside the bed and showed her empty hand. “Now, go and
make yourself as comfy as you can on that sofa with both
dressing-gowns and this eiderdown; and if you want to say anything to
me, say: ‘It’s your own silly fault, my dear girl!’ Because it is, you
know.”
Mr. Priestley jumped to his feet and stood for a moment, looking down
at the flushed and ever so faintly mocking face. “No,” he said slowly,
“I won’t say that. I’ll say: ‘You’re a very dear, sweet girl. But
please give me that key.’”
Laura shook her head violently. “No! I’ve made up my mind, and I’m not
going to alter it. Now, please run along to that sofa, because I want
to go to sleep.”
Mr. Priestley saw she meant it, and his colour deepened. He turned
towards the sofa without a word.
But the elderberry wine, in the intervals of combating influenza
germs, had not performed its last miracle yet. With a swift movement
Mr. Priestley turned about, darted back to the bed and kissed the
astonished maiden in it unskilfully but heartily on her lips. Then he
retired to his sofa.
Ten minutes later two rhythmical breathings filled the room, one only
just audible, the other distinctly so. The elderberry wine had done
its last job.
Chapter IX.
George Says Nothing, Much
Cynthia Nesbitt put the _Sunday Courier_ down on the table, shrugged
her shoulders despairingly and turned to her husband. “Guy, darling,”
she said, “you don’t mind my telling you that you’re utterly and
completely mad, do you?”
“Not in the least, dear,” Guy smiled. “I take it as a compliment. All
really nice people are a little mad, you know.”
“Yes, but there are limits even to the nicest people’s madness. Guy,
what is going to happen?”
“That,” said her husband, “is just what I’m so interested to know.” He
picked up the paper and glanced over the staring headlines with
affectionate proprietorship. “They’ve really done us quite proud,
haven’t they! By the way, can I have another cup of coffee, please?”
“I’m not surprised you need it,” said Cynthia, taking his cup.
Guy continued to run gratified eyes over _The Courier_’s hysterics.
_The Courier_ was in the habit of letting itself go when it felt that
it had got hold of something really good; this time it had not so much
let itself go as gone behind itself and pushed. Headlines half an inch
high broke the news to an astonished world; the two columns were
liberally interspersed with sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs,
in heavy leaded type; such words as “incredible,” “amazing,”
“astounding,” and “epoch-making in the annals of crime,” appeared in
prodigal profusion.
Under Doyle’s own name one column was filled with his account of the
affair; the other was devoted to his interviews with “The Constable in
the Cupboard,” as _The Courier_ facetiously termed that functionary,
and Reginald Foster, Esquire, “who actually intercepted one member of
the nefarious gang and obtained from her facts of paramount
importance.” The Crown Prince _motif_ was played up to its utmost
capacity, and The Man with the Broken Nose was accorded the honour of
leaded type whenever his pseudonym occurred, which was very often. In
a screaming leader _The Courier_ laid it down that this lamentable
affair was a Disgrace to Civilisation and attributed it directly to
the pusillanimity of our present (so-called) Government, referred in
scathing terms to the Constable in the Cupboard as an example of the
ineptitude of our rural police force, and called upon its readers to
avenge this slight to England’s honour by themselves prosecuting the
search for the notorious Man with the Broken Nose.
_The Courier_ then sat back on its haunches and sent for its
circulation manager.
Let it not be thought that _The Courier_ had been too easily gulled.
The night editor, who was a naturally sceptical man, had caused a
telephone call to be put through to the Abingchester police station
before Mr. Doyle had been talking to him for three minutes. Subsequent
calls to the houses of Messrs. Reginald Foster and Guy Nesbitt at
Duffley confirmed the incredible. Doubting not that it was on firm
ground _The Courier_ acceded (more or less) to Mr. Doyle’s terms, and
so made certain of being the only one in the field the next morning
with this scoop of a lifetime; then it scrapped its old centre-page at
enormous cost, got behind itself and pushed.
The result was most gratifying to all concerned.
“Oh, put the horrible thing _away_!” Cynthia cried suddenly, snatching
the paper from Guy and throwing it violently on the floor. “I can’t
bear to look at it any longer.”
“Dear wife,” Guy murmured, “you’re taking this thing in the wrong
spirit.”
“I don’t want to take it in any spirit at all,” retorted his dear
wife. “What I was thinking of ever to let you embark on it, I can’t
imagine. I must have been out of my senses.”
“You were certainly an accessory before the fact, dear. But for that
matter, we were all out of our senses. And a very good thing too. The
chief merit of senses is that one is able occasionally to get out of
them. And then look how interesting life becomes.”
“Well, I hope you’ll find life in prison interesting. I don’t think I
shall. Because that’s where we shall certainly end up, when the real
story comes out.”
“I’ve never been to prison,” Guy meditated. “It’s an omission that
ought to be remedied. Everybody should go to prison at least once.
Yes, I think prison would be intensely interesting. Except for the
clothes, of course. But even in oakum and broad arrows, or whatever it
is, I’m sure you’ll look perfectly charming, darling.”
“Guy,” said his wife with feeling, “there are times when I come very
near to wishing I hadn’t married you.”
“‘Don’t send my wife ter prisin,’” chanted Guy, in a very cracked
voice, grinning madly. “‘Hit’s the fust crime in ’er life,’ ‘Six
munfs!’ replied is wusship. ‘Ho, Gawd ’elp my herrin’ wife!’”
“Anybody in?” called a voice outside the window, fortunately
preventing the erring wife’s repartee.
“Come in, Doyle,” Guy responded, jumping up. “Through the window.”
Mr. Doyle’s face appeared at the open window and preceded its owner
into the room. “I’ve got George outside,” he observed, dropping to his
feet on the floor, “but whether he can follow me is open to question.
It’s a nice problem. Let’s see. Head first, George, and land on the
hands. Excellent! Well, we’ve come to see whether you people are going
to church.”
“Church!” said Cynthia.
“Good-morning, Cynthia,” said Mr. Doyle politely. “Or do I call you
Mrs. Nesbitt now it’s the morning after? Anyhow, I hope you slept
well.”
“Where’s Dora?” Cynthia asked, disregarding this facetiousness.
“Immured in the linen cupboard, I think, or concealed in the cistern.
Anyhow, safely out of sight. I suppose you know she’s wanted by the
police?”
“Only Dora?” replied Cynthia pithily.
“So far, yes. Another thing we wanted to know was whether Laura turned
up here in the small hours?”
“No,” said Guy. “Didn’t she get home, George?”
“No. Mind this pipe, by the way, Cynthia?”
“Not a bit; we’ve finished breakfast: You don’t seem very worried
about Laura, George.”
“I’m not,” replied that young woman’s brother. “If anybody’s capable
of taking care of herself, Laura is. At the present moment she’s
probably taking care of that chap Priestley as well if I know her.” A
certain light in George’s eye indicated a fellow-feeling for Mr.
Priestley.
“But supposing they haven’t been able to get that handcuff off?”
“Laura,” said George with conviction, “could wriggle out of anything.”
He picked up the fallen _Sunday Courier_ and begun to scrutinise it.
He had seen it already, but it is nice to look at one’s name in print
for the first time.
Guy and Doyle began to exchange congratulations over George’s
shoulders, pointing to the passages which particularly pleased them.
George, having examined the paragraph in which his name occurred to
make sure that they had not let it out of this copy, surrendered the
paper and grinned cheerfully at Cynthia.
Cynthia saw the grin and it jarred upon her. Cynthia was not feeling
at all like grinning that morning.
“What do you think of it all, George?” she asked.
“Me?” said George in some surprise; George was not used to having his
opinion sought. “Oh, I think it’s rather a rag.”
In spite of herself Cynthia laughed. “You hopeless _babies_!” she
said, and went out of the room.
Two minutes later she was back again. “It may interest you to know,”
she remarked coldly from the doorway, “that half the population of
Duffley seems to be in the road outside this house. Will one of you go
and send them away, please?” She withdrew again.
“The crowd collects,” murmured Guy with pleasure. “That’s quite in
order. Highly professional conduct on the part of the crowd.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Doyle. “I’d forgotten to mention that. I was
gloating over them at breakfast. It just wanted a crowd to top things
off. George, go and send them away.”
“Oh, come,” protested George. “I like that.”
“I thought you would. You’re the sort of person who can get a lot of
fun out of a crowd, George, providing, of course, that they’re
sufficiently rough. I hope you won’t be disappointed. Run along. You
heard what Cynthia said.”
“But why can’t one of you two go?”
“Because we’re the brains of the conspiracy, and the brains never
undertakes manual work like crowd-hustling. Besides, you’re bigger
than us. Out with you, George.”
George went out.
The crowd was a very peaceful one. It was just there to look, and it
was doing its job with silent relish. Hitherto it had been looking at
the house. Now it looked at George. So far as one could gather from
the crowd’s expression there was not very much to choose between the
house and George, but George was more of a novelty.
George looked at the crowd. The crowd looked at George.
“Go away,” said George to the crowd.
Somebody in the rear inadvertently blinked. Otherwise no movement was
perceptible. The inhabitants of Duffley are not a sprightly set of
people.
“Did you hear me?” said George to the crowd. “Go _away_!”
The crowd went on looking at George.
“Go AWAY!” said George to the crowd.
A large person in the front rank grinned.
George, realising that the time had come for action, took the large
person by the shoulder and walked him down the road. The large person
allowed George to do so with the greatest amiability. Then George went
back for his companion, and the large person strolled back, still with
the greatest amiability, to his place. Another large person in the
second rank guffawed.
At this point George gave the crowd up as hopeless and walked with
dignity into the house again. The crowd watched his retreating back
with stolid interest. It was not an exacting crowd, and George’s back
would furnish it with food for reflection for at least half an hour.
In the meantime Guy and Mr. Doyle had been comparing notes.
“Why didn’t you come back last night?” Guy was asking as George
entered the room with a slightly baffled air. Fortunately the others
were far too interested in the matter in hand to pay the slightest
attention to him.
“My dear chap, I couldn’t. We didn’t get rid of that Inspector till
nearly three o’clock, and all the time I was terrified that he’d
somehow find out that Dora was in the house. I was only just able to
nip into the library in front of him and warn George not to mention
her. It was jolly lucky we’d made her go to bed, according to plan. I
whispered to her through the key-hole to lie low, while George was
getting more whisky out for the Inspector in the library. Anyhow,
there’s one thing. The Inspector loves me like a brother. It was I who
put the idea of whisky into George’s head, wasn’t it, George?”
“You were chatting a good deal about it,” George admitted.
Guy began to steal jam with silent gusto. “You know,” he said after a
minute or two, “I feel rather guilty about that dear old Inspector.
He’s almost too easy.”
“Yes. I never imagined the official police could be hoodwinked quite
so simply. But don’t you worry about him. He’s having the time of his
life. He wouldn’t have missed this for worlds. For two solid hours by
the clock last night he was telling us about his other murder case. I
suggested half a dozen times as tactfully as possible that he’d better
go out and do a bit of detecting, but nothing happened.”
“But I say, Pat, he can’t be a complete old ass,” George pointed out.
“He solved that murder all right apparently, and it seems to have been
a bit of a mystery.”
“That’s as may be,” said Mr. Doyle, who had not listened for two hours
without gaining some suspicion of the truth. “By the way, I hope we
hear from Laura to-day; and I hope also that she’s dutifully watching
the gentleman’s reactions. We mustn’t lose sight of our primary
experiment in all this excitement about the second one. Don’t you
think——”
“Hush!” said Guy, holding up a hand.
They listened. Somewhere in the near distance a rumbling voice was
inquiring for Mr. Nesbitt.
“The Inspector,” Doyle murmured. “Let’s take him out to the scene of
the body’s embarkment and watch his reactions.”
Inspector Cottingham greeted them genially. “Morning, gents,” he said
with an air of importance. “Morning, Mr. Doyle, sir. I’ve had a look
at the _Sunday Courier_.”
“Oh, yes. Satisfied, Inspector?”
“They’ve done it pretty well,” the Inspector admitted. “Pretty well,
yes. Barring all that clap-trap about the police, of course.”
“Oh, you mustn’t take any notice of that. It’s the usual thing, you
know. They must put it down to somebody’s fault. Still, on the whole
it wasn’t so bad, eh? And you saw I brought your name well to the
front.”
“That’s right, sir,” agreed the Inspector, endeavouring to conceal his
gratification. “That’s right. Well, it won’t be long before you’ll
have something more to tell ’em, I’m thinking. I took the liberty, Mr.
Nesbitt, sir, of poking round a bit this morning before you were up.”
“Of course, Inspector,” said Guy. “It’s understood that the place is
open to you whenever you like. I suppose you didn’t find anything
much?”
The Inspector swelled gently. “Didn’t I, then, sir? Didn’t I? Oh, yes,
I did. You come along with me, gents, and I’ll show you something
as’ll surprise you. Though mind you,” he added with a belated return
to officialdom, “all this is ’ighly confidential. You mustn’t,” he
explained kindly, “go telling people about it, if you please.”
“Oh, quite so, quite so,” murmured Guy solemnly.
They processed out of the house and the Inspector led the way to the
bottom of the garden, his back rhetorical.
“This ’ere,” said the Inspector portentously, halting at a patch of
much trampled ground on the bank of the river, “is where they got out
of a boat and came ashore, _and_ where they took the body on board
subsequent to the murder.”
“By Jove, is it really?” said Doyle.
“How on earth do you know that, Inspector?” said Guy.
George said nothing.
Guy had said the right thing. The Inspector beamed upon him.
“See all them footprints on the ground, sir?” he replied with
legitimate pride. “That’s how I know. Now, you never made them
footprints, did you, sir?”
“Certainly not,” Guy said without truth.
“Of course you didn’t. Nor did any of your friends. _They_ made ’em.”
“Well I never!” said Doyle.
“That’s a good piece of deduction,” said Guy.
George said nothing.
Doyle scrutinised the prints with elaborate care. “But look here,
Inspector,” he remarked, “these seem to be all male prints. What about
the girl? Didn’t she come this way?”
This time Doyle had said the right thing. The Inspector beamed upon
him.
“The girl, sir, as we know from Mr. Foster’s evidence, stayed behind.
The others, becoming impatient, moved the boat a little farther along
and she went aboard there, after they’d gone on shore again to see
what was happening to her.”
“Good gracious!” said Doyle.
“Inspector, this is magical! How on earth do you know _that_?” said
Guy.
George said nothing.
Almost bursting with triumph, the Inspector led them along the bank.
This was where the Nesbitts usually landed, and the soft turf was
marked with many footprints, among which Cynthia’s high heels were
conspicuous. Quite speechless with admiration of his own perspicacity,
the Inspector pointed at them in silence.
Doyle made appropriate comments. So did Guy. George said nothing.
The Inspector took them back to the house to show them the track made
by the George-laden rug. He took them to the piece of lawn where Dora
had interviewed Mr. Foster and showed them her heel-marks. He took
them back to the bank again to show them some blood he had found on a
dandelion.
Doyle was loud in his praises. So was Guy. George said nothing. George
was not one of your chatty people.
The Inspector’s face became positively alarming in its mysteriousness.
He gathered the three close around them, as if suspecting
eavesdroppers behind every plantain, and spoke in a voice so low and
charged with such importance that the mere words could hardly be
distinguished. “And, gents,” whispered the Inspector reverently, “I’ve
got a Clue!”
“Not a _clue_?” cried Doyle.
“A clue, Inspector?” cried Guy.
George cried nothing. But then, George very seldom cried.
“A clue, gents,” affirmed the Inspector. With a flourish he drew from
his pocket a muddy and bloody handkerchief. “This ’ere was dropped on
the bank by one of the assassins,” he repeated proudly. “Assassin” is
a much better word than mere “murderer.”
Once more suitable comments arose.
“Is it marked in any way?” asked Guy, quite gravely. Guy had a
wonderful control over his facial muscles.
“It is, sir,” intoned the Inspector. “It’s marked with the initials
‘R. F.’ in black marking ink.”
“On a white ground,” added Doyle.
“That’s great, Inspector,” said Guy. “That ought to be a most valuable
clue.”
They went on to discuss the valuable clue at some length. Beyond it,
the Inspector had no further news. In reply to eager questions he was
forced to admit that he had not yet established the identity of the
murdered Crown Prince, nor had he any information regarding the Man
with the Broken Nose. He was, however, quite confident that the
answers to both these riddles would be in his hands before nightfall.
“Because some one’s bound to know, you see, gents,” said the Inspector
in confidence, “and they’ll send the information along to the officer
in charge of the case, you mark my words.”
His audience marked them, happily.
Finally, with regretful murmurs about duty and reports, the Inspector
tore himself away.
“We’re all right, we’re all right,” Doyle crooned, as the trio
strolled back to the house. “He feeds out of our hands. We’re all
_right_.”
“But what about Scotland Yard?” demanded George, breaking half an
hour’s rigid silence. “You won’t be able to take him in so easily.”
Doyle looked at him rather pityingly. “My dear George, there won’t be
any Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard has nothing to do with crimes outside
the metropolitan area. They only come if they’re sent for and the
local police confess themselves baffled. Can you see our Inspector
confessing himself baffled?”
“Humph!” said George, not altogether convinced.
“Have you thought, Nesbitt,” Doyle continued to his host, “in regard
to that matter of feeding out of our hands, of feeding him with
clues?”
“I have, Doyle,” said Guy, and chuckled.
“So have I,” grinned Mr. Doyle. “Touching perhaps a certain
handkerchief?”
“You read my thoughts.”
“And you mine. Come, it’s a beautiful morning; let us manufacture a
few clues. I’m full of bright ideas this morning. I feel like a
veritable clue-factory.”
“Wait a minute, though. This needs rather careful handling. We must
find out what his movements were last night first, and arrange our
results accordingly.”
“Nesbitt,” said Mr. Doyle admiringly, “you think of everything. Let us
visit the gentleman. I have an idea that he won’t have gone to church
this morning. I also have an idea that he’ll have no objection to
talking to us—none at all.”
“That,” agreed Guy feelingly, “is very probable.”
George looked from one to the other in bewilderment. “What are you
chaps talking about?” he demanded.
They gazed at him pityingly.
“I don’t think,” said Mr. Doyle, “that we’ll take George in with us.
And we can’t very well tie him up outside. Do you mind if we leave him
here?”
“Not at all. He can talk to my wife. I think she rather needs somebody
to talk to.”
“George, you hear? You’re to stay here and talk to Mrs. Nesbitt. She
needs somebody to talk to, but you’re the only one available.
Good-bye.”
They went.
George watched them go. Then he went indoors obediently to talk to
Cynthia. People were always doing that sort of thing to George.
Cynthia was very ready for George to talk to her. She came downstairs,
fresh from helping the good woman who had come in for the day to
oblige in the absence according to orders of the maids, and engaged
George in conversation at once. Twenty minutes later George had said,
“Yes,” fourteen times, “No,” eleven, “Oh, come,” seven, and “Really, I
don’t think it’s as bad as that, Cynthia,” on an ascending scale,
four. Otherwise George had contributed nothing of value to the
conversation.
“But what’s going to _happen_?” Cynthia demanded, not for the first
time. “What’s going to be the end of it?”
“I don’t know,” said George, breaking fresh ground.
“How are they going to get out of it, when the time comes?” Cynthia
pursued.
George consulted his pipe. It gave him no help. “I expect they’ll
think of something,” he said feebly. “Trust old Guy, eh?”
It appeared that this was not a well-chosen observation. “Trust old
Guy?” repeated Cynthia with energy. “Yes, I’ll trust old Guy to get
himself, and all the rest of us as well, into the most appalling mess.
They’ll think of something, will they? Heaven forbid! They’ve thought
of quite enough already. Anything else will be just about the last
straw. What you were doing to encourage them, George, I can’t think.
You ought to have had more sense. Why didn’t you stop them?”
George might so easily have retorted: “Why didn’t you?” But George was
a perfect little gentleman. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said vaguely,
apparently accepting the implication that he could have stopped them
had he wished, an implication that was in no way at all based on fact.
“Rather—er—rather a rag, you know.”
“A fine rag!” said Cynthia with much scorn. “Prison will be a rag,
too, as Guy seems to think, won’t it? And there’s that poor Mr.
Priestley, or whatever his name is, trembling in his shoes somewhere
at this very minute under the impression that he’s committed a murder.
I suppose that’s a fine rag, too?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” George murmured uneasily. “Pat Doyle said he
wanted waking up.”
“And will it be a fine rag if he commits suicide, too?” inquired
Cynthia with awful sarcasm.
“Oh, come!” implored George, much startled. “I say, you don’t think
he’d be likely to do that, Cynthia?”
“I can imagine nothing more probable,” Cynthia retorted, and for the
moment really believed she was speaking the truth. “What would you do
if you thought you’d murdered somebody? The horror, the shame, the
awful remorse. . . . Naturally suicide would be the first thing to
occur to you. It all depends on Mr. Priestley’s strength of will
whether he gives way to it or not. Of course I knew that was the
danger all along.”
Once again George proved his perfect gentility. Not for once did he
dream of saying: “In that case, my dear Cynthia, why in the name of
all that’s holy didn’t you say so before it was too late?” He just
remarked, in very blank tones, “Good Lord!” It was easy to see that
George had not known that that was the danger all along.
“Somebody ought to tell him,” Cynthia affirmed. “This thing’s gone
quite far enough. You must tell him, George.”
“But I don’t know where he is.”
“Pat knows his address. Find it out. And, as for the police side of
it, if those two precious idiots don’t have that cleared up within
twenty-four hours, I’m going to take a hand in it myself. Three can
play at that game as well as two, and better. And in any case,
somebody’s got to step in and sweep up the mess.” Cynthia paused,
rather charmingly flushed with the heat of her indignation, and stared
ominously at George, causing that perfect gentleman to wriggle his
toes in his Oxford brogues. “And if you repeat a single word of what
I’ve been telling you to either of those two, George,” she added quite
fiercely, “I’ll never speak to you again.”
George quailed before this horrible threat; but old loyalties are
stronger than new ones, even where such a nice person as Cynthia was
concerned. He grabbed his courage in both hands.
“Yes, that’s all right,” he said very quickly. “I’ll be mum. But look
here, Cynthia, about old Priestley, you know. I—I’m afraid I couldn’t
tell him the truth without Guy’s permission. It’s—well, this is Guy’s
pigeon, you know. Can’t very well go behind his back.” He grew very
red and floundery. “Not—er—not playing the game exactly, eh?”
A woman is always astounded when she finds another man taking her own
husband seriously. “But, George,” Cynthia said in genuine surprise,
“that’s really rather a distorted view, isn’t it? You surely don’t
mean that you’d condemn this Mr. Priestley to unbelievable misery
rather than go behind a silly whim of Guy’s? You’re not one of these
ridiculous criminologists, or whatever they call themselves; you ought
to be able to take a sane view. The whole thing’s exceedingly cruel,
and—and very horrible.”
George squirmed, but stuck to his guns. “Couldn’t go behind old Guy’s
back,” he mumbled. “Rotten trick.”
“Then you’re as silly as he is!” Cynthia flared at him suddenly. “Very
well, leave poor Mr. Priestley to his fate. And if he commits suicide,
as he’s almost certain to do, console yourself with the reflection
that you never went behind Guy’s back. Excellent, George!” Cynthia
very seldom flared, very, very seldom; but she was only human, and she
really was worried. Besides, she had had very little sleep and her
nerves were inclined to jangle. It was George’s misfortune to provide
a safety-valve for some of the steam they had been generating.
An awkward silence ensued. Then the front door-bell rang.
“Don’t you bother,” said George, humbly anxious to make some sort of
amends for his disgusting loyalty to Cynthia’s husband. “I’ll go. I’ll
say you’re out, shall I?”
“Oh, say anything you like,” snapped Cynthia, “only don’t say anything
behind Guy’s back.” Cynthia was being unfair, and she knew it.
Moreover, she didn’t care. Moreover, still, she was determined to go
on being as unfair as she possibly could. Women, the very nicest of
them, are sometimes taken like that.
George went, hastily.
On the doorstep stood the Inspector, but not alone. Accompanying him
was a dapper man in a well-cut lounge suit with a gardenia in his
button-hole.
The crowd watched them owlishly.
The Inspector spoke, in a voice pregnant with fate. “This is Mr.
Howard, sir,” he said.
“Morning,” said the dapper man unsmilingly. “I’m Colonel Ratcliffe,
the Chief Constable. I want to see Mr. Nesbitt.”
Chapter X.
Laura Surpasses Herself
At much the same time as Guy Nesbitt was asking his wife for a second
cup of coffee, Mr. Priestley was requesting of his pseudo-wife a
similar favour. They were breakfasting in the combined coffee-room,
restaurant and private sitting-room of the little inn, and they knew
now a good many things which they had not known before. They knew, for
instance, that the inn was the Black Swan, that it was in the minute
village of Sandersworth and that Sandersworth was, roughly,
thirty-five miles from Duffley and nearly a hundred from London. They
also knew that they thoroughly approved of the minute village of
Sandersworth.
It is impossible for two people of opposite sexes to sleep in the same
room, however remotely, without experiencing afterwards a rather
exciting, if quite innocent feeling of intimacy. It was the first time
Mr. Priestley had breakfasted alone with a charmingly pretty girl; it
was the first time Laura had breakfasted alone with a strange man of
less than twenty-four hours’ acquaintance; yet, somehow, the situation
seemed perfectly natural to both of them. Considering what had gone
before, this is not surprising. For besides the sleeping in the same
room, there had been the getting up in the same room, and that had
been even more amusing.
There had been the discussion, for example, interspersed with stifled
giggles, which had resulted in Mr. Priestley going on to lurk in some
place unspecified (the little inn boasted no bathroom) where he might
remained concealed from the landlady and Annie (who, however, did not
count one way or the other) while Laura washed. Then there had been
the deliciously exciting moment when Mr. Priestley, in order to save
time and ensure a simultaneous appearance at the breakfast-table, had
been re-admitted to shave with a borrowed razor while Laura, blushing
faintly in the blue flannel dressing-gown, but far more amused than
embarrassed, let him in and then attended to her shingled hair and
completed her toilet behind an improvised screen of eiderdown and
blanket in a corner of the room. Then she, fully dressed, had gone off
to lurk while Mr. Priestley made himself ready to face the world.
No more improper, the whole thing, in its essentials than a bathe, let
us say, from the same large cave on a rocky beach, which in the eyes
of the world is nothing; but far, far more thrilling, for the very
reason of those same censorious eyes. For whereas in the estimation of
the two principals the whole affair was as innocent as innocence can
well be and they had gained rather than lost in self-respect, in the
eyes of the world they had lost everything. The world will never
consent to believe the best when it has a chance of believing the
worst.
It had been, therefore, a Very Great Adventure.
And the consequence was that, when at last they faced each other
across the breakfast-table, blushing modestly beneath the landlady’s
unconcealed interest, Mr. Priestley had an uncanny feeling that he
really was married to this delightful young woman and that it was all
exceedingly pleasant. It quite needed the presence of that handcuff
(which, by an ingenious device attached to his braces, he had
succeeded in tethering out of sight up his sleeve) to remind him that
he was, in fact, not a happy honeymooner without a care in the world,
but a fugitive from justice, a clapper of constables into cupboards, a
man-slaughterer, and stuffed so full of cares that it was a wonder his
second cup of coffee could effect an entrance.
Nevertheless, one anxiety persisted in Mr. Priestley’s mind, in spite
of his pleasurable excitement, and the bright chatter of his adopted
young wife; he was on tenterhooks to see a newspaper. Sandersworth, it
appeared, was not favoured in the matter of newspapers on Sundays.
They had, the landlady explained at some length, to be brought
specially over from Manstead, and, of course, that took time. Not
before ten they couldn’t be expected, and sometimes it was nearer
half-past. She took in _The News of the World_, she did, and Mr.
Bracey (such was the pseudonym which Mr. Priestley had cunningly
adopted with his married state) should see it as soon as it came,
before she ever so much as opened it herself. Mr. Bracey, né
Priestley, asked her to buy a sample of each paper available, and
concealed his impatience as best he could.
“And now,” said Laura, when she had fulfilled her wifely duty of
pouring out that second cup of coffee, “now, what’s the programme?
What are we going to do to-day?”
“Well,” said Mr. Priestley tentatively, “we can’t stay here, of
course.”
“Of course not,” Laura agreed, not without firmness.
Mr. Priestley looked slightly disappointed, and then slightly ashamed
of such unreasonable optimism. “What do you suggest, then?”
“Me? Nothing. I’m leaving all that entirely to you. I’m completely in
your hands.” She assumed her famous pathetic air, but in a modified
degree. Mr. Priestley, she felt, not without reason, would not be
quite so easily taken in by such means in the future as he had been in
the past. To tell the truth, Laura was by this time not at all sure of
her ground where Mr. Priestley was concerned. At times he was
unexpectedly meek and amenable, at others still more unexpectedly the
reverse. Ah, well, it all went to make life more interesting.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked in humble tones.
Thus jerked up on to his pedestal of male superiority, Mr. Priestley
regarded his companion attentively. What he would really like to do
with her, he reflected wickedly, would be to kiss her—like last night,
but with the benefit of that experience behind him; every little
helps, so far as experience in kissing is concerned. For the first
time in his life Mr. Priestley felt a strong desire to try his hand at
this interesting art—or should one say his lips?
He pulled himself together. That would never do. Certainly not. Last
night had been a privileged occasion. Even a real husband hardly ever
kisses his real wife at the breakfast-table; he complains about the
bacon instead.
“Well,” he said, dismissing these irrelevant reflections, “what about
getting you back to your people, and—and all that?”
Laura looked more pathetic than ever, though still careful not to
overdo it. “I haven’t any people,” she said with quiet courage.
“I’m—I’m alone in the world.”
“God bless my soul!” observed Mr. Priestley, much touched.
Laura was touched, just a little, also, by Mr. Priestley’s evident
concern. He _was_ a dear, and it _was_ a shame to be hoodwinking him
like this. She tried to console herself with the thought that, this
time at any rate, she had spoken the truth—or something not at all
unlike the truth. She was an orphan, and, except for George, she was
pretty well alone in the world; and George and Annie had certainly one
characteristic in common.
“Of course,” Mr. Priestley continued in somewhat hesitating tones, “of
course I don’t want to force your confidence, and if you don’t wish to
tell me anything, naturally you won’t do so (I could hardly expect
that you would, in the circumstances), but I’ve noticed that you
haven’t mentioned your name yet. Unless, of course, it really is
Spettigue?”
