Thenceforward nothing was talked of but the home-coming of Colonel
Boyce. He touched the public imagination. All kinds of stories, some
apocryphal, some having a basis of truth, some authentic, went the
round of the little place. It simmered with martial fervour. Elderly
laggards enrolled themselves in the Volunteer Training Corps. Young
married men who had not attested under the Derby Scheme rushed out to
enlist. The Tribunal languished in idleness for lack of claimants for
exemption. Exempted men, with the enthusiastic backing of employers,
lost the sense of their indispensability and joined the colours. An
energetic lady who had met the Serbian Minister in London conceived the
happy idea of organising a Serbian Flag Day in Wellingsford, and reaped
a prodigious harvest. We were all tremendously patriotic, living under
Boyce's reflected glory.
At first I had deprecated the proposal, fearing lest Boyce might not
find it acceptable. The reputation he had sought at the cannon's mouth
was a bubble of a different kind from that which the good townsfolk
were eager to celebrate. Vanity had no part in it. For what the outer
world thought of his exploits he did not care a penny. He was past
caring. His soul alone, for its own sore needs, had driven him to the
search. Before his own soul and not before his fellow countrymen, had
he craved to parade as a recipient of the Victoria Cross. His own soul,
as I knew, not being satisfied, he would shrink from obtaining popular
applause under false pretences. No unhappy man ever took sterner
measure of himself. Of all this no one but myself had the faintest
idea. In explaining my opinion I had to leave out all essentials. I
could only hint that a sensitive man like Colonel Boyce might be averse
from exhibiting in public his physical disabilities; that he had always
shown himself a modest soldier with a dislike of self-advertisement;
that he would prefer to seek immediate refuge in the quietude of his
home. But they would not listen to me. Colonel Boyce, they said, would
be too patriotic to refuse the town's recognition. It was part of the
game which he, as a brave soldier, no matter how modest, could not fail
to play. He would recognise that such public honourings of valour had
widespread effect among the population. In face of such arguments I had
to withdraw my opposition; otherwise it might have appeared that I was
actuated by petty personal motives. God knows I only desired to save
Boyce from undergoing a difficult ordeal. For the same reasons I could
not refuse to serve on the Reception Committee which was immediately
formed under the chairmanship of the Mayor.
Preliminaries having been discussed, the Mayor and the Town Clerk
waited on Boyce in Belton Square, and returned with the triumphant
tidings that they had succeeded in their mission.
"I can't make out what you were running your head against, Duncan,"
said Sir Anthony. "Of course, as you say, he's a modest chap and
dislikes publicity. So do we all. But I quickly talked him out of that
objection. I talked him out of all sorts of objections before he could
raise them. At last what do you think he said?"
"I should have told you to go to blazes and not worry me."
"He didn't. He said--now I like the chap for it, it was so simple and
honest--he said: 'If I were alone in the world I wouldn't have it, for
I don't like it. But I'll accept on one condition. My poor old mother
has had rather a thin time and she's going to have a thinner. She never
gets a look in. Make it as far as possible her show, and I'll do what
you like.' What do you think of that?"
"I think it's very characteristic," said I.
And it was. In my mental survey of the situation from Boyce's point of
view I had not taken into account the best and finest in the man. His
reason rang true against my exceptional knowledge of him. I had worked
myself into so sympathetic a comprehension that I KNEW he would be
facing something unknown and terrible in the proposed ceremony; I KNEW
that for his own sake he would have unequivocably declined. But, ad
majorem matris gloriam, he assented.
The main question, at any rate, was settled. The hero would accept the
honour. It was for the Committee to make the necessary arrangements. We
corresponded far and wide in order to obtain municipal precedents. We
had interviews with the military and railway authorities. We were in
constant communication with the local Volunteer Training Corps; with
the Godbury Volunteers and the Godbury School O.T.C., who both desired
to take a part in the great event. In compliance with the conditions
imposed, we gave as much publicity as we could to Mrs. Boyce.
