Christina had known in the middle of the night when the police came
to search Sault's room. A detective of high rank had been
communicative; she heard the story with a serenity which filled the
quaking Evie with wonder. If her face grew of a sudden peaked, a new
glory glowed in her eyes.
Mrs. Colebrook wept noisily and continued to weep throughout the
night. Christina meditated upon an old suspicion of hers, that her
mother regarded Ambrose Sault as being near enough the age of a
lonely widow woman, to make possible a second matrimonial venture.
This view Evie held definitely.
"Oh, Chris--my dear, I am so sorry," whimpered the younger girl, when
the police had taken their departure. "And I've said such horrid
things about him. Chris, poor darling, aren't you feeling awful--I
am."
"Am I feeling sorry for Ambrose? No." Christina searched her heart
before she went on. "I'm not sorry. Ambrose was so inevitably big.
Something tremendous must come to him: it couldn't be otherwise."
"I was afraid something might happen." Evie shook her head wisely.
"This Greek man was very insulting. Ronnie told me that. And if
poor Ambrose lost his temper--"
"Ambrose did not lose his temper," Christina interrupted brusquely.
"If Ambrose killed him, he did it because he intended doing it."
"In cold blood!" Evie was horrified.
"Yes: Ambrose must have had a reason. He tells me so--don't gape,
Evie, I'm not delirious. Ambrose is here. If I were blind and deaf
and he sat on this bed he would be here, wouldn't he? Presence
doesn't depend on seeing or hearing or even feeling. He'd be here if
he was not allowed to touch me. Go back to bed, Evie. I'm sleepy
and I want to dream."
Beryl arrived soon after eleven. Evie was out and Mrs. Colebrook,
red-eyed, brought her up to the bedroom. Christina was sure the girl
would come and had got up and dressed in readiness.
Some time went by before they were alone. Mrs. Colebrook had her own
griefs to express, her own memories to retail. She left at last
singultient in her woe.
"Do you think you are strong enough to come to the house?" asked
Beryl. "I could call for you this afternoon. Perhaps you could stay
with me for a few days. I feel that I want you near to me."
This, without preliminary. They were too close to the elementals to
pick nice paths to their objectives. They recognized and
acknowledged their supreme interests as being common to both.
"Mother would be glad to get rid of me for a day or two," said
Christina.
"And I am sending my father abroad," nodded Beryl, with a faint
smile. "When shall I come?"
"At three. You have not seen him?"
Beryl shook her head.
"They are taking him into the country. We shall never see him
again," she said simply. "He will not send for us. I am trying to
approach it all in the proper spirit of detachment. He is a little
difficult to live up to--don't you feel that?"
"If I say 'no' you will think I am eaten up with vanity," said
Christina with a quick smile. "I am rather exalted at the moment,
but the reaction will come perhaps, in which case I shall want to
hang on to your understanding."
At three o'clock the car arrived. Mrs. Colebrook saw her daughter go
without regret. Christina was unnatural. She had not shed a tear.
Mrs. Colebrook had heard her laughing and had gone up in a hurry to
deal with hysteria, only to find her reading Stephen Leacock. She
was appalled.
"I am surprised at you, Christina! Here is poor--Mr. Sault in
prison--" Words failed her, she could only make miserable noises.
"Mother has given me up," said Christina, when she was lying on a big
settee in Beryl's room, her thin hand outstretched to the blaze.
"Mother is a sort of female Hericletos--she finds her comfort in
weeping."
Beryl was toasting a muffin at the fire.
"I wish it were a weeping matter," she said, and went straight to the
subject uppermost in her mind. "Moropulos took a photograph of me
coming from Ronald Morelle's flat. I had spent the night there."
She looked at the muffin and turned it. "Moropulos was--nasty. He
must have told Ambrose that he knew."