“My name?” said Laura innocently. “Haven’t I really? No, it isn’t
Spettigue. It’s—er—Merriman. Laura Merriman,” she added, adroitly
turning this blank lie into a half-truth.
“And mine’s Priestley,” beamed that gentleman. “Matthew Priestley; and
my address is 148D Half Moon Street.”
Once more Laura’s conscience smote her. Once more she parried the
blow. What on earth was the use of playing a practical joke at all, if
one was to get more and more remorseful the more successfully it
developed? She looked her conscience in the face and dared it to raise
its fist again; it retired, abashed. Once more logic triumphed over
sickly sentimentality.
“Oh, yes,” she said colourlessly.
Mr. Priestley was toying with a toast-crumb. “And is it permitted to
know what you do, or where you live?” he ventured. “Don’t tell me, if
you’d rather not, of course.”
“But why shouldn’t I, Mr. Priestley? Especially considering how kind
you’ve been to me. I’m a typist, and I live——” She paused. For once
circumstances had caught Laura napping; she had no new story ready.
The word typist had risen to her lips automatically; in the
magazine-stories the distressed maiden is nearly always a typist, or a
typist masquerading as somebody else, or somebody else masquerading as
a typist. But for the moment her mind was perfectly empty of
addresses, “I don’t live anywhere,” she plunged desperately.
“You don’t live anywhere?” repeated Mr. Priestley, with not
unreasonable surprise.
“No,” said Laura, to whom had occurred a certain small light in her
darkness. “I—I was a typist, you see, but——” Her voice broke
artistically; she bent her dark head over her empty cup. “But I was
dismissed.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, much concerned. “Why?”
The look Laura turned on him was a miracle. “The manager tried to make
love to me,” she said in a low, halting voice. Laura was seeing her
way more clearly every moment. “He—he tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t let
him, so——!” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I was dismissed, of
course.”
“Scandalous!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, acutely conscious that he also
had tried to kiss this same delectable person, and successfully. Yes,
where haughty managers, with the power of doubled salary or dismissal
in their hands, had been ignominiously repulsed, he, Mr. Priestley,
had succeeded. Involuntarily he drew himself up. “Scandalous!” he
repeated. “Outrageous! Who is the scoundrel?”
“The man,” said Laura with sudden inspiration, “you shot.”
“What!” exclaimed the startled Mr. Priestley.
There was a tense pause.
Laura broke it. “Oh, why shouldn’t I tell you the truth?” she said in
low, bitter tones. “You’ve been kind to me. The only man who ever
has.” She hesitated a moment to decide exactly what the truth should
be. “Yes, that man was the manager—er—the managing-director of the
firm where I worked. I got the post through the influence of an old
friend of my father’s. He died shortly afterwards,” she added, neatly
polishing off this possibly awkward patron.
“Dear, dear!” clucked Mr. Priestley, in respectful tribute to this
very short-lived individual.
“The managing-director was kind to me,” Laura continued with more
confidence. “At least, I imagined it was kindness. He made me his own
private secretary. I was with him most of the day. Of course, you can
see what happened. I imagined that I had fallen in love with him.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley in toleration of this maidenly
madness.
“He took advantage of my innocence,” Laura went on with pathos. “I
mean,” she corrected herself somewhat hastily, “he made advances to
which I responded; and we used to write to each other.” That this
would hardly be necessary if they saw each ether every day and nearly
all day long occurred to the authoress with some force. She hurriedly
skated ever this awkward passage. “Nothing _wrong_, you know,” she
said very earnestly. “Just—well, just silly. Oh, you do understand,
don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I understand, of course,” said Mr. Priestley, who didn’t.
“Then I saw the mistake I had made. I tried to get my letters back
from him. He refused to let me have them. He tried to hold them over
my head, to force me to accept his caresses.” I must try writing for
the magazines myself, thought Laura, warming to her work; it seems to
come naturally. “If I refused, he threatened to dismiss me and said
that he would use the letters to prevent me from getting another post
anywhere else. I did refuse, and he did dismiss me. Alas,” said Laura,
bravely brushing away an imaginary tear, “it was only too true.
Whenever I succeeded in finding another post, I got a letter within a
day or two to say that a mistake had been made and my services would
not be required. Wherever I went, that scoundrel had my footsteps
dogged.” Laura paused again. “He was determined,” she added in a tense
whisper, “to break me to his will.”
“The villain!” ejaculated Mr. Priestley, moist with emotion.
“So you can imagine that I was desperate to get my letters back.
Already I had come to the end of my slender resources. I owed my
landlady, who seized all my belongings for her rent and turned me out
into the street. I was homeless, without a roof to shelter me, a rag
to my back, or a penny in my purse.”
“But—but what about that car of yours,” stammered Mr. Priestley, whose
eyes were nearly starting out of his head.
“Oh!” said Laura, who had been far too carried away by her sense of
drama to remember such unimportant items as speedy two-seater cars.
“The car, yes. The car,” she went on, pulling herself together,
“belongs to the man himself.”
“The deuce it does!” commented Mr. Priestley.
“Yes,” said Laura with more confidence. “He used to lend it to me in
the old days. They know me quite well at that garage where he keeps
it; so of course I had no difficulty in getting it last night. You
see, it was only on the spur of the moment that I spoke to you at
all.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, who appeared to be conversing
chiefly in exclamations.
“Yes, I’m afraid I was dreadfully wicked,” Laura said with engaging
candour, and looked dreadfully innocent. “But I was at my wits’ end.
Without a roof to cover me, a penny in my purse, a—oh, I said that
before. By the way, I was wrong about the penny. I had a half-crown. I
used it to pay for our coffees at the Piccadilly Palace. Anyhow, I was
desperate. And I knew that I _must_ get my letters back,
or—unutterable things would happen. Unutterable things,” she added,
pleased with the phrase. “He had already offered them to me—at a
price,” she added further in a low voice, modestly averting her head.
It was a phrase which pleased her even more.
“The abominable scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley, positively puce
about the gills. “I’m—yes, I’m glad I shot him. Thoroughly glad. I was
glad when you told me he was a blackmailer. But now!”
“He deserved it,” said Laura simply, “if ever a man did.”
Once again there was a little pause while Laura congratulated herself
with some heartiness. It was a good story, and it had gone down well.
Besides, she pointed out to herself with conscious altruism, it would
all tend to relieve Mr. Priestley’s mind. It is much less of a burden
to have a death on one’s conscience for which one is extremely glad
than one which calls for remorse and self-surrender.
“This car,” said Mr. Priestley, not quite so happily. “You say they
know you at that garage?”
“Oh, yes; perfectly well.”
“Know your name, and all about you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Then,” said Mr. Priestley very solemnly, “my dear Miss
Spettiman—er—Merrigrew—er——”
“Won’t you call me Laura?” said his companion with timid deference,
but not unhelpfully.
“Thank you, my dear Laura. Yes. Then as I was saying, my dear
Laura—er—Laura, this is very serious indeed. Don’t you see? They’ll
know who took that car, and I am afraid your name is bound to crop up
in connection with the crime. With the accident, I should say.”
“But they won’t know it was taken down to Duffley.”
“Won’t they?” said Mr. Priestley unhappily. “I’m afraid it may come
out. I believe the police are very clever indeed at tracing things.
Probably they are on the look out for its number already. We must
leave nothing to chance. We must abandon it by the road-side.”
“Oh!” said Laura, who did not at all wish to abandon by the road-side
George’s perfectly good and very expensive car.
They stared at each other.
“This is very serious,” said Mr. Priestley again, and looked so
concerned that Laura very nearly told him not to worry because there
wasn’t a word of truth in her whole story. The number of times that
Laura was brought to the brink of revelation, and the number of times
she was jerked back from it just in time were becoming as the sands of
the sea, countless.
This time it was the landlady who assisted in the jerking process,
choosing that moment to enter the room with an armful of newspapers.
“Here you are, sir,” she said cheerfully. “I bought one of each, like
you said.” She beamed at Laura with affectionate solicitude, a beam so
knowing that Laura, who did not naturally blush very easily, coloured
up to the roots of her hair. For a habitual non-blusher, Laura had put
in some very good work since she arrived at Sandersworth.
Fortunately Mr. Priestley was far too intent upon his newspapers to
notice her facial activities.
“I hope the breakfast was satisfactory, mum,” said the landlady,
hovering eloquently.
Mr. Priestley looked up for a moment. “Yes, thank you; we’ll ring when
we want you, Mrs. Er—er—um,” he said in tones of such finality that
the landlady had no option but to take a reluctant departure.
Laura looked at her pseudo-husband with renewed respect. Even she
could not have got rid of the garrulous little woman quite so
expeditiously.
“Well, anything about it?” she asked.
_The Sunday Times_ followed _The Observer_ on to the floor. “Nothing
in either of those two, so far as I can see,” Mr. Priestley muttered,
feverishly scuttering pages.
“Try _The News of the World_,” Laura advised.
Mr. Priestley did so, and added it to the growing heap on the floor.
Two others followed. He opened _The Sunday Courier_.
“God bless my soul!” muttered Mr. Priestley.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley.
“What the devil!” demanded Mr. Priestley, descending abruptly.
“Well, I’ll be _hanged_!” prophesied Mr. Priestley, and relapsed into
awed silence.
“What is it?” almost screamed Laura, dancing in her chair with
impatience.
Mr. Priestley continued to run a hectic eye over the lurid columns and
spoke no word. Lost to the decencies, Laura jumped up and leaned
openly on his shoulder, reading over it with incredulous eyes.
Suddenly she turned, ran a few steps towards the centre of the room,
halted there for a moment with heaving shoulders, her back towards her
startled companion, then buried her face in her hands and fled out of
the room, uttering startling sounds. Mr. Priestley, hurrying in her
wake, was just in time to see her disappearing into the bedroom.
He stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs, much disconcerted;
not very much experience in the art of soothing feminine emotion had
come his way. Did one leave them alone, or did one try and calm them
down? Mr. Priestley was much tempted to leave this one alone, but the
memory of those pathetically heaving shoulders was too much for him.
Heroically he mounted, on soothing bent.
Laura was lying on her face in the middle of the bed, her whole frame
shaking with the most heartrending convulsions. Her face was buried in
the pillow, but she waved a feeble hand towards the door as Mr.
Priestley entered, as if bidding him leave her alone with her grief.
Though terribly tempted to take her at her gesture Mr. Priestley
forced himself forward: He progressed in a tentative way as far as the
bed and stood looking down on its quivering burden.
“Er—Laura!” he hazarded, very uncomfortably.
The hand gestured again. “Go _away_!” beseeched a stifled voice from
the depths of the pillow.
Mr. Priestley laid an uncertain hand on a slim shoulder. “Laura!” he
repeated unhappily. “Er—please don’t cry.”
A fresh spasm shook the slender form. “Oh—oh, _please_ go away!”
choked the voice from the pillow.
Mr. Priestley hesitated. This was really very awkward, very awkward
indeed. But it was too late to draw back now. He had come up here to
soothe, and soothe he must. In the meantime, his heart-strings were
being twanged to a positively painful degree by the pathetic spectacle
of this intense suffering.
“L-Laura!” he squeaked in imploring tones. Nothing happened. “Oh,
dear!” said Mr. Priestley. His heart-strings continued to twang.
It was too much. The vast sympathy which had been flooding Mr.
Priestley’s soul for this poor forlorn little creature suddenly burst
its bounds and swamped his self-consciousness. With nothing more than
the instinctive impulse of the adult to comfort a child in the only
way it really understands, he sat down on the edge of the bed, gently
kissed the white nape and, noticing not at all the resulting very
faint exclamation, gathered the slim frame up into his arms. Its
owner, after a half-hearted attempt to resist, laid her dark head on
his shoulder and there continued to choke.
“There, there!” said Mr. Priestley, patting gingerly. “It’s all right,
my dear, it’s all right.”
For a moment Laura raised a very red face, stained with real tears.
“But—b-but you—you h-haven’t _got_ a b-broken nose!” she articulated
with difficulty, and at once plunged into a further paroxysm, her head
flying back to the shelter of Mr. Priestley’s shoulder like a bird to
its nest.
Somewhat mystified, Mr. Priestley continued his ministrations. Why
exactly the wholeness of his nose should be a source of such poignant
grief to the poor little thing, escaped him for the moment; but the
anguish was only too evident. He patted in silence for a space, then
he rocked.
By degrees Laura grew more calm. She ceased to shake, and disengaged
herself from Mr. Priestley’s soothing arms, still keeping her head
averted. A fresh spasm shook her slightly from time to time, but not
so violently.
“I’m all right now,” she said weakly, scrambling off the bed. “But
please don’t l-look at me.”
“No,” said Mr. Priestley at once; “of course not.” He also rose and
hovered uneasily.
Laura made her way, with somewhat uncertain steps, to the wash-stand,
where she contemplated herself in the mirror with watery eyes. “Oh, my
hat, what a ghastly fright!” was her verdict, and clinging to the
marble edge, she collapsed again.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Mr. Priestley of the wardrobe
opposite, hearing with dismay these renewed sounds of distress behind
him.
“Y-yes, quite,” quavered Laura. “Please go down now. I’ll follow as
soon as I’ve sponged my face. I’m sorry I made such an idiot of
myself. I’m—oh, _dear_, I positively ache all over!” she collapsed
over the wash-stand again.
“I shall be up again to see how you are if you’re not down in five
minutes,” warned Mr. Priestley from the doorway, and made a somewhat
relieved escape.
Just outside the door he all but collided with the landlady, who had a
broom in her hand and an intense expression on her face.
“Oh, sir,” said the landlady at once, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help
but hear, seeing as I was sweeping outside. Poor young lady! If you’ll
take my advice, sir (and no offence meant, I’m sure) you’ll let her
off lightly at first. She’ll love you all the better for it later on.
I’ve been through it meself, and I know.”
Mr. Priestley fled.
“May I go in to do the room now, sir?” the landlady called after him,
a world of emphatic meaning in her penultimate word.
Mr. Priestley fled faster.
In the dining-room was peace. Pulling himself together with an effort,
Mr. Priestley took out a cigarette and proceeded to peruse the
incredible report in the _Sunday Courier_. Eight minutes later, the
cigarette between his fingers still unlighted, he had read it through
three times and still he could hardly believe his eyes.
“Amazing!” he commented aloud, as if to reassure himself that he
really did exist and his voice really would work. “I can hardly credit
it. ‘R. S. P. Doyle.’ That’s Pat Doyle. How on earth does he come to
be mixed up in it?” He referred to the paper again. “‘Happened to be
staying in the neighbourhood.’ Extraordinary coincidence. Whole set of
extraordinary coincidences for that matter. Well, God bless my soul,
what is coming now?”
The entrance of Laura supplied the answer at any rate to his last
question. A rehabilitated, dry-eyed, nose-powdered Laura, very
different from the moaning creature of ten minutes ago.
She began to apologise for her lack of self-control. “But really,” she
added, not without adroitness, “seeing it all in print like that
brought it home to me so forcibly. It seemed like a nightmare this
morning; now I know it really is true. I ought not to have given way,
I know, but I was so frightened. Terribly frightened.” She looked at
him with wide eyes. “Oh, Mr. Priestley, what shall I do?” With a
superhuman effort she refrained from expressing a preference for
Birmingham, and regrets at finding herself in Crewe.
Mr. Priestley removed his pince-nez, polished them vigorously and
replaced them. “Don’t you worry about that, my dear,” he told her,
with a warmth which belied the paternal turn of phrase. “I shall see
to that. You have already placed yourself in my hands. And very proud
and gratified I am at the trust you put in me. Indeed, I have the
glimmerings of a plan already. But I must ask you to read through this
perfectly extraordinary report in the _Sunday Courier_. Incredible!
You’ll see it isn’t at all what you thought at first. Nothing like it.
In fact, I—but read it for yourself.” He placed a chair for her by the
window and gave her the paper.
Laura read the two columns through. That she was able to do so and at
the same time preserve a straight face she reckoned afterwards as
perhaps the greatest of her histrionic feats. But apart from mirth,
there was interest to help her. Obviously the conspirators had seen
their way to improving the situation and, though some of the details
were obscure, she had no difficulty in following the main lines. When
she came to Mr. Reginald Foster’s story and recognised Dora’s
handiwork it was all she could do not to give way again, but the test
was successfully passed.
She held the paper up for a few minutes after she had come to the end,
in order to give herself a thinking-space. Clearly the others hoped
that the report would reach her eyes and expected her to shape her own
end of the business accordingly. But what exactly were they trying to
effect, and what did they want her to do? For the moment the answers
to both these questions eluded her.
She dropped the paper into her lap, with a fitting expression of
amazement.
“You see what must have happened?” said Mr. Priestley eagerly, whose
brain also had not been inactive during this period. “Your schemes
must have conflicted with something else that that scoundrel had on
hand. I gather he was mixed up with this criminal gang led by the Man
with the Broken Nose. They found his body, which, for some obscure
reason of their own, they seem to have removed, and decamped. But why
did that poor girl, who seems to be an unwilling accomplice, refer to
the dead man as the Crown Prince? I don’t understand that at all.”
Nor, in fact, did Laura. The Crown Prince seemed to her the only flaw
in an otherwise perfect case. “Perhaps,” she said, with a flash of
inspiration, “perhaps that was the gang’s name for him, in the same
way as they call their leader the Man with the Broken Nose.”
Mr. Priestley looked his admiration. “Of course! Undoubtedly that must
be it. And to think that the _Sunday Courier_ never tumbled to it!
Very good, indeed, Laura, very good. And now there’s another
extraordinary coincidence. You see that the report is written by a man
named Doyle—R. S. P. Doyle? He’s actually a personal friend of my
own.” Mr. Priestley beamed at this remarkable revelation.
“_No!_” said Laura, properly impressed.
“Yes, indeed he is. And it may be most useful to us, as you can
understand. But about this astonishing story; it appears to me to play
directly into our hands. The police and public and every one else are
looking for a gang; they imagine us, indeed, to be members of the
gang. We are, however, not members of any gang. Surely this is in our
favour?”
“You mean, we shan’t be so easy to trace?”
“Precisely!” Mr. Priestley shone with pleasure both in Laura’s
perspicacity and their combined untraceability.
They went on to discuss the affair with zest. Mr. Priestley was at
first a little confused between the identity of Guy Nesbitt. Esq., and
that of the dead man, till Laura pointed out that the latter was
merely a paying guest for the summer in the former’s house; perfectly
reasonable. Why had he been dressed up in that extraordinary way?
Obviously to take part in some formal ceremony connected with the
gang. Was the scoundrel a foreigner himself, like his associates?
Laura believed he was, though he spoke excellent English; he had what
you might call a foreign look about him. Mr. Priestley agreed that he
had. Was it Laura who had sent the message which drew the Nesbitts
away from the house? No, that was the extraordinary thing, she hadn’t;
she had thought they were going away for the week-end, as their maids
had been given leave of absence. Evidently the message must have been
sent by some member of the gang, probably the dead one, in order to
leave the house clear for their own activities.
In short, it was, as they both agreed, a Very Extraordinary Business.
Mr. Priestley then announced that it was time for them to be leaving
the inn and getting rid of the car, and Laura meekly went upstairs to
put on her hat. Mr. Priestley very unwillingly sought out the landlady
and obtained both his bill, which he wanted, and a great quantity of
useful advice to young husbands, which he didn’t.
They got into the incriminating two-seater and drove off, the landlady
continuing to press them to return each year on this important
anniversary in their lives and she’d turn the place upside-down to
give them a welcome. Mr. Priestley, smiling and nodding uneasily, did
not point out that he much preferred the houses where he was made
welcome to be right way up; the result might be less striking, but it
was much more convenient.
They drove towards Manstead.
Mr. Priestley was of the opinion that the car should be abandoned by
the side of the road. Laura was determined to do nothing of the sort
and said so, emphasising her decision by the argument that this would
inevitably put the police on their trail, whereas the car might lie in
a garage for months without being found. Mr. Priestley was impressed
by this reasoning and acquiesced.
In Manstead, therefore, Laura dropped Mr. Priestley by the station and
drove the car alone to the nearest garage that was open. She told him
that she was doing this in order to lessen the chances of detection,
for while one young woman is very much like another young woman,
because both will inevitably be wearing exactly the same shape of hat
and the same length of skirt, Mr. Priestley was emphatically only like
Mr. Priestley. Laura was, therefore, at liberty to tell the man at the
garage that the car would be called for in a day or two by a large
gentleman answering to the name of Mr. George Howard, who would pay
all dues upon it. Having said this, she thoughtfully added that while
the car was there it might just as well as not have its brakes taken
up a little, its clutch eased, its paintwork washed down and, in
short, a general and comprehensive overhaul, with replacement of all
defective parts. Laura and the garage man then parted, excellent
friends.
Mr. Priestley had taken two tickets to London, and was awaiting his
travelling-companion with feverish impatience. There was a train just
due, and not another for three hours.
They caught it, by the skin of Mr. Priestley’s left shin.
At ease in an empty first-class compartment they were at liberty to
relax and regain their breath, which Mr Priestley did to the
accompaniment of vigorous rubbing of his left shin. Then he replaced
his pince-nez, which had fallen off in the rush, and beamed with
altruistic (or nearly altruistic) benevolence at his protégée.
“About this plan of mine that I mentioned,” beamed Mr. Priestley. “I
never told you about it, did I?”
“No, I don’t believe you did,” politely said Laura, who had also been
making a plan of her own. Laura’s plan was simple. It consisted in
giving Mr. Priestley the slip on the first opportunity after they had
reached London, and taking the first available train back to Duffley.
“Well,” said Mr. Priestley, happily unconscious of this, “what I
propose is that you take up your residence in my rooms, where you can
remain to all intents and purposes in hiding.”
“Oh!” said Laura, somewhat taken aback. “But——”
Mr. Priestley held up a protesting hand. “No, please! I know exactly
what you are going to say. You are a high-spirited girl, and I quite
understand. But it will not be charity at all. I propose also to offer
you the post of private secretary to myself.” And with the triumphant
air of one who has removed all obstacles, Mr. Priestley leaned back in
his corner and smiled happily.
“But,” began Laura again, a little more faintly this time. “But——”
Once more Mr. Priestley held up a hand, now invested with quiet
authority. “I insist,” he said with dignity, “You, yourself, have
conferred the privilege of insistence upon me, and I exercise it. I
insist!”
“Oh!” said Laura feebly. “All right, then. Er—thank you, Mr.
Priestley, very much.”
“If I call you Laura,” Mr. Priestley pointed out with gentle reproof,
“surely you ought to call me Matthew.”
“Thank you, Matthew,” said Laura meekly.
She had not the heart to point out to this engaging babe that it
really is not done to keep young women in bachelor rooms, even with
the most unselfish intentions; nor is it exactly healthy for the said
young woman’s reputation to consent to take up her residence in a
bachelor’s rooms, even through a desire not to hurt the bachelor’s
feelings by refusing to do so. These things did not appear to touch
Mr. Priestley. He was not of the world, worldly; he was of the elect,
a big-hearted infant. And to talk of scandal to infants and put nasty
worldly, prurient ideas into their innocent heads is manifestly no
woman’s job.
But as to what was really going to happen——! Laura shrugged her
shoulders whimsically and looked out of the window. She had asked for
it, and apparently she was getting it. But it was a pity that she did
not appear to be able to invent any story at all which did not recoil
on her own shingled head.
What was she going to do? She shrugged her shoulders again.
Anyhow—it was deadly dull in Duffley.
Chapter XI.
Perspicacity of a Chief Constable
For quite fifteen seconds George dithered silently on the doorstep. A
Chief Constable was the last thing he had expected to be called upon
to confront, and a stern-eyed, unsmiling, purposeful-looking Chief
Constable at that. So far as George knew, Chief Constables were a
contingency for which no preparation had been made at all. And of
course it _would_ happen when both Guy and Doyle were not here to deal
with it.
“Mr. N-n-nesbitt?” dithered George. “He-he’s out.”
“Where is he?” asked the unsmiling Chief Constable sharply.
“Over at M-Mr. F-Foster’s, I think,” replied George, feeling under
those penetrating blue eyes exactly like a schoolboy up before his
head master. George would not have been the least surprised at that
moment had the Chief Constable produced a serviceable birch-rod from
his person and remarked sternly: “I’m going to birch you, boy!” He
would have assumed a suitable attitude without hesitation.
The Chief Constable, missing his opportunity, continued only to bore
into George’s brain with his piercing glance. “When’s he coming back?”
he demanded.
“I don’t know,” said George feebly.
The Chief Constable digested this. “Is Mrs. Nesbitt at home?” he
rapped out.
“Yes,” said George, without thinking. “No,” he added, thinking
hastily. “Yes,” he corrected himself, thinking further. “I mean, I
don’t know,” he concluded, ceasing to think at all.
The Chief Constable looked surprised. “Is Mrs. Nesbitt at home or
not?” he asked sarcastically. “Take your time, Mr. Howard, and try to
remember.”
George blushed warmly. He knew he was not handling the situation with
all the tactful skill that his accomplices might require of him, but
after all, what did it matter? Whatever he did was sure to be wrong.
He decided to tell the truth, not especially to shame the devil but
rather because it is so much easier.
“She’s in the _house_, oh, yes,” said George with sudden cunning. “But
I don’t know whether she’s at _home_, you know.” George knew all about
that sort of thing. Women were often in a house, but that did not mean
they were at home; not a bit of it. When is a woman in a house not at
home? When George Howard called on her. Yes, George knew quite a lot
about that sort of thing.
“I see,” said the Chief Constable coldly. “She’s in the house, but you
don’t know whether she’s at home. Is she dressed?”
“Good Lord, yes,” cried George, much shocked. Dash it all, he’d only
been with her two minutes ago himself. Wouldn’t have been with Cynthia
if she hadn’t been dressed, would he? Dash this fellow!
“Then will you kindly present my compliments to Mrs. Nesbitt, and ask
her if I may see her?” said the Colonel, speaking slowly and
distinctly, as to one of mediocre receptive powers. “If Colonel
Ratcliffe, the Chief Constable, may see her,” he added, making the
business perfectly plain.
“You want to see me?” said a cool voice from inside the hall.
George stood aside with a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, Cynthia had
taken the thing into her own hands.
Cynthia and Colonel confronted one another. Cynthia smiled.
Now Cynthia’s smile has been mentioned before, cursorily. This time it
must have the attention paid to it which it really deserves. For
Cynthia’s smile plays a very important part in this story from now
onwards; its effects were singularly far-reaching. Cynthia’s smile
then, was very sweet, very infectious, very disturbing, and at the
same time very soothing. A cross bull in full charge coming suddenly
within the rays of Cynthia’s smile would probably pull up short, bow
politely and offer to die for the Prime Minister. Cynthia, it may be
said, was perfectly aware of the value of her smile, and she employed
it quite unscrupulously; whenever she wanted her own way, for
instance, or to put a nervous person at his ease, or to persuade
somebody into a course of action which was totally repugnant to him.
The number of hats Cynthia had cozened out of her husband simply by
smiling for them was remarkable.
Cynthia did not feel like a schoolboy in the presence of the Chief
Constable. She just went on smiling at him, and in thirty seconds that
austere man was, metaphorically speaking, frisking playfully about her
feet.
“Oh, so sorry to bother you, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he said almost genially,
“but I wanted to see if you can throw any light on this extraordinary
affair here last night. If you would——”
“I’m sorry,” Cynthia interposed firmly, but still smiling, “but I
can’t possibly. None at all. I’m sorry. Why don’t you go up to Mr.
Foster’s and see my husband?”
“That’s the gentleman who spoke to the young woman in the garden,”
interposed the Inspector with paternal helpfulness.
The Colonel, still under the influence of Cynthia’s smile, did not
wither him with biting sarcasm; he just nodded. “Yes, that’s quite a
good idea, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he said mildly. “I will. Thank you. I’m so
sorry to have bothered you.”
“Not at all,” said Cynthia politely, and closed the door on her smile.
As she walked back to the drawing-room, followed by a respectful
George, the smile disappeared.
“And I hope that husband of mine will enjoy the interview,” said
Cynthia, quite viciously. “I fancy he won’t find the Colonel quite
such easy game as that poor dear old Inspector.”
George was inclined to agree with her.
In the meantime the poor dear old Inspector was walking (at a quite
unnecessary pace, as he felt) along the road beside his superior, and
as they walked the effects of the smile wore off for both of them. To
the Chief Constable the world slowly ceased to be a rose-coloured
place, full of sweet things and noble thoughts, and became once more a
drab-coloured concern, where people do very naughty things indeed; to
the Inspector it became a place where solid worth and invaluable
experience do not always meet their due.
“In the Garfield Case, sir,” observed the Inspector in somewhat dogged
tones, evidently resuming a previous conversation, “the first thing I
did was to measure up the furniture in the room where the murder had
been committed.”
“Why?” asked the Colonel shortly. Like most people who had come into
contact with Inspector Cottingham for more than five minutes at a
time, the Colonel felt that he wanted to go out and bay the moon as
soon as the word “Garfield” cropped up in the conversation.
The Inspector coughed slightly and looked up at the sky. That was the
trouble with Colonel Ratcliffe, he would ask silly questions. He was a
nice enough man taken all round, if a bit on the young side, but he’d
be very much nicer if he’d only recognise once and for all that he was
new to this game, and the Inspector was not. But did he recognise it?
He did not. From the way he spoke sometimes, you might think that it
was he who was the old hand, with a neatly solved murder mystery
tucked away behind him, and the Inspector the novice. And he would ask
such silly questions.
“Why, sir?” repeated the Inspector in tones of surprise. Inspector
Cottingham had always regarded his measuring of the furniture as a
primary stroke of immense and subtle cunning. True, it had led to
nothing just as matters turned out, but it might have produced all
sorts of exciting results; and anyhow, it smacked of the professional
touch in a most gratifying way, and now here was this absurd Chief
Constable wanting to know why.
“Well, for the same reason as I measured ’em last night, sir,” said
the Inspector, playing for time. “Because—because—well——”
“In the Garfield case, Cottingham,” said the Colonel patiently, coming
to the rescue, “as I keep telling you, you had a body. Here you
haven’t. And you can’t do anything until the body is found. Therefore,
the first thing to do is to find the body. I think I’ve said something
like that before.”
The Inspector sighed, very gently. “But the body isn’t there, sir,” he
pointed out. “And for why? Because they took it away with ’em.”
“How do you know they did?”