Lieutenant Colonel Boyce, V.C., and Mrs. Boyce were officially
associated in the programme of the reception. How to disentangle them
afterwards, when the presentation of the address, engrossed on velluni
and enclosed in a casket, should be made to the Colonel, was the
subject of heated and confused discussion. Then the feminine elements
in town and county desired to rally to the side of Mrs. Boyce. The Red
Cross and Volunteer Aid Detachment Nurses claimed representation. So
did the munitions workers of Godbury. The Countess of Laleham, the wife
of the Lord Lieutenant of the County, a most imposing and masterful
woman, signified (in genteel though incisive language) her intention to
take a leading part in the proceedings and to bring along her husband,
apparently as an unofficial ornament. This, of course, upset our plans,
which had all to be reconsidered from the beginning.
"Who is giving the reception?" cried Lady Fenimore, who could stand
upon her dignity as well as anybody. "The County or Wellingsford? I
presume it's Wellingsford, and, so long as I am Mayoress, that dreadful
Laleham woman will have to take a back seat."
So, you see, we had our hands full.
All this time I found Betty curiously elusive. Now and then I met her
for a few fugitive moments at the hospital. Twice she ran in for
dinner, in uniform, desperately busy, arriving on the stroke of the
dinner hour and rushing away five minutes after her coffee and
cigarette, alleging as excuse the epidemic of influenza, consequent on
the vile weather, which had woefully reduced the hospital staff. She
seemed to be feverish and ill at ease, and tried to cover the symptoms
by a reversion to her old offhand manner. As I was so seldom alone with
her I could find scant opportunity for intimate conversation. I thought
that she might have regretted the frank exposition of her feelings
regarding Leonard Boyce. But she showed no sign of it. She spoke in the
most detached way of his blindness and the coming ceremony. Never once,
even on the first occasion when I met her--in the hospital
corridor--after my return from London, did her attitude vary from that
of any kind-hearted Englishwoman who deplores the mutilation of a
gallant social acquaintance. Sometimes I wanted to shake her, though I
could scarcely tell why. I certainly would not have had her weep on my
shoulder over Boyce's misfortune; nor would I have cared for her to
exhibit a vindictive callousness. She behaved with perfect propriety.
Perhaps that is what disturbed me. I was not accustomed to associate
perfect propriety with my dear Betty.
The days went on. The reception arrangements were perfected. We only
waited for the date of Boyce's arrival to be fixed. That depended on
the date of the particular Investiture by the King which Boyce's
convalescence should allow him to attend. At last the date was fixed.
A few days before the Investiture I went to London and called at Lady
Fanshawe's in Eccleston Street, whither he had been removed after
leaving the hospital. I was received in the dining-room on the ground
floor by Boyce and his mother. He wore black glasses to hide terrible
disfigurement--he lifted them to show me. One eye had been extracted.
The other was seared and sightless. He greeted me as heartily as ever,
made little jests over his infirmity, treating it lightly for his
mother's sake. She, on her side, deemed it her duty to exhibit equal
cheerfulness. She boasted of his progress in self-reliance and in the
accomplishment of various little blind man's tricks. At her bidding he
lit a cigarette for my benefit, by means of a patent fuse. He said,
when he had succeeded:
"Better than the last time you saw me, eh, Meredyth?"
"What was that?" asked Mrs. Boyce.
"He nearly burned his fingers," said I, shortly. I had no desire to
relate the incident.
We talked of the coming ceremony and I gave them the details of the
programme. Boyce had been right in accepting on the score of his
mother. Only once had she been the central figure in any public
ceremony--on her wedding day, in the years long ago. Here was a new
kind of wedding day in her old age. The prospect filled her with a
tremulous joy which was to both of them a compensation. She bubbled
over with pride and excitement at her inclusion in the homage that was
to be paid to the valour of her only son.
"After all," she said, "I did bring him into the world. So I can claim
some credit. I only hope I shan't cry and make a fool of myself. They
won't expect me to keep on bowing, will they? I once saw Queen Victoria
driving through the streets, and I thought how dreadfully her poor old
neck must have ached."
