And now I had my first look at the summer-house from inside. It was
comparatively new; it had not been there six years before. A roomy
place, with pictures on the walls, and even an alarm clock--now run
down--chairs with cushions, a table, and an upholstered settee covered
with red plush. The blinds were down.
I set a couple of pieces in the roof first, where I'd smashed it with
my empty bottle; then I took off the lock to see what was wrong there.
While I was busy with this the Captain came up. He had evidently been
drinking already that day, or was suffering from a heavy bout the night
before.
“That's no burglary,” he said. “Either the door must have been left
open, and slammed itself to bits, or some one must have stumbled up
against it in the dark. One of the visitors, perhaps, that left the
other day.”
But the door had been roughly handled, one could see: the lock was burst
open, and the woodwork on the inside of the frame torn away.
“Let me see! Put a new bolt in here, and force the spring back in
place,” said the Captain, examining the lock. He sat down in a chair.
Fru Falkenberg came down the stone steps to the shrubbery, and called:
“Is the Captain there?”
“Yes,” said I.
Then she came up. Her face was twitching with emotion.
“I'd like a word with you,” she said. “I won't keep you long.”
The Captain answered, without rising:
“Certainly. Will you sit down, or would you rather stand? No, don't run
away, you! I've none too much time as it is,” he said sharply to me.
This I took to mean that he wanted the lock mended so he could take the
key with him when he went.
“I dare say it wasn't--I oughtn't to have said what I did,” Fruen began.
The Captain made no answer.
But his silence, after she had come down on purpose to try and make it
up, was more than she could bear. She ended by saying: “Oh, well, it's
all the same; I don't care.”
And she turned to go.
“Did you want to speak to me?” asked the Captain.
“Oh no, it doesn't matter. Thanks, I shan't trouble.”
“Very well,” said the Captain. He smiled as he spoke. He was drunk, no
doubt, and angry about something.
But Fruen turned as she passed by me in the doorway, and said:
“You ought not to drive down there today. There's gossip enough
already.”
“You need not listen to it,” he answered.
“It can't go on like this, you know,” she said again. “And you don't
seem to think of the disgrace....”
“We're both a little thoughtless in that respect,” he answered
carelessly, looking round at the walls.