Here the Inspector was on surer ground. “Why, sir,” he countered
triumphantly, “because the girl told Mr. Foster so.” This was the way
things ought to be done. This was the way a real detective got his
results. Not by chasing round, searching for bodies that weren’t
there, but by sitting tight and looking official till somebody came
along and revealed the whole thing.
“It didn’t occur to you, I suppose,” said the Colonel very mildly,
“that she might not have been speaking the truth?”
“No, sir, it didn’t,” replied the Inspector firmly. “Why should it?
She wouldn’t say anything at all if she wasn’t going to speak the
truth. Why should she? Besides, Graves saw ’em taking the body away.”
The Inspector felt he had scored a distinct point there. “That’s
right,” he added, clinching it. “Graves saw ’em at it.”
“Have you had Copham Spinney searched, as I told you over the
telephone?” asked the Colonel, changing the subject.
“Yes, sir. Graves had a look all round there and along that bank first
thing this morning.” The Inspector spoke tolerantly, as one humouring
a feeble-minded aunt. Graves had been sent to search Copham Spinney
and the other bank because that was the Colonel’s orders, but both the
Inspector and Graves himself had known it was a mere waste of time.
And for why? Because the body was hundreds of miles away by this time,
and on its way to foreign parts. That stood to reason. “He didn’t find
anything though, of course,” he added, winking at a passing gate.
“Graves!” snorted the Colonel. “Graves wouldn’t see a body if it came
walking along the tow-path towards him.”
The Inspector smiled politely at his superior’s humour. “Now, in the
Garfield case, sir,” he remarked chattily, “what they——”
“I don’t like it, I don’t like it!” said the Colonel hastily. The
roseate hues had quite faded from the Colonel’s horizon by this time.
In a really rosy world a murder is invariably accompanied by its
appropriate body; murders without bodies attached would be very rare
indeed. “The whole tale sounds fishy to me. Sounds just like a
situation in a cheap thriller.”
“Well, fancy that, sir!” beamed the Inspector, much struck by this
example of powerful minds working in unison. “That’s just what I said
last night.”
“And where’s that _body_?” barked the Colonel, with sudden wrath, as
if he expected his companion to produce it instead of a rabbit out of
his helmet. “We can’t do anything without that. We can’t even
establish the fact of murder at all.”
“Well, we can’t do much without a body,” the Inspector went so far as
to admit, “and that’s a fact.”
The Colonel relapsed for a moment or two into moody silence.
“If you ask me, Cottingham,” he said, a little explosively, “I believe
the whole thing’s a mare’s nest. I don’t believe there is a body. I
don’t believe there was even a murder. I believe Graves has been
seeing visions.”
“Oh, come, sir,” chided the Inspector, who had no intention of being
robbed of his murder in this high-handed manner. “Graves doesn’t drink
as much as that, he doesn’t. Besides, he heard the shot and he
examined the body. The man was dead right enough, Graves says. Tall,
big chap, he was, one of them foreigners; Frenchy or German or
something. Big black beard, he’d got, Graves said, and wearing——”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the Colonel testily. “I know perfectly well
what Graves said, and in my opinion he imagined the whole thing. May
have seen something, perhaps, and imagined the rest. Apparently
handcuffed two people together, if one _can_ believe a single word he
says (probably two quite innocent people, if I know Graves), and——”
“But what about Mr. Foster, sir?” interrupted the Inspector, his
perturbation overcoming his manners. “You know what he says. You
wouldn’t say he drank, would you, sir? Not Mr. Foster?”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said the Colonel coolly, “if
somebody wasn’t pulling Mr. Foster’s leg. And I shouldn’t be even
surprised,” he added quite gently, “if the same people weren’t trying
to pull yours too.”
“Lor’, sir!” gasped the Inspector, and lapsed into silence.
“In which case,” said the Colonel, very softly, “it’s our business to
make them sorry for it. Very sorry indeed. Just bear that in mind,
will you?”
By the expression on the Inspector’s face it seemed that he bore it
with difficulty. The two walked on in silence, chewing the cud of the
Colonel’s devastating theory. Along the road towards them, moving
blithely and conversing with the utmost animation, came two figures.
“That’s Mr. Nesbitt, sir,” said the Inspector. “And that’s Mr. Doyle
with him.”
“Doyle? That’s the feller who wrote all that twaddle in the _Sunday
Courier_ this morning, isn’t it?”
“He did say he was going to send in a report of the case,” agreed the
Inspector a little uneasily. He had read the report through that
morning, till he almost knew it by heart, and no more delighted
Inspector of Police would have been found in the country; now his
delight was beginning to show signs of waning.
“Humph!” observed the Colonel, busily putting two and two together and
obtaining a perfectly correct answer. He glanced at the Inspector’s
face and from the look of wounded bewilderment upon its surface
deduced further that his colleague, though sorrowfully regarding the
possibility that one of his legs might be a little longer than it was
yesterday, was by no means sure of it; in any case, he had as yet not
the faintest suspicion as to the identity of the author of this
outrage. The Colonel decided not to enlighten him.
“About what I said just now, Cottingham, that the whole thing may be a
hoax,” he said, “keep that to yourself for the time being. I may be
wrong, and we must get to the bottom of it first.”
“Very well, sir,” agreed the Inspector, brightening slightly before
this admission of doubt.
The two pairs came face to face and halted.
“Mr. Nesbitt and Mr. Doyle?” said the Colonel mildly. “Let me
introduce myself, Colonel Ratcliffe.”
“Oh, yes?” murmured Guy politely.
“I’m Doyle, this is Nesbitt,” supplied Mr. Doyle, scanning the
newcomer with a hopeful eye. Any chance of a fresh victim here?
If the Colonel read this thought he took prompt steps to answer it.
“I’m the Chief Constable,” he said, and watched Guy’s face intently.
Was a flicker of apprehension, faint yet discernible, going to pass
swiftly across it? There was not a flicker. The Colonel was
disappointed. As a matter of fact he had been watching the wrong face.
“Oh, yes?” said Guy, without a flicker.
“I’ve just been round to your place to see you, but your wife told me
you were this way so we came along to meet you. I wanted to ask you a
few questions about this business last night.”
“Of course,” Guy said warmly. “But there’s very little I can tell you,
I’m afraid. I was absent all the interesting time. Most annoying; I
wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. I was completely taken in by that
note.”
“Really?” said the Colonel in honeyed tones, and began to put his
questions. They fell into line across the road and walked back towards
Dell Cottage.
Whatever dark suspicions were hidden in the Colonel’s bosom, he
betrayed no sign of them. Questioning Guy closely about the note, its
contents, the handwriting and what had happened to it, then about his
movements from the moment he left home to the time he returned to
discover P. C. Graves immured in his library cupboard, he appeared
perfectly satisfied with the ready answers he received. Turning his
attention to Mr. Doyle (who had now had time to recover himself and no
longer flickered), he posed another set of queries and again appeared
to accept the answers in all good faith. So did the listening
Inspector.
They passed through the faithful crowd and reached the Cottage and Guy
asked the Colonel in for a drink. The Colonel was most grateful. He
not only had a drink, but made a thorough examination of what Mr.
Doyle referred to persistently as “the scene of the outrage.” Mr.
Doyle also showed him a plan he had been at some pains to draw up for
the benefit of the readers of _The Courier_, in which the position of
the body was marked with a cross.
“Oh, yes,” said the Colonel blandly. “And how did you know exactly
where the body was?”
“Me?” said Mr. Doyle with innocent surprise. “Nesbitt showed me. And
the constable—what’s his name? Graves—showed Nesbitt.”
And so for a long hour or more did the Colonel lay his traps and his
intended victims skirt happily round them. At the end of that time the
former went away a baffled man, with nothing more definite than some
scrapings of the blood from the carpet in his pocket.
“But that’s quite enough to clinch it,” he told Inspector Cottingham,
who went with him. “I’ll bet a hundred to one that it’s chicken’s
blood, or something like that. And while it’s being analysed I shall
have a few things for you to do. There are some points I want
checked.” And drawing a pencil and notebook from his pocket, he
proceeded to make brief notes as he walked along, of the main heads of
the story Guy had told him.
At the same time that gentleman was ushering Mr. Doyle into the
drawing-room, where Cynthia and George, having made all the
conversation available, had fallen into a somewhat moody silence.
Cynthia greeted her husband unkindly. “Well, Guy,” she said. “I
suppose he saw through you?”
“Saw through me, my dear? What an extraordinary idea. Certainly not.
He didn’t see through me, Doyle, did he?”
“Not for a moment,” Mr. Doyle assured him with conviction. “You were
as opaque as—as George.”
“Wives are most mistrustful people,” Guy murmured, dropping into a
chair and extending his long legs. “As a matter of fact, Cynthia, I
handled the gallant Colonel with considerable skill.”
“Did you?” said Cynthia, patently unconvinced.
“He put the wind up me,” George contributed. “Those blue eyes of his,
eh? Seemed to look right through you.”
“You see, Nesbitt?” said Doyle. “The workings of a guilty conscience.
Most instructive.” He contemplated George with interest. “Apparently
not only a murderer, but his victim as well, feels uneasy afterwards.”
“Yes, and talking of murders,” said Cynthia with energy, “I insist on
you two getting hold of that poor Mr. Priestley and putting him out of
his misery.” She went on to elaborate her demands at some length.
“Oh, come, dear,” said Guy, shocked. “This is not the spirit of
scientific investigation. This is (I’m sorry to have to say it, but
the truth must be faced) paltry pusillanimity.”
“‘Paltry pusillanimity,’” repeated Mr. Doyle with admiration. “Very
nice. I must work that into my next article. It can come in about the
police.”
“Do you know there’ve been three reporters here already while you’ve
been out?” said George gloomily. Cynthia having refused to allow a
single one of them to set foot inside the house, it had fallen to
George to get rid of them; that was why he was gloomy.
“Good enough!” stated Mr. Doyle with satisfaction. “The leaven is
beginning to work. Three, did you say? I shall be able to double my
rates to The Courier soon, and get twelve mohair mats instead of six.
What does one do with twelve mohair mats, Cynthia? You’re a housewife
and ought to know these things.”
“Be quiet about mohair mats! I want to know whether you’re going to
tell Mr. Priestley the truth?”
“No,” said her husband firmly.
“No,” said Mr. Doyle firmly.
Cynthia looked at George.
“No,” said George weakly.
“We don’t even know where he is,” pointed out Guy.
“What’s his address?” Cynthia demanded of Mr. Doyle.
“I don’t know,” replied that gentleman promptly.
“Liar!”
“Exactly!”
Cynthia set her lips in a thin line. “Very well,” she said, just
breaking the line to let the words through. “_Very_ well.”
“Nesbitt,” said Mr. Doyle. “I’m afraid your wife doesn’t approve of
us.”
“I don’t think she ever has approved of me,” confessed Guy, not
without pathos. “That’s why she married me. No woman ever marries a
man she approves of, you know.”
Cynthia laughed. “Oh, it’s no good getting cross with you babies. But
I do wish you’d grow up some time before you die, Guy.”
“Heaven forbid, my dear!”
Mr. Doyle had drawn a sheet of note-paper out of his pocket and was
studying it thoughtfully. He handed it across to Guy.
“Do you think, Nesbitt, that something might be done with this? I
purloined it, as one might say. It has the address at the top, but
that can always be cut off. And it’s nice distinctive paper, isn’t it?
I should think,” said Mr. Doyle still more thoughtfully, “that if a
search were ever instigated in this neighbourhood for a piece of paper
like that, there’s only one house in which it could be run to earth.”
Guy began to steal jam. “You mean, if certain words were inscribed on
it in block capitals, as I was describing to our friend the Colonel
just now?”
“Exactly. And then if one took a swift car (yours, for instance) and
dropped this piece of paper inscribed with block capitals in a certain
place where four roads meet, as you were also describing to your
friend. I think you get me?”
“This afternoon it shall be done.”
“Now,” corrected Mr. Doyle. “That Colonel’s going to let no grass
grow. This afternoon may be too late.”
“You’re right. Now it is. I’ll do that, while you might be attending
to a certain matter concerning boots, about which we were going to be
so cunning. Do you know, dear,” said Guy, turning to his wife, “Mr.
Foster has a small piece nicked out of the sole of his left boot. We
noticed it in his footmarks in the garden this morning. Isn’t that
interesting? Doyle here thinks it’s a new fashion, so he’s going to
nick a bit out of one of George’s (which happen to be the same size
and shape) so that George can be in the swim too. Isn’t that kind of
him?”
“What’s all this about?” asked George uneasily. George was a man who
set a certain value on his boots.
“But oh,” sighed Mr. Doyle, “how I wish that Reginald, besides having
a broken boot, had a broken nose as well. How very blissful life would
then be.”
Cynthia giggled suddenly. She did not approve of all this nonsense;
indeed, she most strongly disapproved. But then, on the other hand she
did not love Mr. Foster. She knew she ought to love Mr. Foster,
because Mr. Foster was her neighbour (distant, if not distant enough)
and Cynthia had been brought up in the orthodox way. But certainly she
did not love Mr. Foster. This was all the more unkind seeing that she
had never even met him.
“But he has!” giggled Cynthia. “It was broken in a boxing-match at
school. He told Mary James all about it once, and Mary told me. He
told her all about it,” added Cynthia feelingly, “for nearly an hour
on end.”
As if moved on a single string, Guy and Mr. Doyle rose and clung to
each other in silence.
“This is one of the times that are too sacred for speech,” observed
Mr. Doyle a moment later with considerable emotion. “I must return to
my concealed fiancée and George’s boots. Good-bye, Cynthia. George,
you may follow me if you like, but don’t attempt to emulate me. I
shall be walking on air, and that’s so dangerous for the uninitiated.”
He moved with rapture out of the room.
After an uncertain moment, George followed him.
Guy smiled at his wife. “It’s twelve o’clock, darling, that’s all.
Just time for a nice little spin before lunch. Care for one?”
Cynthia tried to look cross with him and failed. “Guy, you are so
ridiculous. I don’t know whether to be furious with you or glad.”
“Be glad, darling. It’s so much less wearing. By the way, are you now
going to run upstairs and put on your hat?”
“Certainly not, Mr. Nesbitt,” said Cynthia with dignity and ran
upstairs to do so.
Chapter XII.
Mr. Priestley Becomes an Uncle
It is to be recorded that when Mr. Priestley’s tour arrived in London,
the member of it known variously as Miss Howard, Mrs. Spettigue, Miss
Merrriman and Laura, did not slip away from it. She was hard put to it
to explain to herself exactly why she did not, for opportunity after
opportunity continued to present itself with sickening plausibility.
Perhaps the reason she gave Cynthia later is as good as any: she
simply hadn’t the heart. Anyhow, the consequence was that, some
half-hour afterwards, Laura found herself walking delicately over the
threshold of Mr. Priestley’s bachelor rooms, still in the rôle of a
damsel in distress without a rag to her back or a penny in her purse;
though now she had a roof to her head, Mr. Priestley’s.
The lender of the roof led her into his study and rang for his man.
Twenty seconds later that functionary stood before him, pale, genteel,
with a face as like a boiled egg as ever. Nothing had ever been known
to disturb this Being, not even when Mr. Priestley, ten years younger
and just beginning to open wondering eyes to the sinfulness of this
world, had ostentatiously taken to locking up his cigars when not
himself requiring the box; so far from being disturbed, all the Being
had done was to take, unobtrusively and in a gentlemanly way, an
impression of the cigar-cabinet key, walk along to the nearest
locksmith’s and then proceed as before. If, therefore, anybody could
have been so futile as to expect him to show signs of surprise at Mr.
Priestley’s fracture of a life-long habit in spending an unexpected
and unheralded night, and at that an unpacked-for night, away from
home, returning the next afternoon with a personable young woman in
tow, then that person deserved all the contempt which Barker would
scorn to bestow on him. After all, Barker set a certain value on his
contempt.
“You rang, sir?” said Barker, taking in Mr. Priestley’s somewhat
unkempt appearance, his torn trouser-leg and the personable young
woman at a single glance, and not batting an eyelid.
“Yes, some tea, please, Barker,” said Mr. Priestley briskly.
“Very good, sir.” Barker began to progress towards the door. Barker
never did anything quite so vulgar as exactly to walk, nor did he
precisely glide, chassis or slither; he just progressed. The sound of
Mr. Priestley attacking his quite admirable fire stopped him. He
retrogressed.
“Permit me, sir,” said Barker, neatly twitching the poker out of Mr.
Priestley’s grasp. He dropped on one knee on the hearthrug as if about
to breathe a prayer up the chimney, and lightly tapped three pieces of
blazing coal. The fire was as perfect as a fire in this world can be,
and Barker was not going to demean himself by pretending that he
thought it anything else. But he was prepared lightly to tap three
pieces of coal out of sheer courtesy.
Mr. Priestley also knew the fire was a perfectly admirable fire,
though he was quite prepared to demean himself by pretending to think
otherwise. He had, in fact, gripped the poker as a means of ensuring
Barker’s presence in the room for another two minutes, by the end of
which period Mr. Priestley devoutly hoped he would have jumped his
next two fences. They were fences at which he shied a good deal.
He took a running leap at the first one. “By the way, Barker,” he
said, with the chattiness of sheer nerves, “this is Miss Merriman—Miss
_Laura_ Merriman, Barker—a cousin of mine, who is going to stay with
me here for a little while.”
“Very good, sir,” Barker acquiesced woodenly in this momentous news.
“She—she will assist me in a secretarial capacity,” continued Mr.
Priestley unnecessarily. “She is a trained typist, and—and she will
assist me in a secretarial capacity.”
“Very good, sir,” repeated Barker stolidly from the hearthrug. Not a
sign appeared on his boiled-egglike countenance of the joyful interest
he was feeling in his master’s unexpected depravity and his wonder why
the old josser should think it necessary to fill him up with all this
bunkum about cousins and secretarial capacities. Barker had no doubt
that this tidy bit of goods was here to assist Mr. Priestley all
right, but not in a secretarial capacity.
The tidy bit of goods, seated in an arm-chair, demurely contemplated
her shoes, unconscious of these uncharitable reflections.
“That’s all right then,” said Mr. Priestley, with relief at this first
fence safely negotiated. “So get the spare room ready, please.”
“Yes, sir.” Barker rose and dusted the knees of his trousers with mild
reproach. “And the young lady’s luggage?” he asked maliciously.
“Her—her luggage?” stammered Mr. Priestley, who had not expected this
query. “Oh, it’s—yes, it’s been mislaid. Most—er—annoying. You quite
lost sight of it on the journey, didn’t you, Laura?”
“Oh, quite,” Laura agreed, heroically suppressing a giggle.
“Should you like me to go and make inquiries about it, sir?” asked
Barker, still more maliciously.
“No, no,” said Mr. Priestley testily. “We—we have already attended to
that. Of course we have.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Barker with a perfectly blank face. He
turned to go. Of course the bit of goods had no luggage, he’d known
that all along; but he had felt that Mr. Priestley deserved the
question. Fancy trying to take _him_ in with silly tales about cousins
and secretarial capacities! Barker felt almost hurt.
“Oh, and Barker!”
Barker turned back resignedly, but continuing to impersonate a
boiled-egg. “Sir?”
Mr. Priestley was fumbling inside his waistcoat, his face exceedingly
red. After a little preliminary manœuvring he extended his left arm;
the wrist was encircled by an unmistakable handcuff, from which
another handcuff dangled wistfully.
“A friend of mine,” said Mr. Priestley with considerable dignity,
“fastened this foolish contrivance on my wrists. I have managed to get
one free, but I cannot liberate the other. Will you please find some
instrument to—er—to free me with?”
Barker looked at his employer’s wrist, and then at his employer’s red
but dignified face. His lips twitched. His face suddenly took on a
poached aspect, and then a positively scrambled one.
“Very good,” he began bravely, “s-s-s——” A hoarse cry suddenly escaped
from him and he dived from the room. Further hoarse sounds were
distinctly audible from the passage outside.
Mr. Priestley looked at the closed door with considerable interest.
“Do you know,” he said with mild wonder, “I believe Barker actually
_laughed_ then. He must be human after all.”
Mr. Priestley was right. Barker was human. Exceedingly human thoughts
were coursing through Barker’s mind as he busied himself in preparing
the tea. But what was surprising Barker so very much was to find that
Mr. Priestley was human too.
“The wicked old sinner!” commented Barker to the tea-caddy. “To think
of ’im breaking out like a two-year-old after all this time! Ah,
well,” reflected Barker philosophically, “they always do say the older
you grow the friskier you get.”
In the study the frisky one proceeded to elaborate his plan.
“You must have clothes, of course,” he said. “Perhaps we had better go
out to-morrow morning and get you some. Now how much money,” asked Mr.
Priestley diffidently, “does a girl’s outfit cost? Including
everything, I mean?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” said Laura warmly, touched afresh by this
large-hearted generosity. “It’s out of the question.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Priestley firmly. “It’s essential. Please don’t
be obstinate, Laura. You must have clothes. Would—do you think a
hundred pounds would be enough to get you what you require? I know
women’s clothes are exceedingly expensive,” added Mr. Priestley,
somehow contriving to apologise to the object of his charity for this
awkward quality of her own garments.
Laura gasped.
“I always keep a hundred pounds in cash on the premises, just for
emergencies,” explained Mr. Priestley happily, “so you see there is no
difficulty about that at all.” “For, of course,” added Mr. Priestley’s
expression, “one might just as well spend the silly stuff as keep it
lying about here for nothing; and just at the moment I think I’d
rather spend it on girl’s clothes than anything else.” One gathered
from Mr. Priestley’s expression that Laura would really be doing him a
very great favour if she would allow Mr. Priestley to spend his own
hundred pounds on a number of garments which could be of really very
little practical use to himself.
“It’s out of the question,” said Laura feebly. “I—I couldn’t hear of
it.”
“I insist,” retorted Mr. Priestley with his famous imitation of a
strong if not silent man.
The discussion raged.
Mr. Priestley closed it with a snap. “Very well,” he said, “if you
refuse to come with me, I shall go out and buy them alone.”
A horrified vision arose before Laura’s eyes of the garments Mr.
Priestley might be expected to purchase if left to himself. Sheer
desperation presented her with the essentials of a scheme for escaping
from the impasse. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll give in, though I don’t
approve of it at all. But of course it’s perfectly sweet of you. I’ll
let you pay for the clothes on one condition—that I go and buy them
alone. You know,” she added persuasively, “you wouldn’t really like
coming to lingerie shops with me, would you?”
“Not at all,” beamed Mr. Priestley. “But I’ll tell you why I wished to
come with you. Because I didn’t want to let you out of my sight! You
are an independent girl, and I was afraid that if I let you go out
alone you quite possibly would not return.”
“Oh!” said Laura, having had this very intention.
“I may have been wrong,” continued Mr. Priestley happily, “but I
feared that, once you were out of my clutches, so to speak, you would
begin to imagine all sorts of foolish things, such as that your
presence here might possibly—er—embarrass me, as it were, and that I
should not care to be saddled with the responsibility of looking after
you. Nothing,” said Mr. Priestley very earnestly, “could in reality be
further from the truth. I will, therefore, agree to your condition
upon one of my own: that you give me your word of honour to return
here whenever you go out, either to-day or to-morrow, take up your
residence as I suggested, and look upon this place as your home until
all this awkward affair is finally cleared up.” He smiled at her
benevolently.
“Oh!” said Laura blankly.
Now Laura was not one of those feeble-minded creatures who go through
life with the fatuous question constantly on their lips: What will
people say? She did not care a rap what people said about her (which
was perhaps as well); all that concerned her was what she was. But
however free from conventional ties a young woman may consider
herself, to take up her residence in a bachelor’s flat is not a step
to be made without a certain amount of reflection; if one only owes
the duty of essentials to oneself, one does owe a certain duty of
external appearances to one’s friends and relations. On the other
hand, those friends and relations, being themselves clean-minded
people, would, if they ever came to hear of the escapade at all,
certainly recognise Mr. Priestley for the innocent babe he was.
Nevertheless half an hour ago, in spite of everything, Laura would
have said very decidedly, “No,” and proceeded with her plan of escape.
Now the whole situation was altered by Mr. Priestley’s utter
generosity. To throw the gift he was trying to make back in his face
would, in one sense, be the act of a complete rotter. After all, as
she had had occasion to remind herself before, she had asked for
everything and it was only poetic justice that she should get it. As
things were, she owed Mr. Priestley all the reparation she could give
him. But nevertheless, modern though she considered herself, there
were limits even to such reparation, and was not to compromise herself
hopelessly and for ever quite decidedly one of them? Oh, Lord, she
didn’t know _what_ to do!
“All right,” Laura heard her own voice saying, “I agree. I give you my
solemn word.” She listened to it with astonishment. So far as she
knew, she had not arrived at any decision at all; apparently she had
been wrong. The words seemed to have come out of her mouth without any
volition on her part at all. Laura was grateful to her mouth; at any
rate it had solved this very awkward problem for her.
Mr. Priestley replied fittingly.
“And I know what I’ll do,” Laura went on, speaking this time of her
own free will. “I’ll adopt you as an uncle. That’ll make everything
all right, won’t it?” The British mind, it has been said, loves a
compromise.
Mr. Priestley looked slightly disappointed. He did not feel at all
avuncular.
Twenty minutes later Laura, having obtained leave of absence for half
an hour, was in Piccadilly, a smile on her lips and laughter in her
heart. Now that the die actually was cast, she was prepared to enjoy
the situation to its fullest extent. And anyhow, Duffley really was
deadly dull.
She entered the Piccadilly Palace and made a bee-line for the
telephone room. Their own house at Duffley was not on the telephone,
and she gave the Nesbitt’s number. A quarter of an hour later she got
it.
“Yes?” said Cynthia’s voice very wearily. “What is it?”
“Is that you, Cynthia darling? Lawks speaking.”
“Oh!” Cynthia’s voice brightened considerably. “I thought it was
another wretched reporter. They’ve been buzzing round here like flies
all the afternoon, and the telephone’s been going continuously. Lawks,
what have you been doing, my dear?”
“Hush! Telephones have ears, you know, besides the ones at each end.
I’ll tell you all about everything when I see you. My dear, I’ve had a
perfectly hectic time. I—no, not now. Cynthia, will you take a message
across for me to Dawks?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“I want her to pack a trunk for me. Tell her to put in my gray
costume, my new black georgette, my . . .” A long list followed here,
of intimate interest to both Laura and Cynthia, and none at all to the
reader. “Oh, well, if you can’t remember all that, just tell her all
my new spring things, my best evening frocks and my choicest undies.
And I want you to tell George that——” Details followed of the car and
the garage at Manstead.
“But Lawks, what ever are you doing?”
“Never mind, darling; of that anon. Oh, and tell Dawks to bring the
trunk up here to-morrow morning, put it in the cloakroom, and meet me
in the Piccadilly Palace lounge at twelve sharp.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Cynthia, to whom an idea had just occurred.
“Yes, very well. Lawks, how’s—you know, your little friend?”
“Oh, sitting up and taking nourishment.”
“Yes, but is he—”
“Your thrrrree minutes is up,” said a harsh voice. “Do you want
another thrrrree minutes?” And its owner promptly cut them off before
either could answer her.
Laura returned to Half Moon Street with feelings which she made no
attempt to analyse.
Mr. Priestley also did not stop to analyse his feelings when Laura
returned to him. There was no need. His face one large beam, he
welcomed her as if she had been away half a year instead of half an
hour. It is to be feared that Mr. Priestley had not been quite as
reassured as he should have been by Laura’s solemn word.
Having taken off her hat and admired the delightfully cosy little room
prepared for her, in which a fire was already burning, Laura returned
to the study, and insisted upon being initiated into her secretarial
duties that very minute, brushing aside Mr. Priestley’s earnest
attempts to establish a conscience which would not allow him even to
think of work on a Sunday, much less practise it. Mr. Priestley, who
had not the faintest idea what to do with a secretary or how on earth
to keep her employed for more than ten minutes in the day, had
considerable difficulty in concealing the fact that a secretary who
knew no Latin or Greek was just about as much use to him personally as
the clothes she was going to buy with his money. Laura, who read each
thought as it flitted through his mind, listened demurely to his
halting sentences and continued to think what a perfect dear he was.
With an air of great importance the perfect dear finally gave her some
rough notes he had made ten years before (and never thought of since)
upon certain obscure passages in Juvenal, to be put into shipshape
form the next morning. Then, with the comfortable feeling of duty done
and pleasure coming, he settled down in a chair by the fire for a
companionable chat till dinner.
That meal safely over (and an admirable affair it was; Barker had seen
to that, though distinctly disappointed that no champagne was drunk
with it to mark the occasion fittingly), they went back to the
library, and there Mr. Priestley had a very bright idea indeed. This
dear girl was likely to be on his hands for some time; why not make
that period of real solid value to her, and at the same time increase
her own value to himself? Why not, in short, teach her a little Latin?
He pottered happily off to see if he could unearth the old Kennedy’s
grammar of his schooldays.
To Laura’s considerable regret, he succeeded.
To Barker, lurking tactfully in his own fastness and picturing lurid
scenes in progress in the study with all the strength of his somewhat
one-sided imagination, the truth regarding the next two hours would
have been a poignant disappointment; there is very little luridness in
the conjugation of _mensa_. Laura spent a dull evening.
At half-past ten, feeling that she had had enough Latin to last her
for several years, she announced her intention of going to bed,
resisting all Mr. Priestley’s efforts to dissuade her.
“I’m very tired,” she said, not without truth, holding out a slim
hand. “Good-night, Uncle Matthew.”
“Good-night, then Niece Laura,” beamed Mr. Priestley, taking the hand
and forgetting apparently to release it again.
Laura could hardly go to bed without her hand; she lingered. They
smiled at each other.
“Oh, well,” thought Laura, “why not? He deserves something, the funny
old dear, and he does seem to enjoy it so.” She held up her cheek.
“Good-night, dear, kind Uncle Matthew,” she said softly.
“God bless my soul!” observed Mr. Priestley, discovering suddenly that
there are advantages in being an uncle after all.
“Besides, it isn’t the first time,” continued Laura’s thoughts as she
went off to her bed and a pair of Mr. Priestley’s pyjamas; “and he
certainly had that kissing look in his eye. Oh, well, I owe him that
much, I suppose.” But not for one moment did she admit that the very
simple reason why she had held up her face was that, for the first
time in her life, she actually wanted to be kissed. A simple reason is
so very dull, of course, when there is a complicated one to take its
place.