On the latter point I reassured her. On the drive from the station
Boyce would take the salute of the troops on the line of route. If she
smiled charmingly on them, their hearts would be satisfied, and if she
just nodded at them occasionally in a motherly sort of way, they would
be enchanted. She informed me that she was having a new dress made for
the occasion. She had also bought a new hat, which I must see. A
servant was summoned and dispatched for it. She tried it on girlishly
before the mirror over the mantelpiece, and received my compliments.
"Tell me what it looks like," said Boyce.
You might as well ask a savage in Central Africa to describe the
interior of a submarine as the ordinary man to describe a woman's hat.
My artless endeavours caused considerable merriment. To hear Boyce's
gay laughter one would have thought he had never a care in the world ...
When I took my leave, Mrs. Boyce accompanied Marigold and myself to the
front door.
"Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful?" she whispered, and I saw
her lips quivering and the tears rolling down her cheeks. "If he
weren't so brave and wonderful, I should break my heart."
"What do you suppose you are yourself, my dear old friend," said I over
Marigold's shoulder.
I went away greatly comforted. Both of them were as brave as could be.
For the first time I took a more cheerful view of Boyce's future.
On the evening before the Reception Betty was shown into the library.
It was late, getting on towards my bedtime, and I was nodding in front
of the fire.
"I'm just in and out, Majy dear," she said. "I had to come. I didn't
want to give you too many shocks." At my expression of alarm, she
laughed. "I've only run in to tell you that I've made up my mind to
come to the Town Hall tomorrow."
I looked at her, and I suppose my hands moved in a slight gesture.
"By that," she said, "I suppose you mean you can never tell what I'm
going to do next."
"You've guessed it, my dear," said I.
"Do you disapprove?"
"I couldn't be so presumptuous."
She bent over me and caught the lapels of my jacket.
"Oh, don't be so dreadfully dignified. I want you to understand.
Everybody is going to pay honour to-morrow to a man who has given
everything he could to his country. Don't you think it would be petty
of me if I stood out? What have the dead things that have passed
between us to do with my tribute as an Englishwoman?"
What indeed? I asked her whether she was attending in her private
capacity or as one of the representatives of the V.A.D. nurses. I
learned for the thousandth time that Betty Connor did not deal in half
measures. If she went at all, it was as Betty Connor that she would go.
Her aunts would accompany her. It was part of the municipal ordering of
things that the Town Clerk should have sent them the special cards of
invitation.
"I think it my duty to go," said Betty.
"If you think so, my dear," said I, "then it is your duty. So there's
nothing more to be said about it."
Betty kissed the top of my head and went off.
We come now to the morning of the great day. Everything had been
finally settled. The Mayor and Aldermen, Lady Fenimore and the
Aldermen's wives, the Lord Lieutenant (in unofficial mufti) and Lady
Laleham (great though officially obscure lady), the General of the
Division quartered in the neighbourhood and officers of his staff, and
a few other magnates to meet the three o'clock train by which the
Boyces were due to arrive. The station hung with flags and
inscriptions. A guard of honour and a band in the station-yard, with a
fleet of motor cars in waiting. Troops lining the route from station to
Town Hall. More troops in the decorated Market Square, including the
Godbury School O.T.C. and the Wellingsford and Godbury Volunteers. I
heard that the latter were very anxious to fire off a feu de joie, but
were restrained owing to lack of precedent. The local fire-brigade in
freshly burnished helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars,
and behind them motor omnibuses with the nurses.
Marigold, although his attendance on me precluded him from taking part
in the parade of Volunteers, appeared in full grey uniform with all his
medals and the black patch of ceremony over his eyeless socket. I must
confess to regarding him with some jealousy. I too should have liked to
wear my decorations. If a man swears to you that he is free from such
little vanities, he is more often than not a mere liar. But a
broken-down old soldier, although still drawing pay from the
Government, is not allowed to wear uniform (which I think is
outrageous), and he can't go and plaster himself with medals when he is
wearing on his head a hard felt hat. My envy of the martial looking
Marigold is a proof that my mind was not busied with sterner
preoccupations. I ate my breakfast with the serene conscience not only
of a man who knows he has done his duty, but of an organiser confident
in the success of his schemes. The abominable weather of snows and
tempests from which we had suffered for weeks had undergone a change.
