"That's all right," he said cheerfully. "Then you can poison his
food."
I remember this struck me as being a very comforting reflection, and
from that moment Bruce and I have always been the best of friends.
Later on we shared a study together, the corner study next "the big
school," and one summer holiday I went and stayed with his people in
that big, ivy-covered house near Goring that you can see from the
railway line.
When we left school our paths separated for a time. I started at
journalism in London, while Bruce was sent to France "to learn the
language." I think his father had some idea that he would make a
good Prime Minister.
When the old man died, Bruce came home and settled in London. He had
come into about £800 a year, and had no intention at all of going
into politics.
Since then we have always seen a good deal of each other. He is just
the same cheery, irresponsible, adventurous, good-natured chap that
he was at school. I don't think we ever had anything approaching a
quarrel in our lives.
I have told you all this so that you can see exactly what sort of
people we are. It's really quite unnecessary, because you won't
believe my story in any case. Still, unless Bruce and I are insane,
the thing really happened; and as there is absolutely no reason to
suppose we are, I intend to tell it and get it off my chest.
I will begin right at the beginning. It was on the 9th of February
that I first learned of Mervyn Bruce's death. I saw it in the _Daily
Mail_ while I was having breakfast. There was a portrait of him in
rough shooting clothes and a cork helmet--it must have been taken
many years before--and a full column about his life and adventures.
He had died at Etretat, where the paper said he had been living for
some time.
I didn't bother myself about it, because I knew that he and Bruce had
not been on speaking terms for years. There had been some silly
family squabble somewhere back in the dark ages, and the old explorer
was one of those fatuous people who think it a point of honour to
keep a thing like that up for ever. So, after making an ineffectual
attempt at a reconciliation when he was in France, Bruce had simply
let matters slide.
I was therefore a little surprised to get a line from him on the
11th, saying that he was just off to Etretat, to see about his
uncle's funeral. "The fact is," he wrote, "the old chap had
quarrelled with everyone by the time he died, and as I'm his nearest
relation I suppose I ought to see him through. I shall be back by
the end of the week."
It was six days before I heard anything more. Then, late on Tuesday
evening, I received a wire from him at the office:
"Please come Hampstead to-morrow--lunch. Important."
Bruce lives in one of those old-fashioned three-storey houses away to
the right off the top of Haverstock Hill. I expect you know them if
you have ever been up in that direction. Standing back from the
road, with balconies, long windows, and creeper-covered fronts, they
seem to shrink in a kind of desolate dismay from the new red-brick
splendour which has gradually hemmed them in.
Heath View, the end one, is where Bruce hangs out. It belongs to an
ex-police sergeant and his wife, called Jones, and Bruce has the
whole of the two top floors. They make him very comfortable, but I
have often wondered why he doesn't take a flat. He says it is
because Mrs. Jones is the only woman in London who can cook a
mushroom omelette.
When I rang the bell the possessor of this unique talent opened the
door herself. She is a tall, good-looking woman of about forty, with
that sort of grave, respectful manner you don't often meet nowadays.
Yes, Mr. Bruce was in, she said, and expecting me. Would I go
straight up?
Bruce heard me coming, and flung open the door. He had just jumped
up from his desk, which was littered with papers and bundles of deeds
tied up by red tape. He looked flushed and a little excited.
"Come along in," he said. "I was just beginning to be afraid you
couldn't turn up."