Mr. Priestley rang for his night-cap and settled himself in his chair
again feeling exactly ten years younger than when he had last
performed the same action forty-eight hours ago. If Laura let him kiss
her good-night, she ought by all logic to let him kiss her
good-morning. If he kissed her once each night and once each morning,
and she stayed in his rooms say, two months—no, three months at least
for safety, then he could look forward to . . . thirty multiplied by
three multiplied by two. . . . His thoughts ran happily on; very
happily.
Mr. Priestley was a man of resilient disposition. Living as he had so
far out of the everyday world, the things of the world passed him by
without his very much noticing them. One day out in the world there
might be a miners’ strike, but the next day Mr. Priestley had
forgotten all about it; one day there would be a railway disaster most
distressing at the moment of reading, the next there had never been a
railway disaster at all; one night out in the big world Mr. Priestley
might shoot a blackguard, the next his action had receded into a bad
dream. Even the handcuff, last tangible link with that extraordinary
affair, had been miraculously removed by Barker, to whom all things
seemed possible. Mr. Priestley had reached the stage of having to
pinch himself before he could realise that the thing had really
happened. It is true that Laura remained, one last link and,
presumably, a tangible one, especially when being bidden good-night.
But Laura was a different affair altogether. Sipping his hot toddy,
Mr. Priestley meditated not without awe how very different Laura
was—different from everything and every one there had ever been before
in the history of the world. Indubitably Laura was a different affair.
When he went to bed thirty minutes later, to sleep like a log all
night, Mr. Priestley was still pondering reverently upon the really
quite astonishing difference of Laura.
He had cause for further reflection the next morning, for that young
woman, although greeting him with cheerful nieceishness at the
breakfast-table, did not offer even a hand by way of token; indeed,
she was at some pains to avoid her host’s distinctly pleading eye.
During the meal Mr. Priestley found rueful employment in cutting down
his arithmetical calculations by exactly one-half.
For an hour afterwards in the study Laura wrestled nobly with the
obscurities of Juvenal. The time did not pass unpleasantly. She had a
translation given her, and in the intervals of wrestling was able to
discover some quite interesting reading therein. Mr. Priestley,
pretending to scan his morning paper by the fire, glanced at her
contentedly from time to time. This was a good idea of his,
secretarial employment; working away at Juvenal, the poor girl would
quite imagine that she was performing her share of a two-sided
bargain; it would never occur to her now to consider herself an object
of charity, with the inevitable resentment that a high-spirited girl
naturally would feel in such circumstances. Yes, a really brilliant
idea. Mr. Priestley turned to his _Daily Courier_ for the
forty-seventh time.
_The Sunday Courier_ and _The Daily Courier_ were as brothers having
one father, Lord Lappinwick. What _The Sunday Courier_ said on Sunday
_The Daily Courier_ said on Monday, and what _The Daily Courier_ said
on Saturday _The Sunday Courier_ repeated with admiration on Sunday.
_The Daily Courier_ was now busy repeating its brother’s observations
of the day before, with added epithets and a few fresh facts. These
latter did not amount to much, being merely the brilliant discoveries
and deductions of Inspector Cottingham of the day before, and the
story of them only confirmed Mr. Priestley’s own theory. They had
furnished enough conversation to last throughout breakfast, but,
speculation tending to move in an endless circle, were now exhausted.
In the meantime Laura held her curiosity as best she could, till
twelve o’clock.
An hour before that time she looked up from her work.
“Do you—do you think I might be spared now to go out and do that
shopping?” she asked, with charming diffidence.
“God bless my soul, yes!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley, full of remorse.
“Do you know, I’d forgotten all about it. Go and get your hat on at
once, my dear; you’ve got two hours before lunch.”
Laura went.
“Here’s the hundred pounds,” said Mr. Priestley when she returned, and
stuffed a bundle of notes in her hand.
Laura attempted to thank him, but was cut short. “Yes, yes,” he said,
much embarrassed. “That’s all right. And—and you’ll be back for
lunch.”
Laura smiled at the indifferently concealed anxiety in his voice.
“Yes, Uncle Matthew, I’ll be back; or soon after, at any rate. I’m not
going to run away. I gave you my word, you know.”
“So you did,” said Mr. Priestley. “So you did. Well, good-bye, my dear
girl. Get yourself lots of pretty things.”
“I will, I promise you. Oh, and I’ve had an idea. I’m going to buy a
second-hand trunk and have all the things packed in that. Then it will
look to Barker as if it was just my luggage turned up, you see. What
do you think of that?”
“Excellent!” said the guileless Mr. Priestley with much admiration.
“Excellent! Well—er—good-bye, Niece Laura.”
“Good-bye, Uncle Matthew,” demurely said Laura, who was not taking any
hints to-day. She went.
Mr. Priestley found plenty to think about for the next fifty minutes.
Then, at ten minutes to twelve, he heard the front door-bell ring, and
Barker’s footsteps down the passage a moment later. He wondered idly
who had rung. It may be noted that Mr. Priestley did not start
guiltily every time a bell rang, nor did he cringe-about the place in
constant expectation of a heavy hand on his shoulder. It might have
been a mouse he had shot instead of a man for all the guilty starts
and cringing that Mr. Priestley performed.
While Mr. Priestley was not starting guiltily, Barker was opening the
door. Confronting him on the landing was a tall, slim woman,
exquisitely dressed, who smiled at him. The smile was of such peculiar
sweetness that Barker broke another life-time’s record and smiled
back.
“Is Mr. Priestley in?” asked the lady, amid the shattered fragments of
Barker’s record.
“Yes, madam.”
“Is he alone? Alone in the flat, I mean?”
“Yes, madam,” said Barker, concealing any surprise he might have felt
under his usual egg-like expression.
“Then I should like to see him, please.”
“Yes, madam. Will you step this way? What name shall I say?”
The visitor smiled at him again, this time in a particularly
confidential way. “It doesn’t matter about the name. Just say ‘a
lady.’”
“Very good, madam. Will you come in here, please?”
Still somewhat upset by the smile, Barker did a thing he would never
have dreamed of doing in normal circumstances and showed the caller
straight into Mr. Priestley’ s study. There, regretfully, he left her.
“Good-morning, Mr. Priestley,” said the lady, advancing at once with
outstretched hand and apparently quite at home. “You don’t know me,
but I think you know Pat Doyle, who is a friend of ours. I am Mrs.
Nesbitt.”
“Mrs. Nesbitt!” repeated Mr. Priestley in amazement. He became aware
of the outstretched hand in a gray glove and shook it absently. It was
a very nice hand, and deserved more attention. “Mrs. Nesbitt! Well,
good gracious me.”
“I want to speak to you very privately, Mr. Priestley,” Cynthia smiled
again, and at once Mr. Priestley felt he had known her all his life.
“Laura isn’t here, is she, by any chance?”
“Miss Merriman?” Mr. Priestley smiled back delightedly. “Oh, do you
know her too? Excellent! No, she isn’t here just now. She went out
nearly an hour ago, to—er—in fact, she went out. But she’ll be back
for lunch, I hope.”
“Miss Merriman?” said Cynthia, puzzled. “I meant Laura Howard.”
Mr. Priestley shook his head. “There’s no Miss Howard here. I don’t
even know a Miss Howard. There is a Miss Merriman, Miss Laura
Merriman, staying here with me.”
“Staying here?” echoed Cynthia, considerably startled. She devoted one
searching look at Mr. Priestley and knew him at once for what he was;
then she laid back her head and laughed very heartily. “Oh, Laura!”
laughed Cynthia. “Yes, it must be her. Well, it was her own fault and
I’m very glad to hear it. It may do her quite a lot of good.”
It was Mr. Priestley’s turn to look mystified. Also he was beginning
to feel slightly alarmed. Mrs. Nesbitt’s call could only mean one
thing, and that was that his connection with the business at Duffley
had come to light. Probably Pat Doyle had asked her to give him a hint
of warning. Oh, dear, how exceedingly awkward!
“I—I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he faltered.
Cynthia threw him a compassionate glance. “No, I shouldn’t think you
do,” she said warmly. “That’s why I’m here.” She walked swiftly over
to the door, and, to Mr. Priestley’s astonishment, turned the key. “I
want to talk to you very confidentially, Mr. Priestley. I’ve only got
a very few minutes, and whatever happens nobody must see me here. Oh,
why aren’t you in the telephone-book? I’ve wasted hours finding out
your address.”
“God bless my soul!” said the astonished Mr. Priestley.
Cynthia began to talk.
Out in the passage, hovering warily, Barker heard the key turn in the
lock and walked thoughtfully back to the kitchen. “The saucy old
kipper!” was Mr. Barker’s summing-up of the situation, after profound
cogitation. He repeated his analysis to an empty milk-jug. “The saucy
old _kipper_!” confided Mr. Barker to the milk-jug.
Ten minutes later Cynthia was taking farewell of a staggered Mr.
Priestley. “And you’ll be by the Achilles statue at three o’clock?”
she said, offering the gray-gloved hand again. “I’ve ever so much more
to tell you, but I simply must fly now as she’s been waiting there
since twelve for the cloak-room ticket. Think over that idea of mine
in the meantime, and see if you can improve on it. And for goodness’
sake don’t let Laura follow you this afternoon. Good-bye, Mr.
Priestley.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Nesbitt,” mumbled Mr. Priestley, who had been
conversing for the last ten minutes entirely in gasps. “And—and thank
you so much.”
“Not a bit. I can only apologise most humbly, as the only member of
the conspiracy with perhaps a single grain of sense, that I ever let
things go so far; I ought to have put my foot down at the very
beginning. And now I must go. Oh, and perhaps you’d better tell your
man not to let it out to Laura that I’ve been here this morning.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” muttered the dazed recipient of her
confidences, trying to open the door by twisting the handle backwards
and forwards. Cynthia gently unlocked it for him.
Mr. Priestley saw her out himself, more or less, and then ambled along
the passage to the kitchen.
“Barker,” said Mr. Priestley, eyeing his servitor as blankly as if the
latter had actually turned into the breakfast dish he so much
resembled. “Barker, kindly say nothing to Miss How—to Miss Lau—to my
cousin about the lady who called this morning. Or,” added Mr.
Priestley comprehensively, “to any one else.”
“Very good, sir,” agreed Barker without visible emotion.
He waited till Mr. Priestley’s shuffling footsteps had ceased to be
audible in the passage. Then he gave vent to his feelings. “Well, I’ll
be blowed!” remarked Mr. Barker to the silver spoon he happened to be
polishing at the moment. “Running two of ’em at once, unbeknown to
each other! Sends one out and has the other in, and vice verse. The
giddy old gazebo!” said Mr. Barker to the silver spoon.
Chapter XIII.
Cynthia Begins to Smile
It is a maxim in warfare that he who scorns to use the enemy’s weapons
will find himself defeated; unfairly, no doubt, but defeated. In her
combat with guile Cynthia had no intention of being defeated. She had
therefore delivered to Dora not the whole of Laura’s message but only
that part which concerned the packing of the trunk. For the rest,
Cynthia remarked airily, she was going up to London the next day
herself and could therefore take the trunk with her.
By this simple expedient Cynthia was able to ensure not only Laura’s
absence while she put Mr. Priestley out of his misery, but also the
further meeting for the afternoon. Cynthia knew perfectly well what
she was going to do at this second interview; she was going to talk to
Mr. Priestley, and then she was going to smile at him—and, if
necessary, go on smiling till dusk.
Had Cynthia but known it, there was reason for an added millimetre or
two to her smile. It would have amused her a good deal to know that,
while the two chief conspirators were chuckling over their
crack-brained preparations for the confounding of Reginald Foster,
Esq., an almost equally clever mind was hard at work trying to extract
the foundation from the whole erection and topple it down upon the
heads of its own authors.
To take another maxim from _The Child’s Guide to Warfare_, it is a
fatal mistake to underestimate one’s opponent. Guy and Mr. Doyle had
not the faintest suspicion that they had not hoodwinked the friendly
Chief Constable just as successfully as that fatherly terror of
village murderers, Inspector Cottingham. Having ascertained that Mr.
Foster had spent Saturday evening at home and had therefore no _alibi_
beyond the word of his wife, they had proceeded to plant his
note-paper and carve George’s boots with the utmost enjoyment and
confidence. For, as to careful attention to detail, had they not
previously muffled their faces in the best shilling-shocker manner and
actually distributed real gent’s blood about the place, with the most
gratifying results? What could any Chief Constable want more?
After a thoroughly satisfactory day, therefore, the two families
prepared to spend Sunday evening in their own respective houses.
George would have strolled across to Dell Cottage, had he not thought
that he did not wish to see very much more of Cynthia that day; for,
attempting to join the other two in the drawing-room after dinner, he
was promptly ejected. “For,” as Mr. Doyle pointed out with some
feeling, “much though I like and esteem you, George, there are times
when I like and esteem you better at a distance, and this is one of
them. Go out into the garden, George, and hang yourself on a bush;
that’s the proper place for gooseberries.”
“You needn’t stay, really, George,” Dora added earnestly. “I’ve quite
grown-up now, you know. And if the man’s intentions become _too_
dishonourable, I can always scream for you, can’t I?”
George fled, growling. George was one of those absurdly out-of-date
people who prefer their women-kind to leave unsaid those things that
ought not to be said. George _was_ ridiculous.
It was fortunate that George took his leisure while he might. Apart
from the bother of an awkward journey to a place called Manstead the
next morning to retrieve his car in time to drive Dora and Mr. Doyle
up to London in it for the opening of the new Jollity revue (the
railway station would certainly be watched, George had had it
carefully impressed upon him), there was yet another blow coming. It
came at about half-past nine.
There was a ring at the front door, and, unlike Mr. Priestley, George
started guiltily. George was really not enjoying life very much in
these days. Knowing his sister, he heaved himself reluctantly out of
his chair and went to answer the ring.
“Hullo, George,” said Guy’s voice. “Here’s a couple of visitors to see
you, Monica and Alan. Cynthia has turned us out of the house. Can you
entertain us?”
“Oh, yes,” said the unhappy George. “Oh, rather.”
“Hullo, George,” said Monica brightly.
“Hullo,” said George with a ghastly smile. “Er—hullo, Alan.”
“Hullo,” said Alan, a somewhat stout young man of fourteen.
The conversation then lapsed.
“Do you entertain us here, George?” Monica asked with interest. “If
so, bring the piano out, too, and we’ll make an evening of it.”
“Oh, sorry,” George mumbled, and stood aside to let these most
unwelcome visitors enter. He closed the front door softly upon all
hope and led the way to the drawing-room.
The visitors stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room and looked
inside with interest. George was improving as an entertainer, they
felt. Even George forgot his sorrow for the moment too. For it
appeared that Dora and her fiancé had not heard the door-bell. Indeed,
unless they were trying to show off, it was quite evident that they
had not.
It seemed a pity to spoil such an idyllic scene, but Alan Spence did
so. He spoilt it with a guffaw. Alan’s guffaw might have been
guaranteed to spoil any idyllic scene. It was not a taking guffaw.
“Oh-oh-ah-hoo!” guffawed Alan.
Dora leapt off that portion of Mr. Doyle on which she was reclining as
if she had suddenly discovered that it was not her fiancé at all, but
a very large hornet. “George, you ass!” she cried, going so red that
it seemed as if she must set fire to her frock.
“George, you goop!” exclaimed Mr. Doyle, no less fiery.
“George, you old idiot!” cackled Guy.
“George, you scream!” shrieked Monica, quite untruthfully.
Alan contented himself with merely guffawing at George.
George sighed. Whatever happened, everybody seemed to blame him.
Whatever he did was always wrong. Life was a bleak business. Then he
looked at Dora and life did not seem quite so bleak after all. He had
never seen either of his sisters embarrassed before. It was a sight
which interested George a good deal.
“Sorry if we were tactless, Dawks,” said Guy, “but it really wasn’t
our fault, you know.”
“Of course it wasn’t. It was George’s. It always is.”
“May we come in now, or would you rather we didn’t?”
“Guy,” said Dora with feeling, “if you say another single word on that
subject, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“May my tongue be cut out,” said Guy, and introduced the new-comers.
While George carefully avoided every one’s eye, they sorted themselves
into seats.
“We were to have come on Tuesday,” Monica announced, “but when we saw
_The Sunday Courier_ this morning, of course we couldn’t wait till
then. We just flew for the first train we could get.”
“What rot, Monica,” observed her brother, with proper scorn for this
feminine hyperbole. “We could have got here hours ago,” he informed
the company, “if she hadn’t wasted half the day packing a lot of
rotten clothes.”
“So now tell us all about it,” Monica continued serenely. “Cynthia
wouldn’t say a single word; can’t imagine why. She said if we wanted
to talk about it, we’d got to come over here, because two more words
on it to-day would send her raving mad.”
“Cinders always was a bit comic,” agreed Alan with brotherly candour.
Guy crossed his legs and slid down in his chair. “Go on, Doyle,” he
said. “You’re the official historian.”
“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” inquired Doyle
cautiously.
“Heaven forbid!” said Guy, and winked gently.
“I say,” remarked Alan more respectfully, “are you that chap Doyle,
who wrote about it in the _Sunday Courier_?”
“I am that chap Doyle,” agreed Mr. Doyle with grave dignity.
He proceeded to retail a second version of his report to _The
Courier_, adding the chief points of the one he had already telephoned
through for the next morning’s issue.
While he talked George found himself at liberty to study Monica
without fear of being observed. Hitherto he had consciously avoided
looking at her; now that he did so he could hardly believe that this
was the same person, who, little more than two years ago, had caused
him to dance before the wedding-guests. She looked completely
different. The thick plaits which had been the cause of all the
merriment had disappeared and her hair, fair like her sister’s, was
cut short about her small head. George was not an admirer of cropped
heads on women’s shoulders, but even he could not but admit that
Monica’s really didn’t look half bad, considering.
Her features and figure seemed to have altered as much as her hair.
The lean, disjointed look of sixteen had given place to nineteen’s
curves of incipient womanhood; the curves were not pronounced but they
were curves. George liked curves. Her face was curiously like
Cynthia’s and curiously unlike. She had her sister’s wide forehead and
straight nose, and the corners of her lips were touched with the same
sense of humour, but there was an elfin look about her that was quite
different from Cynthia’s air of rather amused repose. Looking more
closely still, George could see that, after all, this was the person
who had brought him low with a hose-pipe, but her methods, he felt,
had probably developed with her curves. She would use subtler means
now, but she would no doubt attain the same results. George shivered
slightly.
“Footprints!” Alan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Oo!”?
“Did the girl leave footprints, too?” Monica asked eagerly, with her
sex’s immediate conversion of the general into the personal. Just over
two years ago she would also have said only: “Footprints! Oo!”
Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. The glances said quite plainly:
“I think we shall be able to find use for this young man.”
The talk proceeded.
In due course George rose, went out of the room, returned with drinks
and dispensed them. Still the talk went on. At last Guy suggested that
it was time to make a move. George did not contradict him. George was
a courteous host, but there are limits. Hose-pipes are one, frogs
another.
“What are you doing to-morrow, George?” Guy asked as he rose.
“Got to go over to Manstead to fetch the car,” said George, not quite
so dolefully. There had been a ring in Guy’s question, and George was
not sorry to have a sound excuse against whatever the ring might
portend. “It’s between thirty and forty miles from here. Take me most
of the morning.”
“Oh, are you going to drive forty miles to-morrow morning?” asked
Monica instantly. “Oh, George, how gorgeous! You’ll take me with you,
won’t you?”
“Um!” gulped George. “Er—yes, oh, yes. Er—rather. If—if you’re sure
you’d really like to come. It’ll be a beastly journey, you know,” he
added hopefully.
“Thanks awfully,” said Monica, promptly extinguishing the hope. “I’d
love it.”
George contemplated his feet with a moody air. He had, he now
realised, been quite mistaken about that trip to Manstead; he hadn’t
disliked the thought of it at all, he had actually been looking
forward to it intensely. It had promised a whole morning’s peace, away
from everything that was making life so bleak at present. Now life was
apparently to be bleaker still. Probably Monica would fill the
petrol-tank up with water and the radiator with petrol, or stick pins
into the tyres, or scratch her initials on the paint; at the very
least she would wilfully misdirect him on the road, in order to get a
sixty-mile joy-ride instead of a thirty-five. He meditated dismally.
Doyle had drawn Guy aside. “What about that youth for the opening of
the Inspector’s eyes?” he said in a low voice.
“Just what I’d thought of, my dear fellow. Couldn’t be better. Come
over as soon as you like after breakfast.”
“Do these two know about keeping Dora dark, so to speak?”
“By Jove, no! I’d forgotten all about it. As we’re keeping them in the
dark ourselves, what reason can we give?”
“Leave it to me,” adjured Mr. Doyle, thinking rapidly. He took Guy’s
arm and drew him back to the little group by the door.
“By the way, Nesbitt,” said Mr. Doyle loudly, “I wish you’d do me a
favour. Please don’t tell anybody about Dora being here this week-end.
She particularly doesn’t want her name mentioned in connection with
this affair, as it would be so bad for her at the theatre. The
management are very much down on any of the girls getting mixed up in
murder mysteries; they think it’s bad for business. If it leaked out,
Dora would probably get the sack.”
“Of course, my dear chap,” said Guy gravely. “I quite understand.
Nobody else knows?”
“So far, no. Not even the police. Particularly not the police, I
should say. And we’re going to smuggle her up to London to-morrow in
time for the show. Thanks so much, Nesbitt, thanks so much.”
Alan was staring at Dora with round eyes. “I say,” he said, in tones
to match them, “you’re not on the stage, are you?”
“I am,” Dora smiled, “yes.”
“Coo! What are you in?”
“Well, as there’s no Shakespeare season on at the moment, I’ve been
keeping my hand in up to a few weeks ago in ‘Thumbs Up!’ at the
Jollity.”
“And legs, dearest,” murmured Mr. Doyle _sotto voce_. “Be honest.”
“I say, were you really? I saw that last hols. Topping show!” Mr.
Spence continued to stare with round eyes. His manner had changed
considerably. In place of his former air of confident and slightly
contemptuous assurance he now wore one of respect verging almost upon
diffidence.
George looked at his sister with envy. There would clearly be no frogs
in her bed.
“What part did you play?” asked Monica, who seemed to be sharing
something of her brother’s feelings. She spoke humbly, as a disciple
addressing his master or a mate his plumber.
Dora laughed. “Well, not the lead exactly. I’m in the chorus.”
“Coo!” observed Alan. “Are you a chorus-girl?”
“I suppose I must be,” Dora admitted. “Am I?” she appealed to her
fiancé.
“Certainly you are. That’s why I’m marrying you. Clever men in the
best novels are always infatuated by chorus-girls.”
“Don’t you _love_ wearing all those beautiful costumes?” said Monica
soulfully.
“Dora has a very good opinion of her figure, yes,” remarked Mr. Doyle.
“So have I, dear,” he added hastily, catching a glint in his lady’s
eye. “And I think it’s very sporting of you to have joined the——”
“That’ll do, Pat. That’s quite enough from you.”
Alan turned to George as one man of the world to another. “I say, you
were pulling my leg, weren’t you? She’s not really your sister?” Old
ideas die hard in the young.
The resulting hilarity took them out into the hall.
“Well, good-night, George,” said Guy, stepping out into the night.
“Good-night,” said George.
“Good-night, George,” said Monica. “Till to-morrow.”
“Till to-morrow,” echoed George dully, and walked back to the
drawing-room where he had left the whisky decanter. The drawing-room
door was locked.
“——” said George with emphasis, and went to bed.
Outside in the laurel bushes a dapper figure drew his thick overcoat
about him and shivered in the cold night air. “Well, I’ll be hanged if
I can make out who’s in it!” muttered the dapper figure, and also went
home to bed.
And that, so far as we are concerned, was the end of Sunday. The
drawing-room door, it is of no interest to record, remained locked
until Monday. Until twenty minutes past Monday, to be precise.
George’s brain, it must be allowed (and George himself would have been
the first to allow it) was not a subtle organ. It worked, much the
same as a donkey-engine works; but there is little finesse about a
donkey engine. During the early hours of the night George’s brain
turned out for him a large number of straightforward schemes for
arriving at Manstead the next morning without a passenger; but they
were crude. George quite recognised that. The most ingenious was that
he should start at six o’clock, before his passenger should so much as
have opened an eyelid. Reluctantly George was compelled to reject even
this. He had given his word, and unless a plan presented itself to
involve the inevitable breaking of this inconvenient tie, and
consistently with the ways of perfect gentility as George understood
them, he must keep it. It is almost superfluous to add that no plan
did present itself.
Perhaps Monica had caught something of the notable lack of warmth in
George’s voice the previous evening. In any case, she was evidently
leaving nothing to chance. A forty-mile motor trip was an event in
Monica’s life, and Monica liked her life to be eventful. At half-past
nine she presented herself on George’s front-doorstep, hatted,
fur-coated and gauntlet-gloved, the complete motorist. George greeted
her with ghastly geniality.
An impartial spectator, observing with pain George’s laboured attempts
to appear hearty, would have said that George was hard to please.
Monica looked the sort of passenger whom any right-minded,
car-possessing bachelor would go miles out of his way to collect. Her
pretty, eager face flushed with excitement, her tongue prattling
merrily, and her trim, fur-encased figure very nearly jumping with
pleasure, what better company could such a right-minded man desire?
George was evidently not right-minded. His face, as he walked uneasily
at Monica’s side towards the station, bore an expression of mingled
apprehension and gloom; he looked as if he strongly suspected Monica
of having a hose-pipe concealed somewhere about her person. George
need not have bothered. Monica had few things concealed about her
person, and certainly not a hose-pipe. A young woman with any pretence
to fashion seldom wears a hose-pipe in these days.
She began to talk very earnestly about Dora. Monica, it appeared, had
long cherished the conviction that she, too, had a call to the stage.
She had taken part occasionally in local amateur theatricals at home,
and though that was of course nothing to go by, people really had said
quite decent things. Not that she wanted to swank or anything like
that, but she did somehow _feel_ she could act. Did George think that
Dora would be too bored to give her some advice? Did Dora know any
managers? Had Dora enough influence to get one of them to give Monica
a trial? Did George think Dora would let Monica come and see her in
London? Was it possible to see Dora at the theatre? Could Dora, did
George think, let Monica have a peep _behind the scenes_—just a tiny
peep? What did George think about this, about that, and about the
other?
George began to brighten. Here was somebody who actually wanted to
know his opinion. Very few people ever wanted to know George’s
opinion. It was a pleasant novelty. Monica had improved. In the old
days she had shown no signs of interest in George’s opinion. If she
had consulted George as to his candid opinion, he would have informed
her that on the whole he did not think he much wanted to dance before
the wedding-guests; but she had done nothing of the sort. Now, she
seemed to be hanging on his words. By Jove, yes; Monica _had_
improved. George forgot all about hose-pipes and became very nearly
animated.
No, George’s brain was not a subtle organ. It never occurred to him
for a moment that his sudden importance was merely owing to the fact
that he was his sister’s brother. He accepted Monica’s interest in his
opinion as a tribute to his own worth, and as he received very few
tributes of that nature was correspondingly delighted. Somebody once
said something about ignorance and wisdom, turning a neat phrase upon
the advisability in certain cases of the one and the drawbacks
attendant upon the other. He might have applied his aphorism to George
that morning. In his folly George expanded like a flower in the sun,
and looked back with incredulous astonishment to the remote time when
he had brooded sorrowfully upon radiators and petrol-tanks in
connection with this extraordinarily nice young person.
A very pleasant morning was spent.
George and Monica were not the only two people to spend a pleasant
morning. Cynthia did also in her way, and Mr. Doyle and Guy too, were
not ill-pleased with it, though their enjoyment was not wholly
unmixed. It was one thing to realise the use to them of Alan’s
presence; it was another to obtain a monopoly of it.
For Alan was sorely torn. On the one hand was a perfectly topping
murder mystery, right on the premises, which, of course, demanded the
most breathless and undivided attention; on the other, within only a
few yards was a real genuine chorus-girl, who was going away that same
afternoon; and Alan was naturally a good deal interested in
chorus-girls, as befitted a young man of fourteen.
There is a ring about the word “chorus-girl.” One wonders whether it
will ever quite outlive its naughty Victorian associations. The
chorus-girl of to-day is more respectable than a churchwarden, more
straight than a straight line (though having more breadth to her
length; even to-day, one gathers, some chorus-girls are tolerably
broad-minded), more refined than Grade “A” petrol—or so we are
earnestly given to understand by those who ought to know. Yet still in
clubs and places where men gather, the bare mention of the word is
enough to provoke the knowing wink and the cunning dig in the ribs.
And where the clubs wink the public schools guffaw; there is no place
where tradition is so strong as a public school. It gave Alan a
pleasurable feeling of doggishness just to enter the room where Dora
was sedately reading a magazine; to sit on the same couch with her was
sheer daredevilry.
Here he was, yes, he Alan Spence, alone in a room with a chorus girl,
exchanging light badinage, keeping his wicked end up as well as a
grown man! But for the unfortunate absence of champagne and oysters
(the inevitable concomitant of all genuine chorus-girls, as any
Victorian novelist will tell you) the scene was as abandoned as you
like. Alan was looking forward quite intensely to a number of casual
conversations next term which would begin; “Yes, a chorus-girl I know,
told me. . . .” Or, “Did you see _Thumbs Up!_ last hols? I knew one of
the chorus-girls in it. Quite a decent kid. . . .” Or, “Chorus-girls
don’t always dye their hair, you know. One of the girls in _Thumbs
Up!_—Dora, her name is; frightfully decent sort—told me that . . .”
That Dora really was George’s sister, Alan could still hardly bring
himself to believe; but he was quite sure he knew why her presence was
being kept so dark. (Yes, madam, public schools are dreadful places,
aren’t they? I certainly shouldn’t send your boy to one.)
Inspector Cottingham did not put in an appearance till nearly
half-past eleven, so that the two conspirators were not unduly pressed
for time. Their idea was a simple one. They wished Alan to make the
discovery for himself that the undisputed footprint of Mr. Reginald
Foster in the flower-bed bore a striking likeness to certain newly
manufactured prints on the river bank, and to draw the obvious
conclusion. This conclusion they were then prepared to scoff at and
deride, with the result that Alan, seeking a more sympathetic audience
for the news with which he ought to be bursting, would have recourse
to the Inspector. The Inspector was then hopefully expected to put
three and two together, and make it four. There is nothing so honest
as honesty, and in this means Guy and Mr. Doyle saw a way of causing
their new clues to be officially swallowed with no possible suspicions
as to their administration.