It was a mild morning brightened by a pale convalescent sort of sun,
and there was just a little hope of spring in the air. I felt content
with everything and everybody.
About eleven o'clock the buzz of the library telephone disturbed my
comfortable perusal of the newspaper. I wheeled towards the instrument.
Sir Anthony was speaking.
"Can you come round at once? Very urgent. The car is on its way to you."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
He could not tell me over the wires. I was to take it that my presence
was urgently needed.
"I'll come along at once," said I.
Some hitch doubtless had occurred. Perhaps the War Office (whose ways
were ever weird and unaccountable) had forbidden the General to take
part in such a village-pump demonstration. Perhaps Lady Laleham had
insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed Lord Lieutenant on
the fold. Perhaps the hero himself was laid up with measles.
With the lightest heart I drove to Wellings Park. Marigold, straight as
a ramrod, sitting in front by the chauffeur. As soon as Pardoe, the
butler, had brought out my chair and Marigold had settled me in it, Sir
Anthony, very red and flustered, appeared and, shaking me nervously by
the hand, said without preliminary greeting:
"Come into the library."
He, I think, had come from the morning room on the right of the hall.
The library was on the left. He flung open the door. I steered myself
into the room; and there, standing on the white bearskin hearthrug, his
back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his six inches of stiff
white beard stuck aggressively outward, I saw Daniel Gedge.
While I gaped in astonishment, Sir Anthony shut the door behind him,
drew a straight-backed chair from the wall, planted it roughly some
distance away from the fire, and, pointing to it, bade Gedge sit down.
Gedge obeyed. Sir Anthony took the hearthrug position, his hands behind
his back, his legs apart.
"This man," said he, "has come to me with a ridiculous, beastly story.
At first I was undecided whether I should listen to him or kick him
out. I thought it wiser to listen to him in the presence of a reputable
witness. That's why I've sent for you, Duncan. Now you just begin all
over again, my man," said he, turning to Gedge, "and remember that
anything you say here will be used against you at your trial."
Gedge laughed--I must admit, with some justification.
"You forget, Sir Anthony, I'm not a criminal and you're not a
policeman."
"I'm the Mayor to this town, sir," cried Sir Anthony. "I'm also a
Justice of the Peace."
"And I'm a law-abiding citizen," retorted Gedge.
"You're an infernal socialistic pro-German," exclaimed Sir Anthony.
"Prove it. I only ask you to prove it. No matter what my private
opinions may be, you just try to bring me up under the Defence of the
Realm Act, and you'll find you can't touch me."
I held out a hand. "Forgive me for interrupting," said I, "but what is
all this discussion about?"
Gedge crossed one leg over the other and drew his beard through his
fingers. Sir Anthony was about to burst into speech, but I checked him
with a gesture and turned to Gedge.
"It has nothing to do with political opinions," said he. "It has to do
with the death, nearly two years ago, of Miss Althea Fenimore, Sir
Anthony's only daughter."
Sir Anthony, his face congested, glared at him malevolently. I started,
with a gasp of surprise, and stared at the man who, caressing his
beard, looked from one to the other of us with an air of satisfaction.
"Get on," said Sir Anthony.
"You are going to give a civic reception to-day to Colonel Boyce, V.C.,
aren't you?"
"Yes, I am," snapped Sir Anthony.
"Do you think you ought to do it when I tell you that Colonel Boyce,
V.C., murdered Miss Althea Fenimore on the night of the 25th June, two
years ago?"
"Yes," said Sir Anthony. "And do you know why? Because I know you to be
a liar and a scoundrel."
I can never describe the awful horror that numbed me to the heart. For
a few moments my body seemed as lifeless as my legs. The charge,
astounding almost to grotesqueness in the eyes of Sir Anthony, and
rousing him to mere wrath, deprived me of the power of speech. For I
knew, in that dreadful instant, that the man's words contained some
elements of truth.
