Mainly a Love Scene
Joan had fully intended to see her stepfather before the inquest and
to warn him of his danger and get him to tell the truth to her at
least. When Ellery came to visit her on the Thursday afternoon—the
inquest was on Friday—she had been on the point of setting out for his
club, with the set purpose of making him tell her the whole story.
Just before dinner time, she knew, was the most likely hour for
finding him at home. There would probably be difficulty in persuading
him to talk freely, even to her; but she thought that she would know
how to manage him. It was still too early to start, however, and she
had ample time to see Ellery first. A talk with him was just what she
wanted. He would sympathise with her, and, she was sure, he was just
the man to help her where Carter Woodman had failed. He would throw
himself into the case, and aid her to find out what she ought to do in
order to clear her stepfather of the suspicion which lay upon him.
Since her talk with Woodman, she had come to realise fully how grave
that suspicion was; but she was sure that Bob—she and Ellery had
called each other by their Christian names ever since they were
children—would not only take her word for it that Walter Brooklyn
could not possibly be guilty of the crimes, but be ready to use his
wits and his time in proving the suspected man’s innocence. She did
not quite tell herself that he would do all this because he was in
love with her; but neither did she quite admit to herself that she
would not have asked him unless she had been in love with him.
There was some embarrassment—of which Joan was fully conscious—in
Robert Ellery’s manner as he rose to greet her. “I hope I’m not in the
way,” he said awkwardly, blushing as he said it.
“My dear Bob, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve been pining for some one
to whom I could really talk.”
“I wasn’t at all sure whether I ought to come. I thought you might
prefer to be alone, and you must have your hands very full with Sir
Vernon. Of course, I’d have come sooner if I had thought you wanted
me.” Again Ellery coloured.
“I want you now, anyway. And it isn’t simply that I want to talk. I
want to do something, and I want your help.”
To help Joan! What thing better could Ellery have asked for? He would
do anything in the world to help her. But what sort of help did she
need? He longed to tell her that he was hers to command in any way she
chose—because he loved her; but all he found himself saying was, “I
say, that’s awfully jolly of you—to let me help you, I mean”—conscious
of the banality of the words even as he spoke them.
Joan went straight to the point. “Bob, the police suspect my
stepfather of being mixed up with this horrible affair. In fact, I’m
sure they think he is actually guilty of murder. They’ve got hold of
something that seems to incriminate him.”
Ellery made an inarticulate noise of sympathy.
“Of course, Bob, you and I know he didn’t do it. You do think he
couldn’t have done it, don’t you?”
“It would certainly never have occurred to me to suspect him.”
“Of course, he’s quite innocent, and it’s all some horrible mistake.
He couldn’t have done such a thing. But I want you to help me prove he
didn’t.”
“My dear Joan, are you quite sure the police really suspect him? Of
course, they have to make inquiries about everybody. Why, I was quite
under the impression that they suspected me.”
“Suspect you? How dreadful! What _do_ you mean?”
“Well, I had a most inquisitorial visit from the police this morning;
and a man in obvious police boots has been following me about all
day.”
He spoke lightly; but Joan took what he said very seriously indeed.
“My dear Bob,” she said. “This is positively awful. But why ever
should any one think you—had anything to do with it?”
“Oh, just because I failed to give a ‘satisfactory explanation’—I
think that is what they call it—of my movements on Tuesday night. You
know I walked home after dinner. Well, I wandered round a bit and
didn’t get home till midnight. So they argue that I had plenty of time
to kill half a dozen people, and insist that I must either prove an
_alibi_—or take the consequences. What do you say? Do you think I did
it?”
“My dear Bob, don’t joke about it. It’s far too serious, if the police
are going to drag you into this terrible business.”
“No, really, it isn’t serious at all—now at any rate. I am in a
position, fortunately, to produce a conclusive _alibi_. You see, I
wasn’t alone, and I’ve found the chap who was with me most of the
time, and sent him round to Scotland Yard to tell them it’s all right.
I expect the gentleman with the boots will be out of a job before
long.”
“You’re sure it’s really all right?”
“Of course it is, or I shouldn’t have said a word about it. And I dare
say what you have heard about the police suspecting old Walter isn’t a
bit more serious.”
“Oh, but it is. From their point of view, I’m afraid they have a very
strong case.” And Joan told him all that she knew—both what she had
heard about Charis Lang from Marian Brooklyn, and what Carter Woodman
had told her. Finally, she told Ellery that she had made up her mind
to go at once to her stepfather, and try to make him tell her the
truth.
As Joan told her story, Ellery could not help saying to himself that
it looked bad for old Walter. He did not know Walter Brooklyn very
well; but all he did know was unfavourable, and he had never heard any
one—even Joan herself—say a good word for him. Left to his own
reflections, Ellery would not have hesitated to suspect Walter
Brooklyn of murder; for he realised at once that the wicked uncle had
everything to gain by putting his two nephews out of the way. But Joan
knew the man, and he did not; and, if Joan was positive, that was good
enough for him. He was so completely under her influence that the idea
that Walter Brooklyn was guilty was dismissed almost as soon as it was
entertained. Ellery would make it his business to get Walter Brooklyn
cleared—he would work for the old beast with the feeling that he was
working for Joan himself. Entering at once into Joan’s plan, he
applauded her determination to go and see her stepfather, and placed
himself unreservedly at her service.
“You’re a dear,” she said.