Up to a point matters turned out as they intended. Alan was conveyed
into the garden immediately after breakfast, as agog as Guy could have
hoped, and shown Mr. Foster’s footprint; thence he was led to the
river bank and shown the other footprints. Unfortunately, however, he
failed to notice any connecting link. He was impressed, even thrilled,
but he displayed no brightness of uptake. Guy left him for a moment to
confer with Mr. Doyle, who was strolling through the dividing gate
between the gardens to join them; when they looked round, the lad was
gone.
It took them a quarter of an hour to run him to earth, in George’s
drawing-room. Then they led him back and repeated the process. It was
like training a dog to find tennis-balls; the dog is willing enough to
gaze for a space into the shrubbery, but he hasn’t the faintest idea
what he is expected to find inside it. Guy found himself in an even
worse position than that of the dog’s master, for he was precluded
from giving an intimation that there was anything to be found at all.
Having gazed respectfully at the footprints a second time, Alan
announced that they certainly were top-hole and took himself back to
the drawing-room and daredevilry.
Mr. Doyle retrieved him five minutes later with a resigned expression
and led him back once more. This time the two did not leave things
quite so much to chance. They pointed out to each other with bland
surprise that Mr. Foster must have had a tear in the soles of one of
his boots; they remarked that it might be quite interesting to look
around for other such footprints with a tear in one of the soles; they
obtusely ignored a string of such prints leading from the flower-bed
towards the library, and another leading from the latter to the bank.
Then they observed loudly that they were going in for a short time to
have a smoke in George’s drawing-room in the absence of Dora, who was
upstairs making her bed, her bed, upstairs making her _bed_! They
went, and through the curtains of the window peeped out upon their
victim.
Fixity of purpose does occasionally meet with its reward. Alan having
absorbed the information that Dora was no longer on view, began to
walk aimlessly about, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the
ground. They saw him stop suddenly and stoop. He progressed slowly in
a bent position. He crawled like a crab towards the library windows,
and thence to the bank. He ran swiftly across the garden and through
the separating gate. Guy and Mr. Doyle, timing things to a nicety, met
him half-way across George’s lawn.
“I _say_,” said Alan, “I’ve made the hell of a discovery!”
“Oh?” said Guy.
“Really?” said Mr. Doyle. “But talking of emigration, Nesbitt, I do
think that the Government——”
“Listen, you chaps! You know what you were saying about footprints
just now? Well, dashed if I haven’t——”
“Footprints?” said Guy vaguely. “Were we?”
“Good Lord, yes; you know you were. About that chap Foster having a
bit out of one of his boots. You know. Well, I’ve spotted tons of
other prints just the same. Do you know what I think, Guy? I think
Foster’s one of ’em!”
“One of whom, Alan?” Guy asked in maddeningly tolerant tones.
“The gang, of course. Stands to reason. Come and have a squint. On the
bank, his footprints are, up to the library, all round. I——”
“Is Alan often taken like this, Guy?” asked Mr. Doyle rudely.
“Foster!” Guy laughed in a superior way. “Come, Alan, come. You’ll be
saying he’s the Man with the Broken Nose next.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if he was,” retorted Alan defiantly.
“You needn’t laugh. He’s mixed up with ’em all right. Bet you anything
you like. I should tell the police if I were you.”
“The police!” crowed Mr. Doyle, and staggered as if his mirth were
incapable of human control.
“The police!” echoed Guy, and staggered too.
Alan flushed. “All right. You see! If you won’t tell ’em, I will. Yes,
you can laugh if you like, but you’ll jolly soon find I’m right. Huh!
Fancy having a clue like that under your noses and never spotting it.
Huh!” And with considerable dignity Alan stalked, so well as a
slightly stout youth may stalk, towards the road.
“Go and ask Mr. Foster if he’s ever broken his nose, Alan,” Mr. Doyle
called after him derisively.
“All right, blast you, I will!” Master Spence called back.
Doyle caught Guy’s arm. “Look, there’s the Colonel and Cottingham
coming down the road. Nesbitt, I think this is where we retire.”
They did not retire at once, however. They waited till the three
actors on their stage met and stopped. The words came faintly to them:
“I say, are you the Inspector? I read about you in the _Sunday
Courier_. I’m Mrs. Nesbitt’s brother. I say, were you going to have a
look at the scene of the crime? I say, have you noticed something
jolly important about those footprints? I have. I’ll tell you if you
like. I told my brother-in-law, but he laughed. It’s jolly well
nothing to laugh about. I say, do you know if that chap Foster’s ever
broken his nose?”
The two in the garden began to stroll towards George’s house.
“He might have been coached for the part,” observed Mr. Doyle with
some awe.
“He wouldn’t have done it as well if he had been,” murmured Guy.
“Doyle, this is all very pleasant and interesting, isn’t it?”
They went in to warn Dora that policemen were about. She was not
there.
To tell the truth, Dora had found herself, except for short minutes
during the last thirty-six hours, frankly bored. In addition she was
not altogether satisfied with the part she had played in the comedy;
it was all right, so far as it went, but it had not gone far enough.
She thought she saw a way of combining amusement with a little helpful
spadework. Unnoticed, she had slipped out of the house and gone off to
combine them.
Chapter XIV.
Interesting Scene in a Tool-Shed
Reginald Foster was surveying his garden. Every morning, when it was
fine, Reginald Foster surveyed his garden, and both of them felt the
better for it; Mr. Foster, because the garden, which was a large one,
stood for his success in life and Mr. Foster liked surveying his
successes; the garden, because surely nothing could come under Mr.
Foster’s benignant survey and not feel the better for it. Mr. Foster
strolled slowly round the neat paths, his podgy hands clasped behind
his back, and continued to survey benignly.
From a window at the back of the fat red house behind him Mrs. Foster
was also doing a little surveying. She was a tepid, pale-haired little
woman, and she knitted a good deal, persistently and quite
unnecessarily. She was not one of Mr. Foster’s successes.
It was not that Mrs. Foster was not patient, for she was; it was not
that she had not made Mr. Foster a good wife, for she had begun to
live with him nearly thirty years ago and was still doing so, nor had
she yet ever committed suicide; she even endured his talk without
screaming violently or running for the nearest razor. And yet she was
not a success. She had not worn very well, it is true, but that was
not enough to justify these harsh words; her once pretty hair was now
lankly nondescript, her face a little flaccid, and her eyes very weary
and resigned. She looked, in fact, not unlike a disillusioned mouse;
but even the most disillusioned of mice will show signs of emotion
before cheese or cats. Mrs. Foster never showed signs of any emotion
at all.
Mr. Foster was only too well aware that his Agatha was not one of his
successes, and it distressed him very much. He could not understand
it. Here they were, risen from a little house in Balham to something
very like a mansion in the country, with Mr. Foster retired from
business into the position of rustic gentleman, and Agatha seemed no
more excited about it than she had been over the burnt sausages that
morning at breakfast. And the rise was really all the more remarkable
when one reflected that the Fosters ought never to have been in Balham
at all, for it is much easier to rise out of one’s real class than
into it. Mr. Foster had been at one of the minor public schools, and
Agatha was actually related to a Duke. The connection between the
families was not a very recent one perhaps, nor a very close one, but
it was quite indisputable. A stranger seldom had converse with Mr.
Foster very long before finding these two facts insinuated into his
knowledge.
And yet Agatha was not a success. It really was very remarkable. Mr.
Foster never troubled to speculate about his wife’s views on this
disappointing subject, because really, what would be the use? One did
not want to think unkindly of Agatha, but one might just as well
speculate about the views of a piece of dough as the cook puts it into
the oven. Mr. Foster was in the habit of putting it more tactfully in
his own mind by reflecting that Mrs. Foster simply never happened to
hold views.
As is so often the case with our nearest, if not necessarily our
dearest, Mr. Foster was not quite correct in this opinion. As she
stood at her bedroom window and watched the centre of her universe
inspecting his spring greens with an encouraging eye, Mrs. Foster was
holding a quite definite view. She was wishing with singular intensity
that the ground would open and swallow her husband up; then, and then
only so far as she could see, would she be free from the necessity of
going into Abingchester in the big closed car when she had a splitting
headache, listening to the cook’s insolence on the subject of burnt
sausages, and doing all the other hundred and one other repellent
things which the living presence of the cabbage-gazer in the garden
imposed upon her. But above all she would never, never have to listen
to him talk again.
With a faint sigh she turned away from the window. The ground gave no
sign of incipient aperture; it never did. She began to put on her
aching head the new hat Mr. Foster had chosen for her last week (Mr.
Foster always chose his wife’s hats) and which she loathed with
singular intensity.
If a small fairy in whose veracity he could repose no doubt, had
appeared before Mr. Foster among his cabbages at that moment and
remarked: “Good morning, Mr. Foster. Do you know that your wife hates
you with a degree of detestation quite unparalleled in the annals of
Duffley? She does, you know. I thought you might be interested to hear
it. Good-morning,” he would, after the initial shock was over, have
been filled with complete bewilderment.
Why, in the name of Heaven? Why should she? Hadn’t he always been
kindness itself to her? And not only kindness but, far more important,
patience? Her headache, for instance. He had been most sympathetic
about that at breakfast, in spite of the sausages. Naturally he had
told her that it doesn’t do to make too much of a fuss about these
things, for otherwise the things get bigger than the person; and that
really one ought not to refuse to go into Abingchester just on account
of a little headache, like an unbalanced schoolgirl. But the point was
that he had said it kindly. He had not even hinted for a moment at his
opinion that Agatha took trifles just a little bit too seriously, not
for a moment. And that again in spite of the sausages. No, the whole
thing would have been completely beyond him.
It was very fortunate that no little busybody of a fairy put in an
appearance after all.
Ignorant of his fortunate escape, Mr. Foster pulled out his large gold
watch. He frowned. Well past eleven. He had better be going indoors
and seeing that Agatha was . . . A low whistle from the fence behind
him caused him to turn about sharply.
Mr. Foster’s fat red house stood at a corner of the main road, where a
somewhat insignificant turning led to a remote countryside and a
village two miles away. It followed that Mr. Foster’s garden ran along
the side of this insignificant turning, the boundary between
importance and insignificance being marked with a fence. Over the top
of this fence a girl’s face was now regarding Mr. Foster with every
sign of anxiety.
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Foster, and hurried towards it. Pretty faces
hanging anxiously over his fence were something new in Mr. Foster’s
experience. Large yokel faces, decorated with foolish grins, he had
seen before and with pain, but not pretty ones that whistled. He
proceeded to investigate.
“Where can I get in?” cried the owner of the face, in tones of
unmistakable agitation. “They’re after me. They’re—oh, isn’t there a
gate or something? Quickly, please!”
“There is a gate,” admitted the perplexed Mr. Foster. “But——”
“Then open it! Don’t you understand? It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Is it?” asked Mr. Foster wonderingly. “Are you ill?”
“No, _no_! Don’t you recognise me? It was I who spoke to you in the
garden the night before last; who told you——”
“Good Heavens!” Mr. Foster gasped. “So it is. I thought you seemed
very familiar. I mean, your voice sounded familiar. But——”
“Open the gate!” said the girl tersely.
Mr. Foster ran along the fence and did so. The girl tumbled through
and stood for a moment, panting, one hand to her heart.
“Safe!” she muttered. “Oh, thank God! But quick—hide me! They’ll be
here any minute.”
“The deuce they will!” squeaked Mr. Foster.
His little fat legs twinkled along the path towards a tool-shed that
stood in the angle of the fence at the bottom of the garden. He pulled
the door open and shut it behind them.
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Foster, and mopped his brow.
“Oh, thank you,” murmured the girl, with a little sob.
They gazed at one another.
“Who are after you?” panted Mr. Foster. “The—the Man with the Broken
Nose?”
“Yes, and the whole gang with him,” replied Dora, who did not believe
in doing things by halves. For sisters, Dora and Laura had much in
common.
“Whew!” said Mr. Foster, thrilled to the core. “How many of them?”
“Seventeen! Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?”
Mr. Foster possessed himself of one of her hands and began to pat it.
Mr. Foster was the sort of person who does pat attractive young women.
“I don’t think they’ll bother you _here_,” he said, swelling slightly.
“You just leave things to me, my dear. I’ll look after you. What have
you done, then? Run away?”
“Yes, I simply couldn’t stand it any longer.” Dora made use of a
life-like shudder to withdraw her hand. “The constant murders! Oh, it
was terrible. They do get on your nerves after a time, you know,
murders do. Especially when one is only a woman.” She contrived to
look extremely helpless and appealing.
“Yes, yes,” soothed Mr. Foster. “Quite, quite. Well, I’m glad you’ve
got away, I must say. I thought at the time you had no business to be
mixed up with that sort of thing. Far too pretty and charming, if
you’ll forgive my saying so.”
“Oh, Mr. Foster,” simpered his companion.
Mr. Foster swelled a little further. “That’s all right, then. Now, you
stay here, my dear, all snug and safe, and I’ll run along and
telephone to the police; and then——”
“The police? But why?”
“To let them know you’re here. Don’t you realise that you’re a most
valuable witness? With your evidence we ought to be able to lay these
scoundrels by the heels.”
“No, that’s quite impossible. I may be a valuable witness, but I’d be
a still more valuable capture. Don’t you understand that the police
are after me, just as much as the rest of the gang? I’m—I’m wanted on
scores of charges. That was only one murder I committed; there are
ever so many others. If you tell the police I’m here, you put a rope
round my neck, Mr. Foster, as sure as you’re standing on a rake.”
Mr. Foster moved automatically off the rake. His eyes were fixed on
his companion’s face in an expression in which horror and delight
struggled for supremacy. “Did you say that—that _you_ murd—killed that
man the other night?” he articulated.
Dora hung her head. “Yes,” she whispered.
A faint gasp emanated from Mr. Foster.
Dora raised her face somewhat wildly. “But it wasn’t my fault! Don’t
think that. I was forced into it. They had a hold over me—a terrible
hold. It was something to do with—with my mother. Oh, Mr. Foster,
there is nothing a girl won’t do for her mother. I had to do as they
wished. I had to carry out their assassinations for them, or see my
mother reduced to penury and disgrace. I couldn’t face it! I—I gave
way. Was it _very_ wrong of me?”
“It—well, you see, I don’t know the circumstances,” stammered Mr.
Foster, for once nonplussed.
“It was only to pull a little trigger,” pleaded the girl. “That’s all
I had to do.”
“But that’s a very serious thing indeed, you know—er—pulling triggers
is.”
“Oh, I know it is! Don’t think I didn’t realise it was a serious thing
I was doing. I did, only too well. But what could I do? I was
completely at their mercy. I had to carry out their orders. Besides,”
she added reasonably, “somebody would pull the trigger in any case.
What did it matter whether it was me or not?”
Mr. Foster fingered his chin, but seemed disinclined to argue the
ethics of the case. He eyed his companion interestedly and mentally
compared her, as he did every woman he met, with Agatha. She certainly
was very pretty (somehow this reflection came before its immediate
successor, that she was after all more sinned against than sinning)
and there was an undoubted fascination about her. Fancy! This delicate
creature had killed at least one man and, on her own confession, a
good few others as well. Oh, yes, the situation was intriguing enough,
and so was she. It would be pleasant to earn her unbounded gratitude.
But, of course, Agatha must not know. Agatha would hardly understand.
“But you must beware for yourself,” observed the intriguing young
woman very earnestly. “The Man with the Broken Nose is merciless.
Human life means nothing to him. If he knew you were sheltering me,
he’d kill you as soon as that beetle.”
“Would he?” said the startled Mr. Foster. Perhaps earning this young
woman’s unbounded gratitude would not be quite so pleasant after all,
if it involved being killed as soon as a beetle. Then he recovered
himself. These were civilised times, and people would not go about
killing other people like beetles.
“Would he, though?” he repeated more truculently. “I think you’d find
I’d have something to say about that, my dear.”
Dora reflected that, if the reports of Mr. Foster’s friends were
founded upon fact, this was probably true. She took advantage of the
psychological moment to clasp her hands and assume her most piteous
expression.
“What are you going to do with me, Mr. Foster?” she wailed. “Are you
going to turn me away, or hand me over to the police? Or are you going
to help me?”
“You intend—hm!—you intend to go straight if I give you your chance?”
inquired Mr. Foster in stern, manly accents.
“Oh, yes; I promise. I’ll never shoot anybody again, I swear it. Oh,
do say you’ll shelter me, Mr. Foster? They’ll kill me if you don’t.”
Mr. Foster coughed with some importance. “Don’t distress yourself, my
dear. I’ll shelter you.”
“And they’ll probably kill you if you do,” remarked the girl gloomily.
“Come, come,” adjured Mr. Foster, hiding a certain apprehension under
a very hearty manner. “This sounds almost as bad as a penny-dreadful,
you know.”
“There’s no penny-dreadful ever written half so terrible as The
Exploits of the Man with the Broken Nose,” replied Dora, coining a
snappy title.
“Ah, yes. Now, my dear, we must go into that. I want you, if you won’t
interview the police yourself, to give all possible information about
him to _me_,”—here Mr. Foster, who had become a little deflated,
swelled once more—“and I’ll see that it is put to the best possible
use. Without involving yourself, of course. Now, I’m just going up to
the house to cancel something I was going to do this morning, and then
I’ll come back to hear your story.”
“Very well,” nodded Dora.
The door clicked behind him.
“Well,” observed Dora to its unresponsive surface, “God help his
wife!”
Mr. Foster’s next few minutes were busy ones. Having informed his
Agatha that, in consequence of her headache, he had decided now to
cancel the expedition to Abingchester, he told her she was wanted on
the telephone; he then made use of her absence to extract from her
drawers certain surprising objects. A visit to the spare-room and
elsewhere followed, and then, cautiously as any Boy Scout, Mr. Foster
made his way back to the tool-shed, his burdens under either arm. On
the floor of that refuge he dumped before his astonished suppliant a
camp-bed, two blankets, a pillow and coverlet, a chaste cambric
nightgown with high collar and cuffs, a pink flannel dressing-jacket,
and a basket of food. When Mr. Foster did a thing, he did it well.
He proceeded to erect the camp-bed and set out the contents of the
basket upon an inverted wheelbarrow.
“Now sit down and enjoy yourself,” admonished Mr. Foster. “I expect
you’re starving, so don’t stint yourself. There’s plenty more where
that came from. And don’t you worry, girlie. I’ve got to go away for a
minute or two now, but I’m going to see you through this.”
With a reassuring smile he was gone. Again the door clicked behind
him.
Again Dora gazed at its unresponsive surface. This time her expression
was a little more intense. There were few things Dora really objected
to in this world, but being called “girlie” was one of them. She
waited until such time as she judged the coast to be quite clear, then
tried the door. The next moment she tried it again, and again, and
again. Indubitably it was locked.
“Damn!” said Miss Howard with feeling, and deliberately broke a small
dibber.
Mr. Foster’s reason for retiring was twofold. He wanted to look very
carefully up and down the main road, because it would be horrid to be
killed like a beetle without any warning and there is never any harm
in keeping a weather-eye open for one’s potential murderer. But most
of all he wanted to make sure that Agatha was safely occupied. Mr.
Foster had his doubts as to how Agatha would regard the presence of
this dangerous young woman in his tool-shed.
It is true that Agatha had been properly impressed by his story on
Saturday night. His friends at the golf club, on the other hand, had
not. In the golf club Mr. Foster’s great story had, it is to be
feared, fallen distinctly flat. His friends had not gone so far as to
accuse him of pulling their legs, but they had very plainly hinted at
it. Now Mr. Foster was bubbling over with a scheme for a most crushing
revenge; he would learn all this girl had to tell him, act upon it
with his usual thoroughness and, without calling in the official
police at all, solve the whole mystery and possibly lay by the heels
the sinister Man with the Broken Nose himself. In other words, Mr.
Foster felt that if he had been pitch-forked into the middle of a
veritable penny-dreadful then it was up to him to see that he usurped
the rôle of hero.
But Agatha would almost certainly spoil all that. Agatha would be
terrified at the idea that he might be called upon to face actual
physical danger. Model wife though she was as a rule (and by “model”
Mr. Foster meant “subservient”), she would almost certainly try to put
her spoke into his wheel and cause the whole thing to collapse. It was
a pity, because Mr. Foster saw some promising possibilities in the
situation (“Of course, my dear, it’s no good trying to disguise the
fact from you that I’m in deadly danger. I am. These fellows will
shoot at sight, and when I penetrate their lair I do so with my life
in my hands. I don’t want to exaggerate: I’m simply stating plain
facts. No, don’t cry, Agatha. I’m determined to go through with the
thing. You wouldn’t have me a coward, would you?”), but there the
thing was; Agatha must not know.
Mr. Foster tracked his wife to the kitchen and, listening stealthily,
heard her discussing sausages with the cook. From that they would go
on to to-night’s dinner, and thence to any number of possibilities.
Agatha was safely tethered for the next half-hour.
He strolled out into the road and swept a wary eye up and down it.
Except for a medium-sized boy, with a bias towards stoutness, it was
empty. Not without relief, Mr. Foster turned towards his own front
garden. It was then that the medium-sized boy, who had been regarding
him with stolid intentness, spoke to him.
“I say,” said the boy, “are you Mr. Foster?”
Mr. Foster turned back again. “Yes? Do you want me, my boy?”
“I read about you in _The Courier_,” said the boy.
Mr. Foster brightened. He was all in favour of people who had read
about him in _The Courier_; he was still more in favour of those of
them who came to gaze upon him as if he were a local curiosity. “You
did, did you?” said Mr. Foster genially. “Well, and what did you think
about it all?”
“Jolly fine. Ripping murder, wasn’t it?” The newcomer spoke a trifle
absently; his eyes were fixed on Mr. Foster’s nose. Drawing nearer, he
scrutinised that organ with careful attention. “I say,” he continued,
“have you ever broken your nose?”
Mr. Foster brightened still more. The story of his nose’s rupture was
a good one and its telling never palled; and here was an ideal
audience for it. Schoolboy, boxing. . . . The two of them were
obviously going to be great chums. Of course he mustn’t keep that poor
girl waiting, but perhaps just a couple of minutes. . . .
“Yes,” he said, and did not notice the slight start performed by his
audience. “It was at Beanhurst College, where I was at school. We used
to have an annual boxing tournament at the end of each winter term,
and I had entered for——”
“I say, were you at _Beanhurst_?” interrupted his audience in a voice
of incredible scorn.
Unfortunately a voice of incredible scorn sounds very much like a
voice of incredible awe (if you do not believe this, address yourself
absent-mindedly in a voice of incredible scorn and see whether your
opinion of yourself does not immediately rise). With his customary
complacency Mr. Foster read into this one the latter interpretation.
“I was, yes.”
“Good God!” said his audience simply, with the unmitigated contempt of
one who is at Harrow for one who was at a minor public school.
Misreading the signs again, Mr. Foster prattled on happily.
His audience listened to not a word; he was busy adding up two and
two. Not that there was really any necessity, for the thing was
practically clinched. First of all there was the evidence of the
footprints, which was pretty well conclusive; then the fellow actually
admitted that he had a broken nose; but, most damning of all, the
blighter had actually been at _Beanhurst_, of all filthy, lousy holes!
It was tantamount to a complete confession of guilt.
Reginald Foster, Esq. and Alan Spence had very little in common (the
inexpressible Beanhurst effectually prevented that), but they had
this; they both had dreams of catching the Man with the Broken Nose.
Ever since Alan had propounded his great theory to the Inspector and
Colonel Ratcliffe and noted the unmistakable way in which they had
shown themselves impressed during the subsequent tour of the prints,
he had been revolving this great project in his mind; and on his way
up to Mr. Foster’s house, after leaving the other two still measuring
and looking grave, he had formed a tentative plan for carrying it out.
He now proceeded to put it into effect.
“I say,” he broke without ceremony into the climax of the good story,
“I say, do you know they’ve got hold of a hell of a clue to that
murder the other night?”
Mr. Foster was pained at the interruption, but his pain disappeared
before its significance. He stared at the boy. “Got hold of a hell of
a clue?” he repeated, his thoughts flying at once to that wistful
figure in his tool-shed.
Into Mr. Foster’s unmistakable agitation, indifferently concealed,
Alan read the signs of conscious guilt. Under his studiously stolid
demeanour his heart began to beat furiously. “Yes, rather. I’m Mrs.
Nesbitt’s brother, you see, so I’m in the know. But it’s a ghastly
secret.”
“Is it—is it anything to do with the—the girl in the case?” asked Mr.
Foster with palpable uneasiness.
Alan was quick on his cue. “Oh, yes. Frightfully! All about her. I
should just think it is.”
“Do you mean, they—they’ve found out who she is?”
“I should think they jolly well have. It’s a hell of a clue.” Alan
paused and eyed his victim guardedly, then took his decision. “I say,
would you care to have a look at it?”
Into Mr. Foster’s mind leapt a wonderful idea. Were it humanly
possible he would get hold of this damning clue and, if it could be
safely done, destroy it! This might not prevent the police from
knowing the girl’s identity, but at least it would stop them from
using it in evidence against her. A great and noble scheme, and one
calculated to bring him infinite kudos in those pretty gray eyes.
“Yes, I would,” he answered, trying to speak naturally. “Could it be
done without any one knowing?”
“Oh, rather. My sister’s away and my brother-in-law’s out. Come along
down to the house, and I’ll show it you.”
They walked down the road in almost complete silence, each afraid of
saying that superfluous word which may turn incipient success into
dismal failure.
In the garden of Dell Cottage could be seen two forms bending with a
tape-measure over something on the river bank. Keeping as much as
possible under cover, Alan led the way in at the front-door (prudently
left ajar) and past the kitchen. “It’s in the cellar,” he explained in
a whisper. “They put it there for safety.”
“Quite, quite,” Mr. Foster whispered back.
Two hearts thumped as one as they descended the cellar steps.
“You go first,” Alan muttered, as they reached a stout, iron-bound
door at the bottom of the steps.
Mr. Foster went first, gingerly. The next moment he quickened his pace
considerably, for a heavy foot, accustomed to kicking a football at
the psychological moment, had caught him just below the small of the
back and urged him ungently forward. As he fell on all fours on a damp
floor, the door slammed behind him.
Chapter XV.
Various People Get Busy
Colonel Ratcliffe straightened himself up from the last footprint with
a sigh of relief; he was no longer as young as he had been, and
continuous stooping is a little arduous for a frame, however dapper,
that is beginning to stiffen. He threw a thoughtful glance round and
his eye kindled.
“Not a word about this to anybody, mind, Cottingham,” he remarked now
to the Inspector at his side. “No, sir,” said the crestfallen
Inspector. The Colonel had been careful not to rub things in too much,
but Inspector Cottingham was a disillusioned man. The revenge for
which he was thirsting would have surprised the intimates of this
hitherto genial policeman; it was nothing less than that the authors
of his ignominy should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and that
Inspector Cottingham might be granted official permission to dance on
their graves.
“We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do about ft first,” continued
the Colonel. “The blighter! Gad, I should never have thought he’d got
it in him.”
“Neither should I, sir,” agreed the Inspector mournfully.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, by Jove! And there was that
newspaper feller with the whole story under his eyes, if only he’d had
the gumption to read it. You know, Cottingham, I seriously suspected
those two at first, Doyle and Nesbitt; I did really. Until we found
that bit of paper at the cross-roads, in fact. I was certain we were
on a wild-goose chase over that; thought it was just a faked-up tale.
And I admit that not for one moment did I expect that blood to be
anything but chicken’s.”
“Yes, sir; we were all taken in at one time,” said the Inspector,
neatly including his chief in the general obtuseness. “And if I hadn’t
traced the ownership of that bit of paper,” he added carefully, “we’d
all be in the dark still.”
“That’s right, Cottingham,” said the Colonel, ever generous. Far too
generous, for instance, than to refer to a certain handkerchief whose
damning initials had first put them on their present tack. “You did
very well there; very well indeed. You know, now one comes to think of
it, I can’t imagine why we ever paid any serious attention to the
man’s story at all. Far too wild. Crown Prince, indeed! And never even
arranging a sound _alibi_ for his movements that evening. Why, the
thing was obviously a hoax on the face of it, if we’d only had our
wits about us.” The way the Colonel used the first person plural
instead of the second was kindness itself.
“But what about the couple Graves saw?” asked the Inspector, shifting
the conversation away from this awkward topic. “And the corpse, for
the matter of that? In that case there must have been three others in
it beside Mr. Foster.”
“That’s right, there must have been. Mind you, Cottingham, I don’t
imagine that the thing was planned with the intention of deceiving us.
Graves’ intervention seems to me purely fortuitous. I shouldn’t be
surprised if it wasn’t all directed against the Nesbitts; or even
against that fellow who was in the room with the girl. She was in it
all right. That’s how the thing looks to me.”
“Well, there might be something in that, sir, yes,” conceded the
Inspector handsomely.
The Colonel lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the river.
“Still, it’s impossible to say either way yet. We must hear what this
blighter Foster’s got to say for himself; ought not to be difficult to
get him to give himself away. We’ll do that this afternoon.”
Colonel Ratcliffe was no fool. His reasoning had been sound and, up to
a point, perfectly correct. But unfortunately, the two brains pitted
against his were just a shade shrewder; they also had the advantage of
being perfectly unscrupulous. It was these two facts which caused the
Colonel’s reasoning to deflect from the line of correctness and come
to an end at the person of Reginald Foster, Esq.
He began to stroll towards the road. “You know, Cottingham,” he
remarked, “I don’t really know what we’re going to do with this feller
Foster. We could arrest him, I suppose, and charge him with contempt
of police or something like that; but we’d only make laughing-stocks
of ourselves if we did. So far as I can see what we’d better do is to
frighten him out of his wits and let him go. I fancy _The Courier_ and
Doyle between them will see to it that he doesn’t get off too
lightly.”
If the Inspector was going to protest vehemently against this proposed
clemency, or if he then and there violently made up his mind to be no
party to it, he gave no sign at the moment, for two figures had
suddenly sprung into sight in the gateway between the two gardens, and
were now leisurely strolling towards them. Mr. Doyle and Guy had
indeed been at some pains, by means of a careful watch maintained for
nearly an hour, to choose this particular moment to learn the result
of their venture.
“Good-morning, Colonel,” Guy began politely. “Well, any news?”