All the pieces of the puzzle that had worried me at odd times for
months fitted themselves together in a vivid flash. Boyce and Althea! I
had never dreamed of associating their names. That association was the
key of the puzzle. Out of the darkness disturbing things shone clear.
Boyce's abrupt retirement from Wellingsford before the war; his
cancellation by default of his engagement; his morbid desire, a year
ago, to keep secret his presence in his own house; Gedge's veiled
threat to me in the street to use a way "that'll knock all you great
people of Wellingsford off your high horses;" his extraordinary
interview with Boyce; his generally expressed hatred of Boyce. Was this
too the secret which he let out in his cups to Randall Holmes and which
drove the young man from his society? And Betty? Boyce was a devil. She
wished he were dead. And her words: "You have behaved worse to others.
I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing your face here." How much
did Betty know? There was the lost week--in Carlisle?--in poor Althea's
life. And then there were Boyce's half confessions, the glimpses he had
afforded me into the tormented soul. To me he had condemned himself out
of his own mouth.
I repeat that, sitting there paralysed by the sudden shock of it, I
knew--not that the man was speaking the literal truth--God forbid!--but
that Boyce was, in some degree, responsible for Althea's death.
"Calling me names won't alter the facts, Sir Anthony," said Gedge, with
a touch of insolence. "I was there at the time. I saw it."
"If that's true," Sir Anthony retorted, "you're an accessory after the
fact, and in greater danger of being hanged than ever." He turned to me
in his abrupt way. "Now that we've heard this blackguard, shall we hand
him over to the police?"
Being directly addressed, I recovered my nerve.
"Before doing that," said I, "perhaps it would be best for us to hear
what kind of a story he has to tell us. We should also like to know his
motives in not denouncing the supposed murderer at once, and in keeping
his knowledge hidden all this time."
"With regard to the last part of your remarks, I dare say you would,"
said Gedge. "Only I don't know whether I'll go so far as to oblige you.
Anyhow you may have discovered that I don't particularly care about
your class. I've been preaching against your idleness and vanity and
vices, and the strangling grip you have on the throats of the people,
ever since I was a young man. If one of your lot chose to do in another
of your lot--a common story of seduction and crime--"
At this slur in his daughter's honour Sir Anthony broke out fiercely,
and, for a moment, I feared lest he would throw himself on Gedge and
wring his neck. I managed to check his outburst and bring him to
reason. He resumed his attitude on the hearthrug.
"As I was saying," Gedge continued, rather frightened, "from my
sociological point of view I considered the affair no business of mine.
I speak of it now, because ever since war broke out your class and the
parasitical bourgeoisie have done your best to reduce me to starvation.
I thought it would be pleasant to get a bit of my own back. Just a
little bit," he added, rubbing his hands.
"If you think you've done it, you'll find yourself mistaken."
Gedge shrugged his shoulders and pulled his beard. I hated the light in
his little crafty eyes. I feel sure he had been looking forward for
months to this moment of pure happiness.
"Having given us an insight into your motives, which seem consistent
with what we know of your character," said I, judicially, "will you now
make your statement of facts?"
"What's the good of listening further to his lies?" interrupted Sir
Anthony. "I'm a magistrate. I can give the police at once a warrant for
his arrest."
Again I pacified him. "Let us hear what the man has to say."
Gedge began. He spoke by the book, like one who repeats a statement
carefully prepared.
"It was past ten o'clock on the night of the 25th June, 1914. I had
just finished supper when I was rung up by the landlord of The Three
Feathers on the Farfield road--it's the inn about a quarter of a mile
from the lock gates. He said that the District Secretary of the Red
Democratic Federation was staying there--his brother-in-law, if you
want to know--and he hadn't received my report. I must explain that I
am the local secretary, and as there was to be an important conference
of the Federation at Derby the next day, the District Secretary ought
to have been in possession of my report on local affairs. I had drawn
up the report. My daughter Phyllis had typed it, and she ought to have
posted it. On questioning her, I found she had neglected to do so. I
explained this over the wires and said I would bring the report at once
to The Three Feathers. I only tell you all this, in which you can't be
interested, so that you can't say: 'What were you doing on a lonely
road at that time of night?' My daughter and the landlord of The Three
Feathers can corroborate this part of my story. I set out on my
bicycle. It was bright moonlight. You know that for about two hundred
yards before the lock gate, and for about twenty after, the towing-path
is raised above the level of the main road which runs parallel with it
a few yards away. There are strips of market garden between. When I got
to this open bit I saw two persons up on the towing-path. One was a
girl with a loose kind of cloak and a hat. The other was a man wearing
a soft felt hat and a light overcoat. The overcoat was open and I saw
that he was wearing it over evening dress. That caught my attention.