While they had been discussing Walter Brooklyn’s story, Ellery’s
embarrassment had quite left him; but these words of Joan’s, and her
look as she spoke them, brought it back in double force. He felt the
blood rushing to his head, and became uncomfortably aware that he was
going red in the face. Also, he could not take his eyes off Joan, and
somehow it seemed that she could not take her eyes off him. They gazed
at each other, with something of fear and something of embarrassment
in their looks, and each was conscious of a heart beating more and
more insistently within. For at least a minute neither of them spoke.
Then Ellery said one word and put out his hand towards her. “Joan,” he
said, and his voice sounded to him strange and unreal. He felt her
hand grasp his, almost fiercely, and an acute sensation—it has no
name—ran right through him at the touch. In an instant, her head was
on his shoulder and his arms were round her. She was sobbing, and his
cheek was caressing hers. “Poor darling,” he said at last.
Joan had meant that talk with Robert Ellery to be so practical, so
entirely the opening of a business partnership. She and Bob were to
clear her stepfather together; and, when they had done that, who knew
what might come after? But there was to be no intrusion of sentiment
until the work in hand was completed. In the event, things had not
gone off at all as she intended. From the moment of his coming, she
had felt a sense of danger—something poignant, yet intensely
welcome—in their meeting. This feeling had been dispelled for the time
while she told him her tale, and she had half said to herself that now
she was safe. Then, in a moment, security had vanished, the sense of
tension had come back far more strongly than before, she had felt
herself merely a passive thing—as he was another passive thing—in the
control of great elemental forces beyond herself. Without a word said,
it seemed, a marriage had been arranged.
There was, indeed, no need for words between them on this matter of
matters that had joined them indissolubly together. They were sitting
now on the couch, holding each other’s hands. They could talk
business—speak of what must be done to clear Walter Brooklyn—while
with the contact of their bodies love interpenetrated them. And Joan
could say to herself already that this most unbusinesslike proceeding
was the best stroke of business she had ever done. For the immediate
purpose she had in view, it had immensely strengthened their
partnership. For these twain had become one flesh, and what was near
her heart needs must be near his also.
As they sat there together, they formed their plan of campaign. It was
obviously impossible to make a beginning until Joan had done her best
to make Walter Brooklyn tell what he knew. If he were to refuse, their
task would be so much the harder; but even the hardest task now seemed
easy to them with the power of their love behind them. Whatever his
attitude might be, they would still be ready to do their best for him.
But surely he would tell Joan. There was no time to be lost. He must
be seen at once, and Ellery set to work to advise Joan about the
questions she ought to ask.
“It seems clear enough that he was in the house. I suppose he will be
able to explain that. But we mustn’t be content with getting just his
explanation of what he was doing here. Try to find out exactly what he
did and where he went that day. We may need to be able to account for
every minute of his time.”
Joan said that she quite saw how every detail mattered. If he would
tell her anything, he would probably be willing to tell the whole
story. At all events, she would do her best. It would be wisest, they
agreed, for her to go alone; for Walter Brooklyn would very likely
refuse to talk if Ellery were with her. But he would walk round to the
club with her, and wait while she tried to get her stepfather to see
her.
So Joan and Ellery walked round to the Byron Club together. There was
a strange pleasure—quite unlike anything they had known before—in
merely walking side by side. They belonged to each other now. But the
answer to Ellery’s inquiry of the Club porter was that Mr. Brooklyn
was out, and that he had left word he might not return to the Club
that night. Joan did not at all like the expression on the porter’s
face as he gave this information. She saw that he at any rate had
strong suspicions, presumably put into his mind by the police.
Asked whether he could say where Mr. Brooklyn was, the porter did not
know. He might, perhaps, be at his other Club, the Sanctum, in Pall
Mall. Or again, he might not. He had not said where he was going.
Inquiries at the other Club were equally barren. Mr. Walter Brooklyn
had not been there that day. He might come in, or he might not. And
again Joan saw from the porter’s manner that here too her stepfather
was under suspicion of murder.
Joan left at each Club a message asking Walter Brooklyn to ring her up
at Liskeard House immediately he came in. This was all that could be
done for the moment; and to Liskeard House they returned, having
suffered a check at the outset of their quest. Ellery promised to
spend the evening scouring London for traces of Walter Brooklyn; and
in the mind of each was the half-formed thought that he might have
fled rather than reveal what he knew. Each knew that the other feared
this; but neither put the thought into words. They arranged to meet
again on the following morning, and Ellery was to ring up later in the
evening to report whether he had traced Walter, and to hear whether
any message had come to Joan from either of the Clubs. Then, after the
manner of lovers, they bade each other farewell a dozen times over,
each farewell more lingering than the last. At length Ellery went; for
he was due at Scotland Yard, where he hoped to find that his _alibi_
had been accepted, and the last trace of suspicion removed from him.
It would be awkward to be followed about by the man in police boots
wherever he went with Joan, and it would be awkward to have the police
know exactly what they were doing in Walter Brooklyn’s interest. The
police boots had followed Joan and him on their visits to the two
Clubs, and now, as he left Liskeard House, Ellery saw their owner
leaning against a lamp-post opposite, and gazing straight at the front
door. Never, he thought, had a man looked more obviously a
detective—or rather a policeman in plain clothes. Even apart from the
boots, he was labelled policeman all over—from his measured stride to
the tips of his waxed moustache. As Ellery turned down into
Piccadilly, he heard the man coming along behind him.