The Colonel looked as innocent as a new-born infant. “News?” he
repeated, as if not quite sure what the word meant.
Guy was much too cunning himself to introduce the subject of
footprints. He said nothing.
“Would you rather I retired, Colonel?” smiled Doyle. “I know that all
official persons seem to have a good deal of difficulty in talking in
my presence. It’s a rotten business being a journalist. Everybody
treats one with suspicion.”
The Colonel laughed. “Well, I’m afraid I haven’t anything in the way
of news to tell you, officially or unofficially.”
“Nothing I can pass on to _The Courier_ at all? Oh, come, Colonel; try
and think of something. I shall get the sack if I don’t send them
something startling to-day, you know. A sensation a day makes _The
Courier_ pay, is their motto.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” said the Colonel, his eyes twinkling, “you
can tell them this, that the police are confident of solving the
mystery within twenty-four hours. That ought to keep them going for a
bit.”
“Then you have got some news, sir?” Mr. Doyle cried with admirable
eagerness. “You haven’t unearthed some fresh clues, by any chance,
have you?”
The Colonel’s eyes twinkled again. “Go and look in the garden where
we’ve been all the morning. Your eyes are as good as ours. By the way,
all sorts of people are taking a hand in solving this mystery. Your
brother-in-law is the latest recruit, Nesbitt.”
“Alan? Yes, he’s as keen as mustard. He came to me this morning full
of some ridiculous story. I gather that he’s decided that the Man with
the Broken Nose is Mr. Foster. Why don’t you put that in _The
Courier_, Doyle?”
Both laughed with considerable amusement. The Colonel laughed too.
Then Guy offered the Colonel an appetiser before lunch, which the
latter (to Inspector Cottingham’s patent regret) refused, and they
parted.
“He’s swallowed it,” Doyle whispered happily, as the two of them
continued their nonchalant stroll towards the house. “I’m certain he
has.”
“Yes, I think we can write that off as another success,” agreed Guy,
quivering with joy. “I knew that if he didn’t comment on my remarks
about Alan, it would be because he took his story seriously.”
“What a thing it is to be a psychologist!” said Mr. Doyle, with proper
admiration.
They passed indoors and refreshed themselves with the appetisers
declined by the Colonel.
As they passed in, Alan, timing things to a nicety, passed out. He
pounded down the road in the wake of the Colonel, uttering subdued
cries.
“Hullo?” said the Colonel, stopping. “What’s the matter, Spence?”
Alan pounded up, very red and breathless. “I’ve got him!” he
announced. “He’s—oof!—locked in the celler—oof! I say, are you going
to arrest him?”
An unholy smile appeared on the Colonel’s face. “Is it a nice cellar,
Spence?” he asked gently.
“No, a bit damp, you know; so near the river. My sister says it was
flooded last month.”
“But not now?” said the Colonel, with regret. “Never mind; it’ll do.
No, I’m not going to arrest him now. I’ll come back and see him later
in the day. In the meantime—well, I think he might stay there, don’t
you?”
Alan grinned. “I won’t let him out. But he’ll make a hell of a noise,
won’t he?”
“I doubt it. But if he does, you can tell your brother-in-law that
I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing his cellar for a few hours, and I
should be obliged if he would consider it commandeered for that time
in the name of the law. It’s quite illegal, but I fancy he won’t
mind.”
“Right-ho, I’ll tell him. I say, here’s the key.”
The Colonel pouched it, and uttered words of commendation and high
praise. Thoroughly pleased with each other, they parted.
Alan delivered his message to Guy with considerable satisfaction. The
burden of his remarks ran jubilantly along the lines of “I told you
so.”
Guy had already taken the precaution of telegraphing instructions to
both his maids to prolong their holiday till further notice—orders
which both those ladies received with profound regret; never can
English servants have been so anxious to get on with the job for which
they were being paid as Guy’s cook and parlourmaid that Monday
morning.
Lunch was therefore taken at George’s house, Mr. Doyle acting as host.
George and Monica failed to put in an appearance; Dora was still
mysteriously absent. It cannot be said that Mr. Doyle was unduly
worried about his fiancée, but he did express a little mild wonderment
as to what in the name of all that was holy she could be up to now. If
he had known that what she was up to was the roof of a stout
tool-shed, it is to be feared that his wonderment would have given
place to indecorous mirth.
For Dora had spent a dull morning.
When at first Mr. Foster did not return she was not alarmed, and
stretched herself on the convenient camp-bed the better to enjoy the
full flavour of her jest. It was annoying that her jailer should have
thought it necessary to lock her in, but she had no anxiety as to her
final escape when the time should arrive. She was still in a recumbent
position when, some twenty minutes later, she heard, not without
relief, stealthy footsteps approaching.
The tool-shed was, for its kind, a well-lighted structure. There were
two windows, both small but comparatively free from dust, in each side
fronting the garden, so that the light, entering in two different
directions, was well diffused. The footsteps stopped by the door, and
for a few moments there was an unaccountable silence. Then, looking
up, Dora became aware of a face peering in at one of the windows. It
was a nondescript sort of face, of the female genus, and it wore an
indescribable expression. Startled by this unexpected appearance, Dora
lifted herself on one elbow and stared at the face. The face stared
back. Having stared its full it withdrew, and footsteps an instant
later showed that its owner was taking it back to the house very much
more quickly than she had brought it.
“Well, I’ll be bothered!” said Miss Dora Howard.
She remained bothered, on her back, for another half-hour, until her
wrist-watch showed that it was past one o’clock. Then she began to
prowl round her prison, her soul filled with dark thoughts about Mr.
Foster. Unconscious that at the same moment he also was prowling round
a prison, and a much more repellent one at that, she was now very much
less sure of her success with that gentleman. Either he had seen
through her and was now fitting her punishment to her crime, or else
he simply considered that by providing her with food and bedding and a
stout locked door, he had done quite enough for her for the time
being. In either case the outlook was not bright. She went on
prowling.
At a quarter to two she gave up the walls and door as hopeless for a
poor weak woman, even armed with a hoe. The windows were two small to
bother with, so she mounted on the wheelbarrow to examine the roof.
The roof was composed of far too many stout rafters covered with much
too much corrugated iron. At a quarter-past two she had managed, with
the aid of the hoe, a fork, and a piece of the broken dibber, to slide
a piece of the latter far enough down the slope to enable her to
protrude her head tortoise-like through the aperture and survey the
outer world, her shoulders pressed against the rafters; farther than
that the wretched thing refused to budge.
At half-past two a small boy and a dog went by along the lane; at
twenty minutes to three two old women. After these the stream of
traffic ran dry.
At ten minutes to four George and Monica were approaching the main
road at Duffley, when a subdued shriek on their right engaged their
attention. George, avoiding the ditch by a millimetre as the car
swerved violently on seeing the head of one of its mistresses
protruding from the middle of a corrugated roof, came to a standstill.
There are times when it is singularly useful to be a man. It took
George just ninety-eight seconds to swing himself up on to the
tool-house roof and rip off the obstinate strip of corrugated iron,
and another twenty-three to haul Dora up by her wrists between the
rafters. Looking down at the latter afterwards, George wondered how
the deuce he had been able to squeeze her between them. So did Dora.
She got into the car a little pensively. Monica, who had been torn
between the respect due to a real actress on the real stage and a
violent inclination to begin laughing hopelessly and go on laughing
for ever, just managed to conquer her desires.
As George was steering the car through his own gates a few moments
later, he remarked very airily: “By the way, Dawks, you needn’t bother
about Monica. Er—knowing things, you know. I told her.”
“It certainly does save a lot of trouble,” Dora agreed.
“I think it’s a frightful rag,” Monica giggled.
“Do you? But you haven’t been spending the morning in Mr. Foster’s
tool-shed. Well, I must fly. We’ve just time for a cup of tea before
we start, George.”
George looked at Monica a little wistfully. “I suppose you’d really
better not go by train?” he asked his sister.
“Certainly not,” said Dora, who much preferred cars to trains.
George reddened somewhat and bent to fumble quite unnecessarily with
the petrol-tap. “Wouldn’t care to come up, too, Monica?” he remarked
gruffly. “Keep me company coming back and all that? Bit too late for
you, eh?”
“Oh, George, you angel! I’d love it. I was simply longing to be asked,
but thought you wouldn’t want me as well as the others.”
George’s red area extended to the back of his ears. “What rot. Why
ever not? That’s settled then. Good.” He caught his sister’s quivering
eye and looked hastily away. George hated being winked at when he was
red.
Not unintrigued, Dora ran into the house. Between the first and last
of the dozen odd steps she took she had considered Monica’s
advisability as a wife for George, decided whole-heartedly in favour
of her, got them engaged, helped them choose their furniture, married
them, despatched them on their honeymoon, and gone to dinner with Pat
with them a year later. Women have nimble minds.
Twenty minutes later the car and its complement departed.
Guy walked back to Dell Cottage with a distinctly flat feeling. True,
Mr. Foster was still in its cellars, which was a pleasing thought; but
a joke loses most of its savour when there is nobody to share it with.
Goodness knew when Cynthia would be back, and it was obviously
impossible to say anything to Alan.
As if in answer to his prayer for company, he saw the Inspector and
Colonel Ratcliffe enter his front garden as he reached the house, and
hurried round to meet them.
“Whatever’s happening now, Colonel?” he greeted that gentleman, with a
nod to the Inspector. “Alan tells me you’ve got Mr. Foster of all
people shut up in my cellar. Why?”
The Colonel grinned like a schoolboy. Now that he had penetrated the
mystery he was as ready to enjoy its joke as any one; but he was
determined that Mr. Foster was not going to get away with it
unscathed. He was quite looking forward to the next half-hour.
“Why have I kept Mr. Foster locked up in your cellar, Nesbitt?” he
said. “For the good of his soul. I’m now going to have an interview
with the gentleman. If you’d care to be present, I think you might be
interested.”
“Good Heavens!” Guy cried, with praiseworthy ingenuousness. “You don’t
think he actually had anything to do with it, do you?”
The Colonel looked at his frank, bewildered countenance and grinned
again. Funny how he’d suspected Nesbitt first of all; any one could
see now that he was as innocent as a babe. Scholarly sort of chap, he
looked; not a bit the kind to plan an elaborate hoax of this kind. But
just the sort of chap, on the other hand, to have an elaborate hoax
played on him.
“Lead on to the cellar, there’s a good chap,” grinned the Colonel.
With a puzzled shrug, Guy led on; Colonel Ratcliffe and the Inspector
followed; a palpitating Alan brought up the rear. Guy opened the
cellar door and instantly, like a jack from its box, a round black
figure shot out, exuding coal-dust at every pore and buzzing like an
angry wasp.
“What the devil . . . unwarrantable outrage . . . have the law . . .
police . . . gross abuse of . . .” buzzed the figure.
The Colonel dealt sharply and efficiently with the buzz. “Now then,
Mr. Foster,” he barked, in the voice which had made a Guards battalion
quiver in its buttons, “that’ll do. If you’ve anything to say, kindly
say it to me.”
Mr. Foster was not a Guards battalion. He quivered, certainly, but for
quite another reason. Arresting his coal-dusty progress half-way up
the stairs he complied with the Colonel’s invitation at some length.
“I’ve a good deal to say, sir,” spluttered Mr. Foster, and went on to
prove the truth of his words.
He might have gone on proving them all night had not the Colonel cut
him short once more. “That’s enough, Foster,” said the Colonel. “The
game’s up. We know all about you. Come upstairs.”
Mr. Foster came, as gently as any sucking-pig. Into his mind had
flashed a horrible realisation—they had discovered that girl in his
tool-shed and were going to arrest him for sheltering a murderess! He
was—what was the phrase? Yes, an accessory after the fact. And
accessories after facts, Mr. Foster had an uncomfortable notion, were
just as guilty in the eyes of the law as the principals. Disturbing
thought—if they hanged that girl they would probably hang him too! Mr.
Foster felt very sorry for the girl, but he felt still more sorry for
Mr. Foster. By the time the little party reached the scullery, whither
they led him out of consideration for the rest of Guy’s house, Mr.
Foster was quite certain that he was going to be hanged. He simply
hated the idea.
“Now then,” barked the Colonel, as the circle closed round Mr. Foster
in the scullery. “Now then, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“N-nothing,” quavered the moribund Mr. Foster, and exuded a small
shower of coal-dust from his clothes by way of emphasis.
“Ah!” said the Colonel. “You admit it, then, do you?”
“Y-yes,” trembled Mr. Foster. Since they knew all about it, he might
just as well. He would not have admitted that he was covered with
coal-dust had he seen any hope in denying it, but as they must have
heard the girl’s story, and checked its truth by the nightgown, the
camp outfit, and the cook’s evidence about food conveyed out of her
larder that morning, he could see no earthly point in refusing to
acknowledge his guilt. Perhaps, on the other hand, if he threw himself
on their mercy, they might be more lenient.
Guy was puzzled. He had the best of reasons for knowing that Mr.
Foster had not committed the crime to which he was apparently
confessing. What was the idea, then? He brightened. The nature of the
crime had not been mentioned as yet, so that quite possibly Mr. Foster
did not know of what he was accused. In that case he must be
confessing to some totally different crime. Guy’s delighted smile
broadened. What had the terrible fellow been up to? Embezzlement?
Arson? Falsifying his income-tax return? Buying cigarettes after
hours? Something devilish, no doubt.
“Inspector,” said the Colonel in a voice of iron, “do your duty.”
The Inspector stepped forward. He knew what to do, because the Colonel
had been rehearsing him for most of the afternoon. His little job was
to go as near to arresting Mr. Foster as one might without actually
putting him under arrest. He frowned terrifically, both to intimidate
his now abject victim and because he had suddenly and completely
forgotten the neat little speech which the Colonel had been at some
pains to compose for him.
“Reginald Foster,” he said portentously, and frowned again, “Reginald
Foster, you——” No, it was no use. “Reginald Foster, you
comealongerme!” said the Inspector with the utmost ferocity. “And I
warn you that everythink you say will be used in evidence against
you,” he added perfunctorily and not altogether correctly.
Guy turned hastily away to screen his face, and Mr. Foster looked
pathetically from one to the other of his captors. Was it _very_
unpleasant, being hanged? And how upsetting for Agatha. In the
background Alan hovered ecstatically.
With an effort Guy regained control of his face and voice.
“Are you going to arrest him?” he managed to ask the Colonel.
The Colonel did not reply directly. “Take him away, Inspector,” he
said first in an official voice, and watched their progress out of the
back door. Then he turned to Guy. “That friend of yours, _The Courier_
man, Doyle, he’s gone back to London, hasn’t he?” he asked, with
apparent irrelevance.
“Yes,” said Guy, somewhat mystified.
“Well, if you’re in communication with him tell him about this little
scene by all means, but at the same time tell him not to use it in
_The Courier_.”
“Not to use it?” repeated Guy, now completely bewildered.
“Yes, he’ll thank me for it later. It’s—well, you can say I want it
kept secret, and you can add that that’s an order. If I’m not very
much surprised he’ll understand.”
“Will he?” said Guy, who was not inclined to agree.
The Colonel was half-way to the door. He turned back for a moment. “If
he doesn’t,” he added over his shoulder, “you can tell him also
‘Because of the Crown Prince.’” And suppressing a chuckle, the Colonel
vanished after the Inspector and Mr. Foster.
On second thoughts the Colonel had decided to say nothing to Guy about
the whole business being a hoax. He would have to think things over a
little more officially first before allowing the news to be
promulgated that the police had been trapped into investigating a
mare’s nest for the last forty-eight hours; and perhaps he had better
consult a magistrate in Abingchester too. Colonel Ratcliffe had not
held the post of Chief Constable very long, and he was uncertain as to
the correct method of procedure on discovering his official leg, and
the official legs of those under him, to have been successfully
pulled.
Guy stared after him. The Colonel’s manner had been mysterious in the
extreme. He seemed to have no doubt of Mr. Foster’s guilt, but why had
he given that order about not mentioning the arrest in _The Courier_?
Decidedly he had given the impression that there was a good deal more
in his mind than he was willing to speak about. Guy rubbed his chin.
_What_ was in the Colonel’s mind?
He took a half-step in the direction of the hall and the telephone,
then halted again. It was no good ringing up _The Courier_ offices and
leaving a message. Doyle had said that he would be in the building
from nine to ten, in case anything happened; he would wait till then.
And one thing was very certain: Doyle would have to come back to
Duffley to-morrow morning as early as possible, whether _The Courier_
wanted him to do so or not. Something was in the wind, and the two of
them had got to lay their heads together and find out what it was.
In the meantime there was this matter of Mr. Foster’s arrest. Not in
his wildest dreams had Guy ever expected Mr. Foster to be arrested.
Until a body is forthcoming, surely an arrest for murder cannot be
effected; Guy was not very sure on the point, but certainly that was
his impression. What, then, was the Colonel’s game? What, moreover,
had Foster been confessing to?
With knitted brows Guy walked into his library and threw himself into
a chair to think things out. Either the scheme was being successful
beyond all hopes, or else a nasty snag had made its appearance
somewhere. He wondered which it was.
In the meantime the objects of his earnest thought were walking along
the road, followed by Alan’s eager eyes, like Jezebel’s from an upper
window. They walked slowly, for all three had plenty to think about,
and in silence. Two hundred yards or more had been covered before the
Colonel gave tongue.
“You know, Foster,” he remarked, with more of the easy chattiness of
the victor to the vanquished than he had hitherto displayed, “you
know, it was that note that really gave you away. What on earth made
you write it on your own note-paper?”
Mr. Foster raised dull eyes from an inward contemplation of last
breakfasts and clergyman’s ministrations. “What note?” he asked
apathetically.
“That note you wrote Nesbitt, of course, to get him away from the
house. By the way, who was the girl?”
“I don’t know,” mourned Mr. Foster.
“You don’t know?” repeated the Colonel incredulously.
“No, I’d never even asked her her name.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
“What was that you said about a note?” asked Mr. Foster after a little
pause. “I never wrote a note to Nesbitt.”
“Don’t be funny,” snapped the Colonel.
“I wasn’t,” replied Mr. Foster humbly, registering a mental memorandum
that denying the authorship of notes he hadn’t written was considered
humorous.
There was another little silence.
“Well,” said the Colonel, “got any reason why I shouldn’t have you
clapped into jail, Foster, eh?”
Mr. Foster’s face brightened under its coal. Had he a chance after
all?
“I—I didn’t know I was doing wrong,” he said eagerly. “She told me she
meant to reform, you see. I wasn’t exactly sheltering her from the
law: only from those scoundrels who were after her. I—I thought it
right to do so. Of course,” added Mr. Foster virtuously, “I was going
to inform the police when the danger was over, that is, in an hour or
two. I—I know my duty as a citizen, I hope. Especially after she’d
actually confessed to the murder. That’s what makes it so unfair, I
think, arresting me too. If you’d only given me time you’d have heard
from me all about it.” In his anxiety to escape the dock himself Mr.
Foster had no compunction in pushing his recent visitor more securely
inside it.
“What the blazes are you talking about?” demanded the Colonel blankly.
The Inspector drew out his notebook and looked official.
“The girl you found in my tool-shed,” said Mr. Foster, with some
surprise. “I assure you there was no previous arrangement. I was as
astonished when I saw her looking over my fence this morning as you
would have been.”
The Colonel was no fool. He knew that cross-purposes had crept into
the conversation somehow, and he was not going to give his own case
away. “Tell me the whole story in your own words, from the very
beginning,” he said curtly.
Mr. Foster told it.
The Colonel listened with increasing astonishment. Either this man was
the most plausible scoundrel unhanged, or else he was the biggest fool
unstrangled. As the story proceeded, the Colonel inclined to the
latter explanation. The idiot’s words rang true; he did not sound as
if he were inventing his tale, the details were convincing. Good Gad!
“Well, we’ll soon see if you’re speaking the truth,” he said, when Mr.
Foster’s bleating accents had come to an end almost at his own front
door. “Take us to this tool-shed of yours and let’s have a look at
this girl.”
“But—but haven’t you arrested her?” stammered Mr. Foster.
“Never you mind what I’ve done or what I haven’t,” replied the Colonel
gruffly.
In a state of mental chaos Mr. Foster led them to the tool-shed,
produced the key and automatically unlocked the door. No girl was
there. A strip of twilit sky visible through the roof, however, showed
where a girl, a very slim girl, might possibly have been. Around them
stood camp bedding, a muddy nightgown, pieces of bread and a burnt
sausage, mute witnesses to Mr. Foster’s veracity.
“She’s gone,” said Mr. Foster, inspired.
Against his will the Colonel was almost convinced. There and then,
among the camp bedding, the muddy nightgown and the burnt sausage, he
questioned Mr. Foster at considerable length, and the answers he
obtained completed his conversion. He had been wrong: the man was only
a consummate ass. Then in that case. . . . The Colonel’s eye grew grim
and his brow darkened. In _that_ case. . . .
“Describe this girl as closely as you can,” he ordered.
It is surprising how misleading a perfectly accurate description may
be. Dora Howard and Cynthia Nesbitt were not in the slightest degree
alike. Mr. Foster gave a very fair working description of Dora; the
Colonel received a perfect impression of Cynthia.
“You know Mrs. Nesbitt, don’t you?” he asked casually, when the
perfect impression was complete.
“No,” said Mr. Foster, with mild surprise at the irrelevance. “I
believe my wife’s called on her, and I know Nesbitt at the club, of
course, but I’ve never met his wife personally. Why?”
“Nothing!” snapped the Colonel, and took a curt departure. Colonel
Ratcliffe was in a very bad temper indeed.
It was unfortunate that his way took him past the station at the very
moment when Cynthia was leaving it on her return from London. He
crossed the road and dabbed at his hat as if grudging the courtesy of
removing it.
“Evening, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he said, on the impulse of the moment. “Will
you come over to the police-station, please?”
“Certainly,” Cynthia agreed charmingly. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Jolly good mind to,” growled the Colonel, who was not going to beat
about bushes any longer. “I’ll pay you one compliment, though, Mrs.
Nesbitt. You don’t look as if you’d been spending the day in a
tool-shed and scrambled out through the roof, I must say.”
“What!” exclaimed the astonished Cynthia, who had anticipated certain
unpleasant topics of conversation but certainly not tool-sheds.
“You look,” amplified the Colonel, making his point clearer, “as if
you’d just come back from a day in London.”
“But that’s just what I have done!”
“What!” exclaimed the Colonel in his turn.
Cynthia amplified her own point. Seeing that the Colonel looked
sceptical, she led him into the station and produced for him
unimpeachable evidence, in the shape of a grinning
porter-ticket-inspector, that she really had left Duffley on the 9.47
train for London, and returned on the 6.19.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said the Colonel.
“Don’t you think you’d better tell me exactly what was in your mind?”
Cynthia asked gently, and smiled at him.
The Colonel hesitated, took another look at the smile, then led her
out into the road and told her.
“Poor Mr. Foster,” said Cynthia, her lips twitching. “And now,
Colonel, I think you’d better take me along to that police-station of
yours. I want to talk to you a little, and I can’t very well do it
here.” She smiled at him again.
The Colonel took her. He led her into the Inspector’s room and ejected
that worthy into the company of Constable Graves. He put Cynthia into
the best chair and smiled at her. Cynthia smiled back.
Then Cynthia talked, and as she talked she smiled. The Colonel grew as
wax before her, and the more Cynthia smiled the more the Colonel
melted. In a quarter of an hour he was a deliquescent mass, promising
impossible things in all directions.
“And you really ought to apologise to Mr. Foster, you know,” smiled
Cynthia, as she rose at last to go.
The Colonel even promised this. “Damn it, I’ll do it this evening,”
said the deliquescent Colonel.
It is quite certain that he really meant to do so too, at the moment.
Fortunately, however, for his official dignity, a circumstance had
already arisen which was to make it impossible for this particular
promise to be fulfilled. At the very moment when the Colonel was
giving utterance to it Mr. Foster was standing in his big double
bedroom with a dazed expression on his face and a letter in his hand.
The letter was of considerable length. It was from Mrs. Foster and in
it she had seen fit to give expression to all the thoughts about her
husband which had crowded her bosom for the last twenty years; there
had been a good many such thoughts, and Mrs. Foster had done her
conscientious best not to omit a single one. The result would have
been surprising to a complete stranger; to Mr. Foster it was
paralysing.
But not so paralysing as the end of this remarkable effusion. The end
ran as follows:—
“All this I’ve put up with, because I knew it only arose out of your
inordinate conceit, self-satisfaction, and egotism, and was not
really based on wickedness. But when it comes to your keeping a
mistress in a tool-shed at the bottom of the garden, then things
have reached their limit. Thanks to the money you have settled on me
from time to time, I am financially independent. I am therefore
leaving you for good and going up to London at once. Don’t try to
follow me, because you won’t find me, and in any case I never want
to set eyes on you again. Even if you do find me, nothing will ever
induce me to live with you again, and if you want me to divorce you
so that you can marry your mistress, I shall only be too delighted
to do so; you can communicate with me, on that subject only, through
our solicitors —Agatha.”
Chapter XVI.
Mr. Priestley Bursts a Bombshell
For two whole days’ time, in so far as the Duffley mystery was
concerned, stood still. Guy and Mr. Doyle, racking their brains in
vain, were able to establish only one definite fact: Mr. Foster
remained mysteriously absent from his home. Mrs. Foster, added the
maid who gave them this information, was also absent.
The conspirators’ uneasiness grew. Apparently Mr. Foster, still under
arrest, was being held for some obscure reason. What that reason might
be they could not imagine, except that it was almost too good to be
true that it could be the one for which they had been working. In
fact, the only thing about which the two felt quite sure was that this
was not the end of all things, but merely a lull before a storm out of
which almost anything might emerge.
It would be too much to say that Guy and Mr. Doyle were losing their
nerve; it would not be too much to say that they realised matters had
slipped out of their own grasp and they rather wished they hadn’t.
Nor did Cynthia’s attitude help them. With a pertinacity worthy of
Cassandra she continued to prophesy disaster, and spent most of her
time coming to Guy to ask him what he wanted done about this, that,
and the other, “when they were all in prison.”
Only George, who had no nerve to lose, and Monica, who was not
committed, really retained their balance; with the quite natural
consequence that they had to balance each other, mostly in the car. If
you had asked George at that time whether he had any complex about
hose-pipes, he would have replied according to the best judicial
models: “What is a hose-pipe?” He would then have taken Monica out for
another driving lesson.
As for Alan, nobody seemed to want him much. Monica even went so far
as to remark that if he came mooning round her any more, she’d lock
him in the coal-cellar for a day or two and see how he liked it. To
which Alan replied very fraternally indeed, with much recourse to the
name of “George.” Monica, very pink but beautifully dignified, forbore
to retort, chiefly because for once she had nothing to say, and walked
off with her small nose very much in the air. Alan then abandoned the
study of footprints for that of Guy’s Canadian canoe. Having fallen
into the river seven times in an endeavour to learn how to propel this
treacherous craft standing upright in the stern with a punt-pole, he
felt a good deal better.
Duffley was not the only place where people were puzzled during these
days. All that portion of the population whose breakfast-tables were
enlivened by _The Daily Courier_, shared a common bewilderment. For
_The Courier_ was just as bewildered as its readers. In other papers
only the briefest notices had appeared regarding the Duffley
entertainment, in some it had not even been mentioned at all. Their
reporters had gone down on Sunday, investigated, and one and all
returned to report that in their opinion there was something fishy
about the whole thing, and a non-committal attitude, amounting even to
complete ignorance, would be the wiser policy. _The Courier_, having
already committed itself, could only pursue, at any rate for a day or
two, the line it had adopted, but a shrewd man was sent down, unknown
to Mr. Doyle, to look into matters himself. His subsequent report,
though quite admitting the possibility that things might be as they
had seemed, caused the editor some very thoughtful moments; but though
inscribing Mr. Doyle’s name on a mental black list, he continued
perforce to publish that gentleman’s reports.
As soon as possible, however, these were shifted from the chief
news-page to the secondary, progressing thence by easy stages to a
corner among the advertisements; at the same time editorial notes were
added in which a distinctly sceptical tone was to be discerned.
Readers of _The Courier_ who were conversant with their favourite’s
habits knew that by the end of the week it would be as if there were
no such place as Duffley at all. In the meantime the streams of
information which continued to pour into _The Courier_’s offices
regarding the broken noses of the British Isles were diverted into the
waste-paper basket.
Mr. Doyle noted these developments and smiled; he had already obtained
enough money, upon completely false pretences, to furnish two houses
instead of one; and he was quite able to write other kinds of fiction.
Besides the editorial offices of _The Courier_ there was another room
in London in which uneasy thought had become the order of the day, and
this was whatever room happened to be occupied by Miss Laura Howard.
As a general rule this room was Mr. Priestley’s study.
Laura had noticed a subtle change in Mr. Priestley. It had seemed to
date from Monday morning. He had not talked to her very much at lunch
and had looked at her several times in a curious way. Finally she
asked laughingly if he was suffering from indigestion. Mr. Priestley
had repudiated the indigestion, but mumbled something about this
wretched business being more serious than he had realised. Hiding a
stab of conscience under a smile, Laura remarked that he’d cheer up
all right when he saw all the gorgeous things she’d bought. Mr.
Priestley’s only reply had been to look as if he would burst into
tears at the sight of them.
After lunch, too, he had been queer. Setting her down almost
peremptorily to the Juvenal again, he had announced that he had to go
out for a short time. He did not return till past five o’clock; and
though he was then no longer quite so mournful as at lunch, his
seriousness had, if anything, increased. He also contrived (a
considerable feat) to impart that seriousness to Laura herself.
“You know,” said Mr. Priestley, looking at her very intently over his
second cup of tea, “I have no wish to frighten you unduly, but this
matter is very much more alarming than we thought, Laura.”
“Oh?” said Laura, impressed in spite of herself by his weightiness.
What on earth had happened now?
Mr. Priestley selected a piece of currant cake with some care. “I’m
afraid there is a great deal of which you know nothing at all. For
instance, we were quite wrong when we assumed the title ‘Crown Prince’
to be a species of nickname for the dead man. It was nothing of the
sort. Nor, indeed, was he the man you imagined.”
“Oh?” said the surprised Laura, who had heard from Cynthia only a few
hours ago exactly how the Crown Prince had come into it at all,
together with all the rest of the events following her own departure
from the scene. “What was he, then?” she asked.
“A real Crown Prince,” replied Mr. Priestley solemnly.