What was this swell in evening dress doing there with a girl? I slowed
down and dismounted. They didn't see me. I got into the shadow of a
whitethorn. They turned their faces so that the moon beat full on them.
I saw them as plain as I see you. They were Colonel Boyce, V.C.,--Major
then--and your daughter, Mr. Mayor, Miss Althea Fenimore."
He paused as though to point the dramatic effect, and twisted round,
sticking out his horrible beard at Sir Anthony. Sir Anthony, his hands
thrust deep in his trouser-pockets and his bullet head bent forward,
glared at him balefully out of his old blue eyes. But he said never a
word. Gedge continued.
"They didn't speak very loud, so I could only hear a scrap or two of
their conversation. They seemed to be quarrelling--she wanted him to do
something which he wouldn't do. I heard the words 'marriage' and
'disgrace.' They stood still for a moment. Then they turned back. I had
overtaken them, you know. I remounted my bicycle and rode to The Three
Feathers. I was there about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.
Then I rode back for home. When I came in sight of the lock, there I
saw a man standing alone, sharp in the moonlight. As I came nearer I
recognised the same man, Major Boyce. There were no lights in the
lock-keeper's cottage. He and his wife had gone to bed long before. I
was so interested that I forgot what I was doing and ran into the hedge
so that I nearly came down. There was the noise of the scrape and drag
of the machine which must have sounded very loud in the stillness. It
startled him, for he looked all round, but he didn't see me, for I was
under the hedge. Then suddenly he started running. He ran as if the
devil was after him. I saw him squash down his Trilby hat so that it
was shapeless. Then he disappeared along the path. I thought this a
queer proceeding. Why should he have taken to his heels? I thought I
should like to see him again. If he kept to the towing-path, his
shortest way home, he was bound to go along the Chestnut Avenue, where,
as you know, the road and the path again come together. On a bicycle it
was easy to get there before him. I sat down on a bench and waited.
Presently he comes, walking fast, his hat still squashed in all over
his ears. I walked my bicycle slap in front of him.
"'Good-night, Major,' I said.
"He stared at me as if he didn't know me. Then he seemed to pull
himself together and said: 'Good-night, Gedge. What are you doing out
at this time of night?'
"'If it comes to that, sir,' said I, 'what are you?'
"Then he says, very haughty, as if I was the dirt under his feet--I
suppose, Sir Anthony Fenimore and Major Meredyth, you think that me and
my class are by divine prescription the dirt beneath your feet, but
you're damn well mistaken--then he says: 'What the devil do you mean?'
and catches hold of the front wheel of the bicycle and swings it and me
out of his way so that I had a nasty fall, with the machine on top of
me, and he marches off. I picked myself up furious with anger. I am an
elderly man and not accustomed to that sort of treatment. I yelled out:
'What have you been doing with the Squire's daughter on the
towing-path?' It pulled him up short. He made a step or two towards me,
and again he asked me what I meant. And this time I told him. He called
me a liar, swore he had never been on any tow-path or had seen any
squire's daughter, and threatened to murder me. As soon as I could
mount my bicycle I left him and made for home. The next afternoon, if
you remember, the unfortunate young lady's body was found at the bottom
of three fathoms of water by the lock gates."
He had spoken so clearly, so unfalteringly, that Sir Anthony had been
surprised into listening without interruption. The bull-dog expression
on his face never changed. When Gedge had come to the end, he said:
"Will you again tell me your object in coming to me with this
disgusting story?"
