“I don’t know how I could do that,” I answered.
“Couldn’t you see her?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
If Mrs. Barton Trafford thought my reply blunt she did not show it. She
smiled a little.
“At all events that can be left over. The urgent thing is to go down and
find out about Kemp. I shall try to see Edward this evening. I can’t
bear the thought of his staying on in that odious house by himself.
Barton and I have made up our minds to bring him here. We have a spare
room and I’ll arrange it so that he can work there. Don’t you agree that
that would be the best thing for him, Allgood?”
“Absolutely.”
“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t stay here indefinitely, at all
events for a few weeks, and then he can come away with us in the summer.
We’re going to Brittany. I’m sure he’d like that. It would be a thorough
change for him.”
“The immediate question,” said Barton Trafford, fixing on me an eye
nearly as kindly as his wife’s, “is whether this young sawbones will go
to Blackstable and find out what he can. We must know where we are. That
is essential.”
Barton Trafford excused his interest in archæology by a hearty manner
and a jocose, even slangy way of speech.
“He couldn’t refuse,” said his wife, giving me a soft, appealing glance.
“You won’t refuse, will you? It’s so important and you’re the only
person who can help us.”
Of course she did not know that I was as anxious to find out what had
happened as she; she could not tell what a bitter jealous pain stabbed
my heart.
“I couldn’t possibly get away from the hospital before Saturday,” I
said.
“That’ll do. It’s very good of you. All Edward’s friends will be
grateful to you. When shall you return?”
“I have to be back in London early on Monday morning.”
“Then come and have tea with me in the afternoon. I shall await you with
impatience. Thank God, that’s settled. Now I must try and get hold of
Edward.”
I understood that I was dismissed. Allgood Newton took his leave and
came downstairs with me.
“Our Isabel has _un petit air_ of Catherine of Aragon to-day that I find
vastly becoming,” he murmured when the door was closed behind us. “This
is a golden opportunity and I think we may safely trust our friend not
to miss it. A charming woman with a heart of gold. _Venus toute entière
à sa proie attachée._”
I did not understand what he meant, for what I have already told the
reader about Mrs. Barton Trafford I only learned much later, but I
realized that he was saying something vaguely malicious about her, and
probably amusing, so I sniggered.
“I suppose your youth inclines you to what my good Dizzy named in an
unlucky moment the gondola of London.”
“I’m going to take a bus,” I answered.
“Oh? Had you proposed to go by hansom I was going to ask you to be good
enough to drop me on your way, but if you are going to use the homely
conveyance which _I_ in my old-fashioned manner still prefer to call an
omnibus, I shall hoist my unwieldy carcase into a four-wheeler.”
He signalled to one and gave me two flabby fingers to shake.
“I shall come on Monday to hear the result of what dear Henry would call
your so exquisitely delicate mission.”