Laura struggled with a wild desire to laugh. “Was he really?” she
managed to say with equal solemnity, trying to remember the precise
points of the story she had invented the previous morning.
“Indeed he was,” nodded Mr. Priestley. “So now you can see the pickle
we’re in. I have a friend in the Foreign Office whom I went to see
this afternoon, and I must admit that I did go with an ulterior
motive. I went, in fact, to pump him.” Mr. Priestley spoke in a
deprecating way and looked a little ashamed of himself.
“Yes?” said Laura, from whom all desire to laugh had very suddenly
fled.
Mr. Priestley ate three mouthfuls of cake with maddening deliberation.
“The result,” he continued, “surpassed my wildest expectations.”
It is a curious fact that when any normally well-educated, well-read
person embarks upon the ship of fiction he immediately dons a complete
outfit of clichés, such as he would shudder to use in ordinary
converse; it is not until he has got his sea-legs that he discards, or
does his best to discard, these atrocities. Mr. Priestley was no
exception.
“Wildest expectations,” he repeated. “I found my friend much
distressed. The Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, who has been in this
country for many years, has disappeared during the week-end. Simply
disappeared!” He paused impressively.
“Bosno—— _where_ did you say?” asked the astonished Laura.
“Bosnogovina,” responded Mr. Priestley glibly. “I’m not surprised you
don’t seem to know the country; I’d never heard of it myself till this
afternoon. It’s a little state tucked in between the borders of
Rumania and Jugo-Slavia. A buffer state, I think my friend called it.
It is only a few hundred square miles in extent, but I gather that its
importance in the European scheme of things is quite considerable. I
am not much of a politician,” added Mr. Priestley apologetically, “but
I understand that its importance lies in the fact that should Rumania
and Jugo-Slavia ever contemplate going to war, one of them would have
to invade Bosnogovina, and Bosnogovina’s neutrality has been
guaranteed by all the big powers of Europe. A situation would
therefore arise not unlike that of Belgium at the beginning of the
recent war, with similar incalculable consequences. At least, I think
that is what my friend said.”
“Good gracious!” said Laura, and so far forgot good manners as to gape
with her mouth open.
Mr. Priestley glanced at her and quickly away again.
“Now, after the late war,” he continued a moment later, “Bosnogovina,
like so many other recently enemy countries, suffered a revolution.
The reigning dynasty was driven out (quite peaceably and without
bloodshed, you understand) and a republic proclaimed. The King and
Queen betook themselves to Switzerland, where they still are; the
Crown Prince Paulovitch, or some such name as that, came to England.
My friend, whose duty it was, immediately got into touch with him and
has remained so, though distantly, ever since. He tells me that the
Crown Prince, while never renouncing his hopes of regaining the throne
of his fathers, nevertheless thought it prudent to carve out a career
for himself in this country just in case. He had been educated in
England and spoke excellent English. In appearance, I may say, he was
tall and burly, with a black beard and a commanding manner. Now, does
that description remind you of any one?”
Laura nodded dumbly. She could not do anything else.
“Precisely!” crowed Mr. Priestley. “The Crown Prince joined the firm
of—now what was the name? Ah, yes; Hamley and Waterhouse. Was it at
Hamley and Waterhouse’s that you were employed?”
Laura would have given anything to shriek out: “No! It was The
Diestampers and Bedstead-Knob-Beaters Company, Ltd.!” but found
herself unable to do anything of the sort. Fascinated into
helplessness, she could only nod dumbly again.
“Exactly!” squeaked Mr. Priestley in triumph (not unmerited triumph).
“And the man you knew as plain Mr. Jones or Robinson or whatever it
was, my dear, was in reality the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina.” Mr.
Priestley beamed ingenuous enjoyment of this terrific climax.
Laura continued to gape speechlessly. She was, in fact, flabbergasted.
It never occurred to her for a single instant that Mr. Priestley was
diving into hitherto unexplored depths of fiction. Why should it?
Laura knew Mr. Priestley well enough, and she knew that he would never
have dreamed of doing such a thing on his own volition; what she did
not know was that Mr. Priestley had just been subjected for nearly two
whole hours to the remarkable stimulus of Cynthia’s smile. She just
went on gaping, while her mind turned a series of complicated
cart-wheels.
“So you see how very serious that is,” Mr. Priestley took up his tale
in more sober accents. “My friend had no idea of the Crown Prince’s
house at Duffley, and this really is rather extraordinary, because
these Nesbitts, who seem quite respectable people, not only deny all
knowledge of the affair itself but even of the Crown Prince himself.
My friend has had them very carefully examined (of course without
their suspecting anything of the sort) and their story checked, and on
the whole he is inclined to believe they are speaking the truth. That
makes it all the more remarkable that you should know about him being
there, doesn’t it?”
“Y-yes,” said Laura, faintly, finding her voice with an effort.
“However, there is no doubt he was there, and there is no doubt that
he was a blackguard even if he was a Crown Prince; what you told me
quite proves that, though naturally I did not mention any of that to
my friend. Even now I can’t say that I’m altogether sorry I shot him;
he seems to have deserved it if ever a man did, Crown Prince or no
Crown Prince. So I don’t think you need worry yourself on that score,
my dear niece,” said Mr. Priestley kindly.
“Th-thank you,” faltered his dear niece, who certainly was not
worrying herself on _that_ score.
There was a little pause while Mr. Priestley extracted his
cigarette-case, courteously asked permission to smoke, and received a
feeble affirmative.
“As for the gang,” continued Mr. Priestley, when his cigarette was
alight, “they’re quite easily explained. They were a body of
malcontents (Communists, I think) from Bosnogovina who have repeatedly
expressed their determination to exterminate the dynasty altogether
and so prevent Bosnogovina from reverting to a monarchy even should it
feel inclined. My friend thinks that quite definitely established,
though unfortunately no trace of the ruffians has been found. And in
official circles it is taken for granted (fortunately for us!) that it
was members of this gang who shot the Crown Prince. Of course they
have the constable’s descriptions of you and me, but they think we are
members of the Communist gang, if you understand.”
“Do they?” said Laura mechanically.
“Yes, I’m glad indeed to say they do. On the other hand (and this is
where we are not so fortunate) the most urgent search is being
prosecuted by the Secret Service, whose resources I understand to be
simply unlimited, to discover our whereabouts. I realised when I heard
this how extremely rash I had been in going to see my friend and
actually in his official quarters. It was a terrible risk.” Mr.
Priestley expelled a cloud of smoke with the modest demeanour of one
who knows he is a brave and reckless fellow and has no need to brag
about it.
“Good Heavens!” was all Laura could think of to say, but she said it
with a good deal of feeling.
Mr. Priestley paused for a few moments to admire himself. He had told
a good story, and he thought he had told it well. As far as he could
remember, he had included every single point that had been impressed
upon him. He glanced at his companion almost maliciously, if that is
not too strong a word even to hint at in connection with Mr.
Priestley. What he saw in that young woman’s countenance gave him a
good deal of wicked pleasure. He knew it was wicked pleasure, but he
just didn’t care. Mr. Priestley had developed a good deal in the last
forty-eight hours.
He considered his next words with the care of an artist.
“Of course,” he said slowly, “you can see how this affects us. Our
precautions must be intensified beyond measure.”
“Must they?” said Laura quite humbly.
“Indeed they must,” replied Mr. Priestley with energy. “Do you
realise, my dear niece, that every policeman in the country is
furnished with the most careful description of our two selves that it
has been possible to obtain? Every step we take outside these rooms is
fraught with danger. Simply fraught with danger,” repeated Mr.
Priestley, pleased with the phrase.
“Is it?”
“Good gracious, yes, I should think it is. You, therefore, Laura,”
continued Mr. Priestley in tones of unwonted command, “will not set
foot outside these rooms at all.”
Laura stared at him. “But I must! I shall have to——”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” interrupted Mr. Priestley sternly.
“You will stay here until I consider the coast to be clear. If you do
not give me your word to do so, I shall lock you in your room and keep
you here by force. This is no time for half-measures. I am not going
to have my safety jeopardised, and my very life perhaps as well, by
the whims and fancies of a foolish girl. Either you give me your
solemn word to remain here until I accord you permission to go out, or
I will call Barker and give him the necessary instructions at once.
Which is it to be?” He glared at her through his glasses.
Laura gazed at him with open mouth. If anybody had ever presumed to
address such peremptory commands to her before, she would have walked
straight out of the place. But her nerve was frayed almost to snapping
point. It was yet once more on the tip of her tongue to blurt out that
the whole thing was a mistake: it wasn’t the real Crown Prince at all,
and she could produce the alleged corpse and everything would be plain
sailing. But dazed though she was, she realised perfectly well that it
would not be all plain sailing. Mr. Priestley, for instance, would
flatly refuse to credit her story, and no wonder; he would, she quite
believed, use force if he considered it necessary. This was yet
another new Mr. Priestley, and one of whom she felt really afraid.
Besides, even if she could induce him to believe the truth, what about
all these other complications—policemen, and disappearing Crown
Princes, and friends in the Foreign Office? There would be endless
trouble before the affair was finally cleared up and the law satisfied
of her own and Mr. Priestley’s innocence. Probably they would be
brought to trial. At the very least they would be held in prison
during the inquiry. Laura suddenly saw herself in a prison frock,
embroidered with broad arrows. Her nerve snapped. “I—I give you my
solemn word,” she said huskily.
“If you break it,” said Mr. Priestley ominously.
“I won’t!” Laura squeaked, thoroughly frightened. Nobody had ever seen
Laura thoroughly frightened before. Mr. Priestley was a very favoured
mortal.
With a bound the normal Mr. Priestley jumped into the place of this
grim stranger. “That’s all right then. That’s excellent. And now, my
dear niece, you may show me those pretty frocks and things that I know
you’re longing to display.”
It was the last thing his dear niece was longing to do, but she rose,
on somewhat shaky limbs, and tottered off to her room.
“Call me when the fashion-show is ready,” Mr. Priestley remarked
benignly as she disappeared, and grinned naughtily after her eloquent
back.
Draped professionally over the chairs in Laura’s bedroom, and less
professionally on the bed, were frocks, coats, cloaks, stockings,
hats, gloves, and other accessories, all the spring outfit, in fact,
and some of the winter and last summer’s as well, except the undies,
for which she had judged Mr. Priestley to be not quite old enough as
yet despite his years—all arranged with the artless idea of affording
pleasure to her benefactor. Laura cast a haggard eye over them as she
walked over to the window and contemplated, with apparently deep
interest, a blank wall. She was not sorry for the respite. She wanted
to think.
Having thought madly for five minutes, she arrived at the brilliant
conclusion of telepathy. Laura had flirted with telepathy before with
Dora, but she had never believed in it very seriously; now she found
herself doing so with the utmost conviction. After all, it was the
only possible explanation. By some curious telepathic means Dora must
have received the message “Crown Prince” at the very moment when the
real Crown Prince was being murdered in some totally different spot.
More, she must have received something like the actual circumstances
of his death. Laura was now quite prepared to believe that the leader
of the band of Communists had a broken nose, and even a nickname
turning upon that peculiarity.
Of course she must stay in the flat. And anyhow, Cynthia knew where
she was. She shivered. “The Secret Service, whose resources are simply
unlimited.” Oh, what a fool she had been to get herself mixed up in
that absurd joke. What an unutterable _fool_!
A gentle tap at the door interrupted her frank comments upon herself.
“Is the fashion-show ready?” asked a voice.
Laura shook herself and forced a smile to her lips. At any rate she
must pretend to be feeling brave, whatever was going on underneath.
“Yes,” she called out. “Quite ready. Come in.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley, with proper admiration. “Delightful,
Laura. Charming indeed. Now show them to me in detail. Well, well!”
If his adopted niece seemed a trifle _distraite_ in her attention to
the matter in hand, Mr. Priestley evidently did not notice it. His
manner was utterly correct. He admired duly, he cocked his head on one
side to consider the difficult point of whether saxe-blue really
suited his niece better than jade-green, he said all the right things
and surprisingly few of the wrong ones. In short, for a man introduced
for the first time to this extremely delicate business, Mr. Priestley
acquitted himself uncommonly well.
But if Mr. Priestley could, and did, take an intelligent interest in
his niece’s hobby, Laura failed dismally when the rôles were reversed.
Mr. Priestley led her back to the study and there informed her that,
as she was evidently destined to be his secretary for rather longer
than had been anticipated, she must buckle to and learn Latin at once
if she was to be of any real use to him. Nor did he voice this
proposition in a deprecating way, as last evening; he spoke it out
boldly and firmly, so that it took on practically the air of a
command.
“Besides,” added Mr. Priestley more kindly, “it will help to occupy
your mind a little during the anxious time.”
Laura, far too crushed now to dream of objecting (oh, shades of that
resourceful young woman in the tube to Maida Vale!) allowed herself to
be settled at the table with Kennedy’s Latin Grammar in front of her
and meekly received her orders to have the first and second
declensions off pat before dinner-time. In case he was not back for
that meal, Mr. Priestley added airily, she might dine at eight o’clock
and master the third declension afterwards before going to bed. Mr.
Priestley was clearly going to prove a sweating employer. A trade
union of secretaries would have had a good deal to say about Mr.
Priestley, it was plain.
“Not back?” said Laura, looking up from the distasteful book in front
of her. “Surely you’re not going out, are you?”
With simple pride Mr. Priestley drew the large black beard from his
pocket which Cynthia had taken him to buy immediately before she left
him. He hooked it over his ears and beamed at his niece, looking like
a cross between a Bolshevik and a black nanny-goat. Laura shuddered.
“I shall be safe enough in this, my dear,” said Mr. Priestley.
It flashed into Laura’s mind that he would be more likely to be
arrested for causing a crowd to collect, but she no longer had the
spirit to put it into words. In some strange way Mr. Priestley had
taken autocratic control of the whole affair, and whatever she might
say had no more weight than one of the hairs in Mr. Priestley’s beard.
She knew this, but she did not resent it. It was a strange feeling to
Laura to be in contact with somebody who ordered her about like a
rather fatuous sort of dog, and disregarded her wishes and
inclinations as though she were more of a hindrance in the scheme of
things than a help; and to her amazement she found that she rather
liked it. Mr. Priestley was not the only person in his flat who was
finding out things he did not know about himself.
“Very well, Mr. Priestley,” was all she said.
“Uncle Matthew,” corrected Mr. Priestley, with severity.
“Uncle Matthew,” Laura repeated humbly.
Mr. Priestley almost strode out of the room.
Outside his own front-door he whisked the atrocious beard off his face
and stowed it away in his pocket. Then he proceeded, with an
unwontedly brisk air, to keep the appointment for which he had
telegraphed nearly three hours ago. And as he proceeded Mr. Priestley
smiled abandonedly.
That was on Monday, and thereafter nothing happened, as has already
been said, until Thursday.
Perhaps, however, in Laura’s case this statement needs a certain
qualification. Something did happen to Laura, and it was Latin
grammar. Latin grammar happened to Laura all day long, and in the
evenings as well. No pupil less anxious to master Latin grammar could
have been found in any school in the country, yet through sheer force
of will-power Mr. Priestley caused Laura in two days to learn the five
declensions, quite a large proportion of the four conjugations, and to
have more than a nodding acquaintance with the intricacies of the
adjectives and pronouns.
“Regebam, regebas, regebat,” said Laura wearily on Wednesday evening,
“regebamus, regebabitis——”
“Regebatis,” corrected Mr. Priestley relentlessly.
“Regebatis,” said Laura, “regebant.”
“Yes. Now the perfect.”
“Rexi, rexisti, rexit,” Laura droned, “rexeymus——”
“_Rex_-imus!”
“_Rex_-imus, rexistis, rexerunt.”
“Excellent! That’s fifth time I’ve heard you that tense, isn’t it?”
“The seventh,” said Laura colourlessly.
“The seventh? Dear, dear. Well, we’ve got it right at last. And now,”
said Mr. Priestley with the air of one conferring a substantial
favour, “I think we might actually go on to Syntax.”
“Oh?” said Laura, with the air of one wondering just where the favour
lies.
Mr. Priestley picked up the Kennedy and fluttered its pages lovingly.
“_Vir bonus bonam uxorem habet_,” he crooned. “‘The good man has a
good wife.’ _Vir bonus_ is the subject, you see, _habet_ the verb, and
_bonam uxorem_ the object. A verb, of course, agrees with its subject
in number and person. Just repeat that, please.”
“A verb, of course, agrees with its subject in number and person.”
“Yes, and an adjective, as I’ve told you already, agrees in gender,
number, and case with the substantive it qualifies.”
“An adjective, as you’ve told me already, agrees in gender, number,
and case with the substantive it qualifies,” repeated Laura
listlessly. “May I go to bed now, please, Uncle Matthew?”
“Certainly not. We must master this first page of syntax before
bedtime. It’s only just past ten o’clock. _Veræ amicitiæ sempiternæ
sunt_. ‘True friendships are everlasting.’ That is another example
of. . . .”
Let us draw a veil.
It was on Thursday morning that Mr. Priestley burst his bombshell.
He had been gloomy and apprehensive at breakfast, starting nervously
at trifles and refusing to give any reason for his agitation, and had
gone out, disguised as a black nanny-goat, immediately afterwards.
Laura’s nerves, already strained, naturally caused his anxiety to
communicate itself to her. Poring over her Kennedy during the morning
alone in the study, she was unable to assimilate a word. Vague terrors
afflicted her, drastic plans for ending everything by flying from the
country, or at least down to Duffley, flitted in and out of her mind
like passengers in a tube lift. The farmer tilled his fields for her
in vain, his wife fruitlessly looked after the house; even the news
that Hannibal and Philopœmen were cut off by poison left her unmoved.
By the time Mr. Priestley returned, wild of eye and distraught of
mien, half an hour before lunch-time, she had worked herself up to the
pitch of tears; and for a young woman of Laura’s disposition there is
no need to say more.
“We’re done for!” announced Mr. Priestley melodramatically. “They’re
on our track. It’s only a question of hours.”
“Oh, no!” cried Laura.
Mr. Priestley clutched at his collar. “I can feel the rope round my
neck already. Our arrest is imminent. Laura, the game’s up.”
They stared at each other with horrified eyes.
Now Laura knew perfectly well that Mr. Priestley was in no sort of
danger really. She knew it, but she couldn’t realise it. To her it
seemed by this time as if the truth could never be proved. Whatever
she said, whatever George said, whatever any of them said would make
no difference. They had plotted too well. They had staged a murder,
and a murder had been committed. It was not the least use to say that
their murder was not the real one. Who was going to believe that? They
were caught helplessly and hopelessly in the trap of their own
setting.
“Oh!” she wailed. “Can’t anything be done?”
“Yes!” said Mr. Priestley, in a low, tense voice. “There is just one
hope for us. Consider the circumstances. Nobody except you saw me
shoot him. Without you, there is no evidence against me except the
constable’s, and I am told that a clever lawyer could make hay of
that. It is _you_ who are the stumbling-block, Laura.”
“Oh!” squeaked Laura, aghast at the implication of his words. “You’re
not—you’re not going to shoot me too?”
Mr. Priestley hurriedly turned his face away. His shoulders quivered
slightly. When he turned round again he had recovered his composure.
“No, Laura,” he said, neither sternly nor gently but with a curious
blend of the two. “No, that is not what I meant. Fortunately there is
no need to go to such extremes. It suits our case well enough to
remember that a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, nor a
husband against his wife.”
“A—a—a——”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Priestley gravely. “I have made all the necessary
arrangements, and I have a special licence in my pocket. You are going
to marry me at the registry office in Albemarle Street at ten o’clock
to-morrow morning—if we are both still at liberty!”
Chapter XVII.
Awkward Predicament of Some Conspirators
On Wednesday Cynthia had taken another trip to London. She made no
secret of it. She said quite plainly that she wanted to get away from
this atmosphere of intrigue and anxiety, and she was therefore going
up to see Edith Marryott, whom she hadn’t seen for simply _ages_. It
is to be regretted that Cynthia had no intention whatever of going
within two miles of Edith Marryott.
She took Alan with her, gave him ten shillings at Paddington, and told
him to meet her there on the 5.49. Alan made a bee-line for the
nearest call-box and had the ineffable joy of arranging to take a
chorus-girl out to lunch. That the chorus-girl afterwards firmly
insisted on paying both for her own lunch and for Alan’s too was a
point which need not be laboured in subsequent conversations with
Colebrook and Thomson minor.
Alan squandered five and ninepence of his ten shillings afterwards on
a seat at the Jollity _matinée_, and later waited at the stage-door,
thrilled to the soles of his boots. His beaker of heady pleasure was
completed after that by being allowed to take his chorus-girl out to
tea _and_ pay for it, though the A.B.C. to which she insisted upon
going did not seem quite to fit. The lady, however, assured him
gravely that when not refreshing themselves with champagne and
oysters, chorus-girls invariably go to A.B.C.’s, and it was all quite
in order, and he accepted this information from her still excitingly
grease-painted lips. Alan had the day of his life, and caught the 7.15
back to Duffley.
Cynthia and Alan were not missed at Duffley. Monica, for instance, was
far too busy taking an intelligent interest in the workings of
George’s car to miss them. Not in George himself, of course not,
though he was interesting on the subject of cars, George was. And
actresses. And the relations of a man and a girl these days. “Jolly
nice, feeling one can be real pals with a girl nowadays. Rotten it
must have been for those old Victorians, eh? What I mean is, a man
likes to feel a girl can be a sort of _pal_, so to speak. Jolly to go
out with and all that. Of course you can’t be pals with all girls,
though. Fact is, I’ve never really met another one beside you that I
could, Monica. Comic when you come to think of it, in a way, isn’t it?
Here we are, just pals, all merry and bright, going out in the old bus
and having a good time, and everything’s absolutely ripping. I say,
Monica, I’m dashed glad you came down here, you know. I was getting
bored stiff with Duffley, and that silly stunt of Guy’s was worse
still. I mean to say, what I really wanted, I suppose, was a _pal_.”
And Monica listened very seriously and thought it all extremely
original and clever of him. She did not introduce the subject of her
soul because, luckily for George, she was not that sort of girl; but
she inaugurated some very deep conversation about carburetters and
magnetos, which came to much the same thing.
Unlike London, Thursday morning at Duffley was peacefulness itself.
Then, on Thursday afternoon, came the Chief Constable, bringing with
him a tall stranger. The stranger was dressed in a suit notable more
for its wearing qualities than its cut, and he had large boots and a
disconcertingly piercing eye. In a voice of undeniable authority he
requested the presence of Guy and Mr. Doyle in the library. Polite but
mystified, they humoured him.
Then the Colonel spoke. He said: “Gentlemen, this is Superintendent
Peters, of Scotland Yard. He wants to ask you a few questions.”
Guy and Mr. Doyle did not exchange glances, because neither dared look
at the other; but something like the same thought was in both their
minds. The thought might be represented in general terms as a large
question-mark, and, more particularly, by: “Good Lord! Is this going
to prove the cream of the whole jest, or—is it not?”
For at least ten minutes the newcomer took no notice at all of the
two, while the Colonel explained in minute detail exactly what had
happened in the room, the position of the body, and all other
necessary details. Guy and Mr. Doyle found this a trifle
disconcerting. From being keyed up suddenly to the topmost pitch of
their powers they found themselves beginning, through sheer inaction,
to waver on their top note.
When the Colonel, in his description of events, reached the
Constable’s entry upon the scene and his handling of the apparent
culprits, the Superintendent cut him short with some abruptness.
“Yes, yes,” he said, with a touch of impatience. “We needn’t go into
that, Colonel.”
The Colonel’s surprise was obvious. “But Graves is the only witness we
have for those two,” he said.
“And a perfectly unimportant witness,” snapped the other, in the best
detective-story manner. “Except as witnesses themselves, these two
have no bearing on the business. Their story was perfectly true; like
your man, they came on the scene immediately after the shot had been
fired. If the constable had had the intelligence of a louse he’d have
realised that and not frightened them off as he did. We’ve traced ’em
all right now, but it wasn’t any too easy.”
“Good gracious! This puts rather a different complexion on things. Who
are they, then?”
“The man’s name is Priestley.” If Guy and Mr. Doyle started violently,
apparently the Superintendent did not notice. “Priestley. He’s got a
flat in Half Moon Street. Well-to-do bachelor, with quiet tastes. Last
man in the world to do anything of this sort, we’ve satisfied
ourselves on that point all right. The girl’s his cousin. As a matter
of fact he employs her, out of charity, no doubt, as his secretary.
Perfectly respectable, both of them.”
This time Guy and Mr. Doyle did exchange glances. It was beyond the
powers of human self-restraint not to do so. Each read in the other’s
eye bewilderment charged with faint alarm. “What in the deuce is
happening?” eye asked eye, and received no answer.
“You haven’t found the Crown Prince’s body yet, I suppose?” the
Colonel ventured, as the Superintendent gazed moodily out through the
French windows towards the river.
“We have, though,” the man from Scotland Yard replied grimly. “Just as
we expected, on a boat passing Greenwich.”
“Bound for Bosnogovina?”
“Exactly. We thought they’d want to show it to the people, to prove he
really was dead; and that’s just what happened.”
“Ah!”
Again Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. This time the glances said
to each other: “Have _they_ gone mad, or have _we_?”
There was a very intense silence.
Suddenly the Superintendent wheeled round and fixed Guy with his
disconcerting pale blue eyes. “You two gentlemen stay here, please.”
He walked abruptly out into the garden, followed by the Colonel.
“I don’t think,” observed Mr. Doyle with some care, “that I quite like
that gentleman, Nesbitt. I don’t like any of him much, but least of
all his eyes.”
Guy smiled, a little unsecurely. “Was I totally mistaken, Doyle, or
_did_ he murmur something to our friend about a dead Crown Prince’s
body being recovered off Greenwich _en route_ for
Bosnogosomethingorother? I think I must have been totally mistaken.”
“If you were, then I was too. I don’t think we can both have been, you
know.”
“Then what,” said Guy, “in the name of all that’s unholy was he
talking about?”
“There you’ve chased me up a gum-tree,” admitted Mr. Doyle.
They looked out of the window to where the Superintendent was intently
examining the mass of footprints.
“It’s pusillanimous, no doubt,” said Mr. Doyle, “but do you know the
effect that man has on me? He makes me almost wish we hadn’t made
those beautiful footprints. He doesn’t look to me the sort of person
to take a harmless joke at all well.”
After a few minutes the Superintendent rose and engaged the Colonel in
talk. The next thing was that both walked briskly to the gate that led
into George’s garden and passed out of sight.
George was at home that afternoon. Cynthia had insisted upon Monica
going out to pay a couple of calls with her; she had had to insist
very hard, but she had carried her point. George, drawing the line
quite properly at calls, was at home.
“There’s two gentlemen to see you, sir,” said George’s elderly daily
maid. (She had rabbit teeth, very little hair, puce elbows, and a very
large before-and-after effect; when entering a doorway she contrived
both to precede and to follow herself. She was not even a maid; she
was a cook, and her name was Mrs. Bagsworthy. We shall never meet her
again.)
The two gentlemen followed her announcement. They did not insist upon
the ceremony of awaiting George’s permission to enter. They had no
intention of consulting George’s wishes on the matter.
As before, the Colonel introduced his companion, who at once fixed
George with his steely eye. George began to wish that some one was
there to hold his hand.
“Where were you last Saturday evening, Mr. Howard?” demanded the
Superintendent, immediately after his introduction, not even pausing
to make the usual inquiries as to George’s health.
“Over at the N—— here!” said George.
The Superintendent did not say: “You lie!” but George did not quite
know why not. He might just as well have done.
Instead he said: “Do you know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was
murdered at some place on the Thames between here and Oxford on
Saturday night, and his body embarked on a large motor-boat out of
which it was recovered this morning off Greenwich?”
“Great Scott, no!” said George, with perfect truth.
“You did not know that he was murdered in the next house, while you
say you were sitting in here? You heard nothing—no shot, no cry, no
shouting or confusion?”
“No,” dithered George. “I—no, I—that is, no.”
The Superintendent bored a neat hole in George’s forehead with his
gimlet eyes. “Isn’t that very strange, Mr. Howard? Isn’t it
exceedingly _strange_ that you heard nothing?”
“Er—yes—I suppose it is. Er—frightfully strange. Must be, mustn’t it?
Er—how extraordinary!”
The Superintendent continued to bore holes in George in silence.
George wished he wouldn’t.
“I have a warrant to search this house, Mr. Howard,” he snapped
suddenly. “Do you wish to see it?”
“Good Lord, no,” said George, apparently much shocked at the
suggestion. Fancy asking him if he wanted to _see_ a warrant to search
his house! How frightfully indelicate!
“Very well. Kindly go over to the library of the house next door, and
wait there till I come.”
“I say, you know,” George protested feebly in spite of his alarm.
There was good sterling stuff in George. “I say, you know, what’s all
this about? Searching my house and—and ordering me about and—and——”
His words faded away under the menacing light in the Superintendent’s
eyes.
“I think you will find it better to do as I suggest, Mr. Howard,” said
the Superintendent, oh, so gently.
George did it.
Guy and Mr. Doyle received him with effusive jocularity, in which,
nevertheless, a somewhat forced note was detectable. On hearing his
account of the interview, the jocularity disappeared altogether.
“But this is absurd!” Guy said blankly. “This fellow seems not only to
be taking our silly story as solemn truth, but to be dovetailing it in
with something that really has happened.”
“But my dear chap,” expostulated Mr. Doyle, “we can’t take it
_seriously_.”
“You’ll take that superintendent chap seriously when he gets on your
tail, Pat,” observed George with feeling.
There was an uneasy pause. “Bosnogo—_what_ did he say?” remarked Guy.
“Has anybody ever heard of the place?”
“I say,” said Doyle, “I wonder what it really is all about?”
They went on wondering. Upon their speculations entered Dora.
“Hallo!” said Dora without joy. “Hallo, you _are_ here, are you? Good.
I was afraid you’d all have been carried off to jail.”
“Jail?” echoed the others, jumping nimbly.
“What have you come down for, Dora?” asked Mr. Doyle.
“Because I was brought,” said Dora shortly. “I’m under arrest, or
something ridiculous. For being an accessory to the murder of the
Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, or some extraordinary tale. Have you any
idea what’s happening, anybody? This really is rather gorgeous, isn’t
it?” She laughed without exuberant mirth.
“Frightfully,” agreed Mr. Doyle gloomily.