Gedge lifted his bushy eyebrows. "Don't you believe it even now?"
"Not a word of it," replied Sir Anthony.
"I ought to remind you of another point." said Gedge. "Was Major Boyce
ever seen in Wellingsford after that night? No. He went off by the
first train the next morning. Went abroad and stayed there till the
outbreak of war."
"I happen to know he had made arrangements to start for Norway that
morning," said Sir Anthony. "He had called here a day or two before to
say good-bye."
"Did he write you any letter of condolence?" Gedge asked sneeringly.
I saw a sudden spasm pass over Sir Anthony's features. But he said in
the same tone as before:
"I am not going to answer insolent questions."
Gedge turned to me with the air of a man giving up argument with a
child.
"What do you think of it, Major Meredyth?"
What could I say? I had kept a grim iron face all through the
proceedings. I could only reply:
"I agree entirely with Sir Anthony."
Gedge rose and thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. "You gentlemen
are hard to convince. If you want proof positive, just read that." And
he held a letter out to Sir Anthony.
Sir Anthony glared at him and abruptly plucked the letter out of his
hand; for the fraction of a second he stood irresolute; then he threw
it behind him into the blazing fire.
"Do you think I'm going to soil my mind with your dirty forgeries?"
Gedge laughed. "You think you've queered my pitch, I suppose. You
haven't. I've heaps more incriminating letters. That was only a sample."
"Publish one of them at your peril," said I.
"Pray, Mister Major Meredyth," said he, "what is to prevent me?"
"Penal servitude for malicious slander."
"I should win my case."
"In that event they would get you, on your own showing, for being an
accessory after the fact of murder, and for blackmail."
"Suppose I risk it?"
"You won't," said I.
Sir Anthony turned to the bell-push by the side of the mantelpiece.
"What's the good of talking to this double-dyed scoundrel?" He pointed
to the door. "You infamous liar, get out. And if I ever catch you
prowling round this house, I'll set the dogs on you."
Gedge marched to the door and turned on the threshold and shook his
fist.
"You'll repent your folly till your dying day!"
"To Hell with you," cried Sir Anthony.
The door slammed. We were left alone. An avalanche of silence
overwhelmed us. Heaven knows how long we remained speechless and
motionless--I in my wheel-chair, he standing on the hearthrug staring
awfully in front of him. At last he drew a deep breath and threw up his
arms and flung himself down on a leather-covered couch, where he sat,
elbows on knees and his head in his hands. After a while he lifted a
drawn face.
"It's true, Duncan," said he, "and you know it."
"I don't know it," I replied stoutly, "any more than you do."
He rose in his nervous way and came swiftly to me and clapped both his
hands on my frail shoulders and bent over me--he was a little man, as I
have told you--and put his face so close to mine that I could feel his
breath on my cheek.
"Upon your soul as a Christian you know that man wasn't lying."
I looked into his eyes--about six inches from mine.
"Boyce never murdered Althea," I said.
"But he is the man--the man I've been looking for."
I pushed him away with both hands, using all my strength. It was too
horrible.
"Suppose he is. What then?"
He fell back a pace or two. "Once I remember saying: 'If ever I get
hold of that man--God help him!'"
He clenched his fists and started to pace up and down the library,
passing and repassing my chair. At last my nerves could stand it no
longer and I called on him to halt.
"Gedge's story is curiously incomplete," said I. "We ought to have
crossexamined him more closely. Is it likely that Boyce should have
gone off leaving behind him a witness of his crime whom he had
threatened to murder, and who he must have known would have given
information as soon as the death was discovered? And don't you think
Gedge's reason for holding his tongue very unconvincing? His fool
hatred of our class, instead of keeping him cynically indifferent,
would have made him lodge information at once and gloat over our
discomfiture."
I could not choose but come to the defence of the unhappy man whom I
had learned to call my friend, although, for all my trying, I could
conjure up no doubt as to his intimate relation with the tragedy. As
Sir Anthony did not speak, I went on.
"You can't judge a man with Leonard Boyce's record on the EX PARTE
statement of a malevolent beast like Gedge. Look back. If there had
been any affair between Althea and Boyce, the merest foolish
flirtation, even, do you think it would have passed unnoticed? You,
Edith, Betty--I myself--would have cast an uneasy eye. When we were
looking about, some months ago, at the time of your sister-in-law's
visit, for a possible man, the thought of Leonard Boyce never entered
our heads. The only man you could rush at was young Randall Holmes, and
I laughed you out of the idea. Just throw your mind back, Anthony, and
try to recall any suspicious incident. You can't."
I paused rhetorically, expecting a reply. None came. He just sat
looking at me in a dead way. I continued my special pleading; and the
more I said, the more was I baffled by his dead stare and the more
unconvincing platitudes did I find myself uttering. Some people may be
able to speak vividly to a deaf and dumb creature. On this occasion I
tried hard to do so, and failed. After a while my words dribbled out
with difficulty and eventually ceased. At last he spoke, in the dull,
toneless way of a dead man--presuming that the dead could speak:
"You may talk till you're black in the face, but you know as well as I
do that the man told the truth--or practically the truth. What he said
he saw, he saw. What motives have been at the back of his miserable
mind, I don't know. You say I can't recall suspicious incidents. I can.
I'll tell you one. I came across them once--about a month before the
thing happened--among the greenhouses. I think we were having one of
our tennis parties. I heard her using angry words, and when I appeared
her face was flushed and there were tears in her eyes. She was taken
aback for a second and then she rushed up to me. 'I think he's
perfectly horrid. He says that Jingo--' pointing to the dog; you
remember Jingo the Sealingham--she was devoted to him--he died last
year--'He says that Jingo is a mongrel--a throw back.' Boyce said he
was only teasing her and made pretty apologies. I left it at that. Hit
a dog or a horse belonging to Althea, and you hit Althea. That was her
way. The incident went out of my mind till this morning. Other
incidents, too. One thinks pretty quick at times. Again, this scoundrel
hit me on the raw. Boyce never wrote to us. Sent us through his mother
a conventional word of condolence. Edith and I were hurt. That was one
of the things that made me speak so angrily of him when he wouldn't
come and dine with us."
Once more I pleaded. "Your Sealingham incident doesn't impress me. Why
not take it at its face value? As for the letter of condolence, that
may have twenty explanations."
He passed his hand over his cropped iron-grey head. "What are you
driving at, Duncan? You know as well as I do--you know more than I do.
I saw it in your face ever since that man opened his mouth."
"If you're so sure of everything," said I foolishly, relaxing grip on
my self-control, "why did you hound him out of the place for a liar?"
He leaped to his feet and spread himself into a fighting attitude, for
all the world like a half-dead bantam cock springing into a new lease
of combative life.
"Do you think I'd let a dunghill beast like that crow over me? Do you
think I'd let him imagine for a minute that anything he said could
influence me in my public duty? By God, sir, what kind of a worm do you
think I am?"
His sudden fury disconcerted me. All this time I had been wondering
what kind of catastrophe was going to happen during the next few hours.
I am afraid I haven't made clear to you the ghastly racket in my brain.
There was the town all beflagged, everyone making holiday, all the pomp
and circumstance at our disposal awaiting the signal to be displayed.
There was the blind conquering hero almost on his way to local
apotheosis. And here were Sir Anthony and I with the revelation of the
man Gedge. It was a fantastic, baffling situation. I had been haunted
by the dread of discussing it. So in reply to his outburst I simply
said:
"What are you going to do?"
He drew himself up, with his obstinate chin in the air, and looked at
me straight.
"If God gives me strength, I am going to do what lies before me."
At this moment Lady Fenimore came in.
"Mr. Winterbotham would like to speak to you a minute, Anthony. It's
something about the school children."
"All right, my dear. I'll go to him at once," said Sir Anthony. "You'll
stay and lunch with us, Duncan?"
I declined on the plea that I should have to nurse myself for a
strenuous day. Sir Anthony might play the Roman father, but it was
beyond my power to play the Roman father's guest.