“I’m afraid,” said Guy, “very much afraid, that we shall have to tell
them the truth. It’s a pity, but there it is. Unless, of course, you’d
like to carry the thing on to the end and sample the skilly, would
you? I’ve always wondered what skilly was really like.”
“If you mean, go to prison,” Dora said with energy, “most certainly
not, even to help your experiments, Guy. I’m sorry, but I’ve got a
complex about prisons. I don’t like them.”
George looked relieved. He had a complex about prisons too. Perhaps it
ran in the family.
“Come, Dora,” observed Mr. Doyle, jesting manfully, “you——”
“I say,” said George. “Look out. Here they come.”
The Superintendent and Colonel Ratcliffe were crossing the lawn. In
one hand the former held a pair of boots.
“By Jove,” said Guy softly, “I wonder if _this_ is why old Foster was
arrested so mysteriously. I suppose we ought to have had Foster rather
on our consciences, but as I’ve always said, to be arrested was just
the very thing that Foster needed.”
Amid a respectful silence the Superintendent walked up to George. “Do
you admit that these are your boots?” he asked curtly.
George looked at the boots. Undoubtedly they were his. On the other
hand, was he to admit the fact? He glanced at the others, but their
blank faces gave him no help. “Yes,” he said. “At least—well—yes, I—I
think so.”
“Ah!” said the Superintendent.
Guy came forward with an easy smile. “I’m afraid, Superintendent,” he
said smoothly, “that we’ve got a confession to make. I can’t imagine
what’s been happening elsewhere, but apparently we planned rather
better than we knew. The most amazing coincidence——”
“Have you anything you wish to say?” cut in the Superintendent in
properly incisive tones.
“I have,” said Guy, unperturbed. “The whole thing was a joke. This is
the truth.” He went on to give a detailed account of it.
At first the faces of his fellow-conspirators showed a certain relief.
Though none of them would have admitted it, except George, they were
all getting tired of the jest; it had been pleasant while it lasted,
but life would become more simple without it. As Guy proceeded,
however, relief gave place to growing uneasiness. The Superintendent
was perhaps not a tactful man, and the complete incredulity with which
he listened to Guy’s words was only too visible on his countenance.
“And is that all you’ve got to say, Mr. Nesbitt?” he asked, when Guy,
a little haltingly as he saw the very poor impression he was making,
had brought his story to an end.
“That’s all, yes. I’m sorry.”
The Superintendent seemed sorry too—sorry that any one should really
think it any use to waste his time with such a hotch-potch of
nonsense. He rubbed his chin and looked at Guy more in pity than in
anger. The others hung on his words.
“Then according to you, Mr. Nesbitt, you don’t know that the Crown
Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered here on Saturday night? You thought
it was just a bit of play-acting, did you? You mixed up the parties
that did it with your own friends?”
“But he _wasn’t_ murdered here! I’ve just explained.”
“This is incredible, Superintendent,” exclaimed Mr. Doyle. “You surely
aren’t seriously imagining that——”
“That will do,” snapped the Superintendent, without any pretence of
courtesy. “Any observations you wish to make can be put to the
magistrates to-morrow morning.”
“Magistrates!” gasped four unhappy mouths.
“You don’t mean,” cried Dora, “that—that——”
The Superintendent eyed her grimly. “May I remind you, Miss Howard,
that you are already under arrest?” he observed. “You will undergo a
formal identification by a Mr. Foster, whom we have been compelled to
keep in detention for his own safety, as soon as we get to the
police-station; and——”
“Foster?” squeaked Mr. Doyle. “His own safety? What on earth are you
talking about now?”
The Superintendent was very patient. “No doubt it had never occurred
to you that, apart from the constable, who only saw the Crown Prince’s
dead body, and two other persons who had nothing to do with the
murder, Mr. Foster is our only witness, did it?”
Guy also was very patient. “My dear good man,” he said very patiently,
“haven’t I already told you that _this_ is our Crown Prince, very much
alive and no doubt longing to be kicking?”
George smiled deprecatingly. He hadn’t the least idea what was
happening, but he did realise that Guy’s tone was not calculated to
soothe the Superintendent. “That’s right,” he mumbled. “Really quite
true, you know. I’m not dead—not a bit of it.”
The Superintendent looked unimpressed.
“Might I ask, then, what you intend to do with us?” Guy inquired in
silky tones.
“Certainly, Mr. Nesbitt,” replied the Superintendent briskly. “Take
you with me.” He looked round the room with his penetrating blue eyes,
and added in an official voice: “Guy Nesbitt, Patrick Doyle, George
Howard, I arrest you on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of
the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina in this room on the night of the 10th
instant, either as principals or as accessories before and after the
fact, and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used
in evidence against you at your trial.”
“But good Heavens,” spluttered Mr. Doyle, “we’re not—not
Bosnogovinians, or whatever the place is.”
“No? But you speak the language, don’t you? You must remember that we
have our evidence. And the constable has already identified you,
without your knowledge, as the persons who removed the Crown Prince’s
body from this room.”
“But, my dear good man, we’ve _explained_ that. Don’t you see what a
colossal idiot you’re making of yourself?”
“That’s my affair,” retorted the Superintendent, unmoved. “By the way,
don’t attempt any funny business, any of you. The Colonel and I are
both armed.” He took a whistle from his pocket and blew it shrilly.
Two large men at once entered the French windows from the garden and
stood as if on guard just inside. Another, whom Dora recognised as the
man who had brought her down, came in from the passage outside.
This latter was not an imposing figure, even for a policeman in plain
clothes. He was short and rather round, he wore a neatly trimmed black
beard cut in a point and a pair of enormous horn-rimmed spectacles.
The same thought seemed to have occurred to Guy, for he nudged Mr.
Doyle, and remarked: “Cheer up, Pat, you’ll get a lot of copy out of
this. Look at that fellow, for instance. Did you ever hear of any one
like it outside a detective story? I never dreamed these chaps existed
in real life.”
It was a pity that the attention of Guy and Mr. Doyle was thus
engaged, because even the Superintendent’s lips twitched spasmodically
as his underling entered the room. The next minute, however, his face
was as stern as before as he threw this newcomer a brief nod and
remarked: “Carry on, Bateman.”
Bateman carried on. From the pocket of his large overcoat he produced,
with a slightly apologetic air, two pairs of handcuffs, one link of
each he proceeded to lock round either of Guy’s wrists. Unfortunately
Guy was so busy looking mockingly contemptuous that he quite failed to
notice the unusual clumsiness with which the operation was being
performed. In the same way neither did Mr. Doyle nor George when they
in turn were tethered each to one of Guy’s wrists. None of the three
offered any physical resistance, because they were not going to spoil
a good case by losing their heads; but Mr. Doyle suddenly found his
tongue, and with it several pithy things which he wished to say to
this dunderheaded Superintendent. He said them.
“The detective stories always make the chap from Scotland Yard a
perfect fool,” concluded Mr. Doyle bitterly, “and my God! I’m not
surprised.”
“Shut up, Pat,” said Dora crossly. “He’ll find out all in good time
the fool he’s making of himself. What’s worrying me is that apparently
I’ve got to miss the show to-night. I shall be getting the sack soon
if this goes on.”
“The sack, Dora?” said a pleasant voice from the door. “Well, my dear,
what are you doing—good _gracious_!” Cynthia stared at the linked trio
in amazement. “What _is_ happening?”
“This is Superintendent Peters of Scotland Yard,” said her husband
pleasantly. “He’s labouring under a slight delusion, we think.”
“He’s the biggest idiot Scotland Yard ever turned out,” Mr. Doyle put
it less tactfully.
George grinned ruefully and did not put it at all. A cautious man,
George.
“Is this Mrs. Nesbitt, Colonel?” asked the Superintendent.
The Colonel nodded.
“Cynthia Nesbitt,” the Superintendent said snappily, “I arrest
you . . .” He continued the speech as before, and again nodded to the
horn-rimmed Bateman.
That representative of the law drew yet another pair of handcuffs from
his pocket, small ladies’ this time, and in deathly silence proceeded
to yoke Cynthia and Dora together—Cynthia apparently too dumbfounded
to resist, Dora submitting with outward disdain and inward turbulence.
“Is that really necessary, Superintendent?” Guy asked in a voice of
ice.
The Superintendent did not even trouble to reply.
“My God,” Mr. Doyle boiled over on seeing his lady thus ignominiously
treated, “I’ll get you turned out of the force, you miserable bungler,
if there’s any power left in _The Courier_’s elbow at all.”
“But Guy!” said Cynthia, breathing a little quickly. “This is simply
farcical.”
“That’s just what we’ve been pointing out to the idiot, my dear.”
“Colonel!” appealed Cynthia.
The Colonel shook his head. “Matter’s out of my hands, I’m afraid,
Mrs. Nesbitt,” he replied gruffly.
“I told you so, Guy!” Cynthia cried. “I told you it would end like
this.”
“Make a note of that admission, Bateman,” the Superintendent remarked
with satisfaction. “Robinson, march ’em off. Bateman, you’ll take the
women in the other car to Abingchester. Right!”
The two watchers by the door approached. They were burly men, both,
and they had the advantage of having their wrists free.
“Now then, step lively,” said one.
“Come along, you,” said the other. “Jump to it.”
“But hang it all, Superintendent,” said Guy, “you must let us pack a
bag first. Colonel, this is——”
“Step lively, you,” said the first watcher, and pushed.
“Jump to it,” urged the second, and pulled.
The five passed out of the room; the Superintendent and the Colonel
followed them. In the road was a large car. It was a very large car,
and the seven just managed to get in. They drove off.
Five hundred yards farther on they passed Monica and Alan, who had
been sent into the village on a quite unnecessary errand.
“Hi, George!” cried Monica. “Where are you off to? I thought you were
going to——”
But George, grinning feebly, had been swept past.
“Can’t you let old George alone for _five_ minutes?” asked Alan
disgustedly, and went on to be very brotherly indeed.
From a window of the house Detective Bateman watched the result of
Alan’s brotherliness with an interested eye before hurrying back to
the library.
“They’ve gone,” he said. “And I think your brother and sister are
coming back. I’m sure it’s your brother and sister,” he added with a
smile.
“Oh,” said Cynthia. “Well, we’d better get this absurd thing off
then.” She extended a slender wrist, and Detective Bateman did
something with a key. The wrist was freed. “I think,” Cynthia smiled,
“that Dora really ought to keep hers on a lot longer. However, perhaps
we mustn’t be too harsh with her.”
“What on earth——?” cried Dora, finding her voice with an effort as the
detective bent over her wrist in turn.
“Yes, dear,” said Cynthia sweetly. “Quite. By the way, I don’t think
you’ve ever met Mr. Priestley, have you? Take that dreadful beard off,
Mr. Priestley, and be introduced properly.”
For a couple of moments there was silence; then babel, produced
largely by Dora, ensued.
“Cynthia, you loathsome person,” observed Miss Howard, some two
minutes later, “just be quiet a minute and let me get this straight.
You say the Superintendent really isn’t a superintendent at all, but a
friend of Mr. Priestley’s?”
“Quite correct,” beamed that gentleman. “His name is Adams. We were at
school together.”
Dora digested this. “And the other two are friends too?”
“All friends of mine,” agreed Mr. Priestley, without a single sign of
compunction.
“And you persuaded the Colonel into the business, you vamp?”
“I don’t think he needed much persuading,” smiled the vamp. “He felt,
you see, that he had a score or two to work off on his own account.
He’s rather a dear, when you get to know him.”
Dora disregarded the endearing qualities of the Colonel. “But _why_
all this?” she asked plaintively. “That’s what I don’t get. _Why_ turn
round and bite the hand that plotted with you, so to speak?”
“But no hand did plot with me, Dawks dear. I didn’t want to plot at
all. I ought to have put my foot down much more firmly that evening
and forbidden it altogether, instead of allowing myself to be
overruled so weakly. My dear, I hardly got a wink of sleep for two
nights, thinking what poor Mr. Priestley must be suffering.”
Poor Mr. Priestley, who had scarcely suffered at all, introduced a
deprecating air into his steady beam, as if to apologise for this
waste of sleeplessness.
“In fact,” continued Cynthia, “I thought the whole thing very
heartless, and as soon as I could see a way of turning the plot
against its own makers I naturally took it. I thought my Guy and your
Pat needed a lesson.”
“But what’s going to happen to them? The Colonel isn’t really going to
put them in prison, is he?”
“No,” said Cynthia, not without regret. “I tried to persuade him to
(it would have been _so_ good for all of them), but he said that was
really going too far. So he’s going to take them up to the middle of
Harpenfield Woods and—leave them there!”
“You heartless woman!”
“Oh, they’ll be all right,” said the heartless woman serenely. “It’s
only twelve miles. Of course they won’t be able to get the handcuffs
off, because the key’s here. But then, they never arranged for a key
for poor Mr. Priestley at all. I expect them home in plenty of time
for dinner.”
“Well!” said Dora, giggling in spite of all decent feeling at the idea
of her brother, her fiancé, and her best friend’s husband walking
along the lanes hand in hand. “I don’t think you’ll be very popular
for a time, Cyntie dearest. And what about Laura?”
“Laura,” said Cynthia, “I’m leaving entirely to Mr. Priestley. As at
present arranged, they’re going to be married at ten o’clock to-morrow
morning.”
“_What?_” shrieked Dora, and then more explanations had to be
unfolded. “Oh, well,” Dora said resignedly at the end of them, “I
suppose we all deserved it. Is it any use apologising to you, Mr.
Priestley, or would you take it as one more insult?”
“There’s no need, Miss Howard, I assure you. Pat was quite right: I
did want waking up. I realise that now.”
“I’m sure you’re very wide-awake at present, certainly,” observed Miss
Howard crisply. “And you got me all the way down from town to let me
be handcuffed for two minutes, Cinders?”
“Oh, no, dear. That’s only part of your punishment. You’ve got the
worst bit to come. I’m going to take you down to the Fosters now, to
eat as big a slice of humble pie as you can manage. It’s about your
visit to Mr. Foster’s tool-shed on Monday. You’ve got to come and tell
Mrs. Foster that you’re not her husband’s—— Oh, well,” said Cynthia
airily, “I can tell you all that on the way.”
“That I’m not _what_?” asked Dora, mystified.
“Yes, dear. Soon. But——”
“Cyntie, I think you’re the absolute _limit_!” said a voice from the
door. “I don’t mind telling you I’ve been listening and heard the lot.
You really are the outside edge.”
“My dear Monica,” Cynthia said in surprise, “why?”
“Well,” said her indignant sister, “you know perfectly well the whole
thing was Guy and Pat’s fault. Why drag George into it? He had nothing
to do with it. He told me he hated the whole thing, and wouldn’t have
gone in for it at all if Guy hadn’t made him.”
“Oh, did he?” Cynthia said sweetly. “Oh!” She gazed at the flushed
face of her sister with a good deal more interest than these simple
words appeared to warrant. Perhaps Monica felt this too, for she
turned a deeper colour and then marched with dignity from the room.
Dora looked at Cynthia and vulgarly winked. “Do you think so?” she
asked cryptically.
“I’m sure of it,” said Cynthia, with complete conviction.
“Good!” said Dora; and to Mr. Priestley’s astonishment they kissed
warmly.
“Well,” said Cynthia, when this ceremony had been performed, “we’d
better be off too. You’ll be going back at once, Mr. Priestley? You’re
sure you won’t stop and see the wanderers return?”
“I think perhaps not,” Mr. Priestley said with discretion. “I shall
leave you to brave that storm, Mrs. Nesbitt. I shall have one of my
own to weather at home, remember.”
Dora giggled in a way that reminded Mr. Priestley most delectably of
Laura. “What are you really going to do with my erring sister, Mr.
Priestley? You won’t be too hard on her, will you?”
“It’s all I’ve been able to do to make him hard enough,” smiled
Cynthia.
They shook hands with Mr. Priestley. Dora, it was evident, bore him no
malice. Dora and Laura were very exceptional young women. Mr.
Priestley had reached the gate into the road when Cynthia, as if on a
sudden impulse, darted after him.
“Use that special licence of yours, Mr. Priestley!” she whispered,
holding that astonished gentleman by the sleeve. “Don’t enlighten
Laura at all—marry her instead! That’s my advice.”
Cynthia then darted back again, sailing over her shoulder.
“Come round to the garage,” Dora said to her, “and I’ll run us up in
George’s car.”
Dora was a poor prophet. As they came in sight of the garage it was
just possible to see George’s car disappearing neatly through the
gateway into the road. At the wheel was Monica. For a pupil who,
according to the frequently expressed opinions of both herself and her
teacher, required very many more lessons before she could be trusted
to take the car out alone, she seemed to be managing the rather
difficult exit very capably.
“Monica!” called Cynthia.
“_Monica!_” shrieked Dora.
Monica did not reply, but the car accelerated with a bound which
almost lifted it off the ground.
The two looked at each other. “Apparently we have to walk after all,”
said Cynthia.
“Harpenfield Woods, I suppose,” said Dora sadly.
“It’s funny how being in love seems to warp a female’s sense of
humour,” Cynthia mused. “I don’t think it does men’s.”
They set out towards their goal where a strangely humbled Mr. Foster
was anxiously awaiting them.
Chapter XVIII.
Mr. Priestley Solves His Last Problem
Mr. Priestley returned to London with emotions that were decidedly
mixed. His delight in his successful revenge was almost swamped in the
feelings caused by Cynthia’s utterly unscrupulous suggestion. He knew,
of course, that he could never act upon it: to do so would be the act
of a cad, a poltroon, and a blackguard. But there was no harm in
allowing it to titillate his mind.
Laura eternally in that empty arm-chair. . . . Laura available every
night and every morning for kisses that need not be in the least
avuncular. . . . Laura’s smile, Laura’s pretty face, the way Laura’s
eyebrows fascinatingly just did not meet when she was perplexed, his
to contemplate for the rest of his life. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed
and, having looked on this picture, looked on that. Those rooms of his
without Laura in them. . . . Only Barker. . . . He and Barker, alone
together for ever more. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed again.
And why, Mr. Priestley put it to himself, had he been at such pains
actually to obtain a real, genuine special licence, made out in his
own name and that of Laura Howard? True, Cynthia had made rather a
point of it, but it was really quite unnecessary. Just to mention that
he had one would have been quite enough. He had not even shown it to
her. It was very strange. Why had he done that?
Mr. Priestley was an honest man, even with himself. He knew quite well
why he had done it. Because he wanted very badly indeed to marry
Laura, and the breathless thrill he had obtained by buying a special
licence made out in her name had been cheap at the price.
He reached his rooms in a thoroughly unhappy state. His triumph at
Duffley was as dust and ashes in his mouth. Dust and ashes make very
poor eating. For, of course, when Laura heard his story, she would
naturally have nothing more to do with him. She was a high-spirited
girl, and—— Of course she wouldn’t.
Laura received him with undisguised relief. During his absence she had
succeeded in working herself up into a very pretty state of nerves. In
the old days Laura and nerves were two unmixable components, like fire
and water, or stockbrokers and water, to put it more forcibly; now she
felt she could write an encyclopedia on them and then only have
touched the fringe of her knowledge.
“Oh, Matthew!” she exclaimed, the moment Mr. Priestley entered the
study. “Thank goodness you’re still all right! I’d made sure you’d
been arrested this time.”
Mr. Priestley looked at her wistfully. What a low hound he was! It was
perfectly right and proper for Laura to play jokes upon him, of
course; but for him to divert the joke to back-fire upon its own
originator! A terribly low hound.
“Would you have been sorry if I had, Laura?” he asked.
“You know I should. I—I should never have forgiven myself,” said
Laura, who during the communings with her own soul that afternoon had
reached at any rate one sensible decision. “You see, it’s—it’s all my
own fault. I’ve been on the verge of telling you the truth a hundred
times, and goodness only knows why I never did.” She paused awkwardly.
“You see,” she blurted out, “the whole thing started as just a silly
joke.”
“A joke?” echoed Mr. Priestley stupidly. Somehow this was a
development he had not anticipated.
“Yes,” Laura continued rapidly. “I don’t dare wonder what you’re going
to think of me, considering how kind you’ve been and—and everything,
but this is the truth.” She proceeded to tell it.
Mr. Priestley listened with one ear, his other busy with the almost
audible buzzing of his own brain. What was Laura working up to? What
was he going to do when she had worked up to it? What—what—what?
Laura went on, excusing nothing, glossing over nothing, pouring upon
her own devoted head every drop of blame.
“And now this other extraordinary affair crops up,” she concluded, and
mentioned her telepathic theory. “That must be the explanation. It’s
quite possible, isn’t it? Oh, Mr. Priestley——”
“Matthew,” interjected Mr. Priestley automatically.
“Matthew, will you ever forgive me?”
Mr. Priestley looked dumbly at the contrite spectacle before him. He
did not speak because every bone was busy telling him that this was
not Laura’s climax. What was coming next he had not the faintest idea,
but he did not wish to commit himself.
“Of course,” continued Laura, unforgiven, “I know that if—if we were
arrested we’ve only got to tell the truth, and we’ve got all the
others to back us up; but what I don’t know is how long it would be
before the authorities believed us. Naturally I’ve known all the time
that we’re not in any _danger_, but, on the other hand, we certainly
are in a mess. What your friend at the Foreign Office told you shows
that we’re in for a terrible lot of bother, to say the very least.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Priestley mechanically. “Very least.” What was she
working up to?
“And so,” said Laura, “considering that it’s all my fault, and—and I
let you in for it all, I will, if it’s any use to you, I——”
“Yes?” helped Mr. Priestley breathlessly.
Laura gulped. “I will marry you to-morrow morning at the registry
office if you really want me to,” she said with a rush.
Something, stretched already to snapping-point, suddenly gave way
inside Mr. Priestley. He didn’t know it, but it was his conscience.
His face one large pink beam, he gathered the unready Laura into his
arms and kissed her ardently. “You darling girl!” he exclaimed. “You
dearest, darling, sweet girl!”
“Matthew!” gasped the sweet girl. “You don’t mean that you——”
“Love you?” beamed Mr. Priestley, far too excited to be
self-conscious. “Indeed, yes. I’ve loved you ever since you let me
stay in the bedroom that night. It was darling and sweet of you, like
everything else you do.”
For some obscure reason Laura made no effort to release herself. “And
you don’t mind the—the other thing?” she asked, vividly conscious of
certain of her actions with regard to Mr. Priestley which had been
anything but darling or sweet. “The way I deceived you, and took
advantage of your good nature?”
“Dear me, no. Most natural. Charmingly high-spirited of you.”
“Well,” said Laura a little dryly, “it’s rather lucky you like me,
isn’t it? Considering we’ve got to get married apparently.”
“Laura,” said Mr. Priestley, ceasing to beam, “I—I suppose you don’t
happen to—well, to like me a little bit, too, do you?”
Feminine emotion is a delicate instrument, and no one can expect to
play on a delicate instrument without practice. To Mr. Priestley’s
consternation Laura burst into unexpected tears, tore herself from his
arms, and ran from the room, crying out as she did so: “Good Heavens,
I—I’m _marrying_ you, aren’t I? What more do you want?”
Mr. Priestley stared after her as if imagining his eyes to be magnets
and able to draw her back again. Finding they did not work in this
way, he hurried after her. Her bedroom door was locked and Mr.
Priestley, whispering urgently outside that he had something most
important to tell her that would alter everything and wouldn’t she
please come back and hear it, met with nothing but pointed, if tearful
requests to go away. Looking round after three minutes’ fruitless
work, he caught Barker’s disapproving but interested eye on him from
the kitchen door. Barker’s eye succeeded where Laura’s entreaties had
failed. Mr. Priestley went _away_, his urgent news untold.
Seventeen times during the course of the evening did he return to
whisper at Laura’s door, seventeen times he retired baffled. Only once
did Laura open it, and that was to pull in a loaded dinner-tray which
Barker, surmising madly, had placed on the floor outside.
Mr. Priestley spent a miserable evening. Later on he went, in the
deepest dejection, to bed.
But not to sleep. And as he turned restlessly from side to side and
the thought of never seeing Laura again, after he had once told her
the truth, grew more and more unbearable. Temptation came to Matthew
Priestley. He struggled with it; he struggled with it manfully for a
very long time (until four minutes past three, to be utterly
accurate); and then Temptation, as it usually does, won. He _would_
marry Laura to-morrow, as Cynthia had suggested. He _would_ make sure
of her first, and let the future look after itself. Oh, base Mr.
Priestley!
Breakfast (which he took alone) found him confirmed in his turpitude.
As he poured out his own coffee he knew he could not do without Laura
and was going to stick at nothing to get her; as he passed himself the
marmalade he told himself that all was fair in love and war; as he
gazed at the unoccupied place beside him he tried, half-heartedly, to
mitigate his villainy with the reflection that even marriage is not
irrevocable; if Laura objected too strenuously, she could remain a
wife in name only until the divorce was through. As he poured out his
second cup of coffee he knew that he had not the faintest intention of
letting Laura remain a wife in name only, and didn’t care a rap how
base he was.
Pat Doyle would have been delighted. Mr. Priestley’s days of
turniphood were done with forever. It was no snail who folded up Mr.
Priestley’s napkin and banged it down on the table with a thud that
made the crockery jump.
“Good gracious, Matthew dear,” remarked a voice at the door. “I hope
you’re not going to do that to me after we’re married.”
Mr. Priestley spun round. In the doorway, cool, smiling, astonishingly
cheerful, stood Laura, already hatted, coated and gloved. He gaped at
her.
“Good-morning,” said Laura, approaching him.
“Good-morning,” mumbled Mr. Priestley.
Laura tilted her face a little more obviously. “Aren’t you going to
kiss me? It’s the last time you’ll be supposed to kiss an unmarried
girl, you know. After this there’ll be nothing but humdrum married
kisses for you. I warn you, I shall be terribly wifely.”
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, kissing her gingerly. Was
this the same girl who had fled last night, weeping at the bare idea
of accompanying him to a registry office this morning?
“Oughtn’t we to be starting?” said Laura happily. “You were very late
for breakfast, you know, considering it’s your wedding-morning.
‘Tra-la-la-a-a-a! for ’tis my we-hedding morning!’” She hummed a bar
or two of _The Yeoman’s Wedding_ with a roguish smile.
With some difficulty Mr. Priestley remembered that he was a villain.
“I’ll get my hat on,” he said gruffly, and marched out.
Laura went with him into the tiny hall, helped him on with his coat,
brushed his hat, and gave him his gloves. “Of course,” she said, “by
rights I ought to wait till we get back before doing this: it’s so
_very_ wifely, isn’t it? By the way, dear, have you got the ring?”
Mr. Priestley reminded himself that he was a blackguard. “Er—no,” he
admitted. “I’m afraid I’d never thought of it.” Mr. Priestley may have
been a blackguard, but he was a very inefficient one.
With complete composure Laura slipped off one of her own and gave it
to him. “We can use that, and get the real one later. It’s very
irregular, but I do hope it won’t be unlucky. Still, you could hardly
be expected to think of everything, poor dear, could you? Forgive my
asking, but have you got the licence?”
Mr. Priestley beamed. Then he remembered that he was a cad and stopped
beaming. Cads never beam. “Yes,” he said brusquely. “I——” He felt in
his breast-pocket. “God bless my soul, I’ve left it in the other
suit!” A most inferior cad, Mr. Priestley.
In due course Laura produced him at the registry office, complete with
ring and licence. On the steps of it were Dora, George, Pat Doyle,
Cynthia, Guy, Monica, and Alan. They raised a hearty cheer as the taxi
drew up and its occupants emerged.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, and he had never said it with
more feeling.
Cynthia hurried forward and drew him aside. “I told the others, and we
thought we’d come up just in case you did take my advice,” she
whispered. “I’m delighted, Mr. Priestley! And don’t bother—nobody will
say a word to Laura. Come along inside.”
Mr. Priestley looked at Laura. Undoubtedly she was just as bewildered
at seeing their escort as himself. She did not look very pleased
either. Laura did not often blush, but she was making up for lost time
now. The party trooped inside.
And there Mr. Priestley and his Laura were, without a shadow of doubt,
married as tightly as the law could do it.
“I’ve booked a private room and something in the way of a
wedding-breakfast at the Trafalgar Square Hotel, Priestley,” said Guy,
amid the back-clapping and kissing later, as Mr. Priestley was
wondering dazedly whether he ought to smack Dora on the back and kiss
Pat Doyle, or smack Cynthia on the back and kiss the registrar. “You
take Laura along in a taxi, and we’ll follow.”
Somehow this seemed to happen.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Priestley, still dazed.
“The idiots!” said Laura, half-way between laughter and tears.
Mr. Priestley nerved himself for his effort. He knew that the truth
was bound to come out at the hotel, and he wanted to know his fate in
private. “Laura, my darling,” be began very nervously, “I’m afraid I
have a confession to make. I—I——” To his surprise he found further
speech stopped by two soft lips, not his own.
“I know all about that,” came a laughing voice through the soft lips.
“And I love you all the more for it, you funny old thing! (Did you
know I loved you, by the way? Well, I do. I discovered it this
morning.) You see, I got a letter from Cynthia to-day.”
“God bl—— Did you really?”
“Yes, and she told me everything, not omitting her own advice to you
yesterday. She said she thought after all that she’d better warn me,
just in case you did take it. But she never said she was going to
bring the whole lot of them along, just in case, too.”
“Cynthia,” said Mr. Priestley thoughtfully, “seems to have been
double-crossing everybody.” It was an echo of the late Mr. Mullins,
recently defunct.
“Then let’s double-cross her!” cried Laura, with sudden inspiration.
“Let’s go straight back home, pack your bag (mine’s packed already)
and go off for a honeymoon at once, instead of that wedding-breakfast
and all their silly jokes.”
Mr. Priestley looked at his wife with speechless admiration. Then he
recovered himself and leaned perilously out to address the driver.
“Mr. Priestley,” said Laura, when her husband had returned to safety
and her side, “don’t you think it’s time you kissed your wife? It’s
the right thing to do in the taxi after the wedding, I’ve always
understood.” She looked at him laughingly, but there was a faint flush
on either cheek which Mr. Priestley found quite incredibly adorable.
“Say: ‘Mrs. Priestley, may I beg the favour, madam, of a caress, an it
please you?’”
“‘Mrs. Priestley,’” replied her husband in tones of awe. “‘_Mrs._
Priestley!’”
Laura made a little movement towards him, and Mr. Priestley completely
forgot the rest of his speech.
It didn’t seem to matter.
THE END
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