Laura Surpasses Herself
At much the same time as Guy Nesbitt was asking his wife for a second
cup of coffee, Mr. Priestley was requesting of his pseudo-wife a
similar favour. They were breakfasting in the combined coffee-room,
restaurant and private sitting-room of the little inn, and they knew
now a good many things which they had not known before. They knew, for
instance, that the inn was the Black Swan, that it was in the minute
village of Sandersworth and that Sandersworth was, roughly,
thirty-five miles from Duffley and nearly a hundred from London. They
also knew that they thoroughly approved of the minute village of
Sandersworth.
It is impossible for two people of opposite sexes to sleep in the same
room, however remotely, without experiencing afterwards a rather
exciting, if quite innocent feeling of intimacy. It was the first time
Mr. Priestley had breakfasted alone with a charmingly pretty girl; it
was the first time Laura had breakfasted alone with a strange man of
less than twenty-four hours’ acquaintance; yet, somehow, the situation
seemed perfectly natural to both of them. Considering what had gone
before, this is not surprising. For besides the sleeping in the same
room, there had been the getting up in the same room, and that had
been even more amusing.
There had been the discussion, for example, interspersed with stifled
giggles, which had resulted in Mr. Priestley going on to lurk in some
place unspecified (the little inn boasted no bathroom) where he might
remained concealed from the landlady and Annie (who, however, did not
count one way or the other) while Laura washed. Then there had been
the deliciously exciting moment when Mr. Priestley, in order to save
time and ensure a simultaneous appearance at the breakfast-table, had
been re-admitted to shave with a borrowed razor while Laura, blushing
faintly in the blue flannel dressing-gown, but far more amused than
embarrassed, let him in and then attended to her shingled hair and
completed her toilet behind an improvised screen of eiderdown and
blanket in a corner of the room. Then she, fully dressed, had gone off
to lurk while Mr. Priestley made himself ready to face the world.
No more improper, the whole thing, in its essentials than a bathe, let
us say, from the same large cave on a rocky beach, which in the eyes
of the world is nothing; but far, far more thrilling, for the very
reason of those same censorious eyes. For whereas in the estimation of
the two principals the whole affair was as innocent as innocence can
well be and they had gained rather than lost in self-respect, in the
eyes of the world they had lost everything. The world will never
consent to believe the best when it has a chance of believing the
worst.
It had been, therefore, a Very Great Adventure.
And the consequence was that, when at last they faced each other
across the breakfast-table, blushing modestly beneath the landlady’s
unconcealed interest, Mr. Priestley had an uncanny feeling that he
really was married to this delightful young woman and that it was all
exceedingly pleasant. It quite needed the presence of that handcuff
(which, by an ingenious device attached to his braces, he had
succeeded in tethering out of sight up his sleeve) to remind him that
he was, in fact, not a happy honeymooner without a care in the world,
but a fugitive from justice, a clapper of constables into cupboards, a
man-slaughterer, and stuffed so full of cares that it was a wonder his
second cup of coffee could effect an entrance.
Nevertheless, one anxiety persisted in Mr. Priestley’s mind, in spite
of his pleasurable excitement, and the bright chatter of his adopted
young wife; he was on tenterhooks to see a newspaper. Sandersworth, it
appeared, was not favoured in the matter of newspapers on Sundays.
They had, the landlady explained at some length, to be brought
specially over from Manstead, and, of course, that took time. Not
before ten they couldn’t be expected, and sometimes it was nearer
half-past. She took in _The News of the World_, she did, and Mr.
Bracey (such was the pseudonym which Mr. Priestley had cunningly
adopted with his married state) should see it as soon as it came,
before she ever so much as opened it herself. Mr. Bracey, né
Priestley, asked her to buy a sample of each paper available, and
concealed his impatience as best he could.
“And now,” said Laura, when she had fulfilled her wifely duty of
pouring out that second cup of coffee, “now, what’s the programme?
What are we going to do to-day?”
“Well,” said Mr. Priestley tentatively, “we can’t stay here, of
course.”
“Of course not,” Laura agreed, not without firmness.
Mr. Priestley looked slightly disappointed, and then slightly ashamed
of such unreasonable optimism. “What do you suggest, then?”
“Me? Nothing. I’m leaving all that entirely to you. I’m completely in
your hands.” She assumed her famous pathetic air, but in a modified
degree. Mr. Priestley, she felt, not without reason, would not be
quite so easily taken in by such means in the future as he had been in
the past. To tell the truth, Laura was by this time not at all sure of
her ground where Mr. Priestley was concerned. At times he was
unexpectedly meek and amenable, at others still more unexpectedly the
reverse. Ah, well, it all went to make life more interesting.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked in humble tones.
Thus jerked up on to his pedestal of male superiority, Mr. Priestley
regarded his companion attentively. What he would really like to do
with her, he reflected wickedly, would be to kiss her—like last night,
but with the benefit of that experience behind him; every little
helps, so far as experience in kissing is concerned. For the first
time in his life Mr. Priestley felt a strong desire to try his hand at
this interesting art—or should one say his lips?
He pulled himself together. That would never do. Certainly not. Last
night had been a privileged occasion. Even a real husband hardly ever
kisses his real wife at the breakfast-table; he complains about the
bacon instead.
“Well,” he said, dismissing these irrelevant reflections, “what about
getting you back to your people, and—and all that?”
Laura looked more pathetic than ever, though still careful not to
overdo it. “I haven’t any people,” she said with quiet courage.
“I’m—I’m alone in the world.”
“God bless my soul!” observed Mr. Priestley, much touched.
Laura was touched, just a little, also, by Mr. Priestley’s evident
concern. He _was_ a dear, and it _was_ a shame to be hoodwinking him
like this. She tried to console herself with the thought that, this
time at any rate, she had spoken the truth—or something not at all
unlike the truth. She was an orphan, and, except for George, she was
pretty well alone in the world; and George and Annie had certainly one
characteristic in common.
“Of course,” Mr. Priestley continued in somewhat hesitating tones, “of
course I don’t want to force your confidence, and if you don’t wish to
tell me anything, naturally you won’t do so (I could hardly expect
that you would, in the circumstances), but I’ve noticed that you
haven’t mentioned your name yet. Unless, of course, it really is
Spettigue?”
“My name?” said Laura innocently. “Haven’t I really? No, it isn’t
Spettigue. It’s—er—Merriman. Laura Merriman,” she added, adroitly
turning this blank lie into a half-truth.
“And mine’s Priestley,” beamed that gentleman. “Matthew Priestley; and
my address is 148D Half Moon Street.”
Once more Laura’s conscience smote her. Once more she parried the
blow. What on earth was the use of playing a practical joke at all, if
one was to get more and more remorseful the more successfully it
developed? She looked her conscience in the face and dared it to raise
its fist again; it retired, abashed. Once more logic triumphed over
sickly sentimentality.
“Oh, yes,” she said colourlessly.
Mr. Priestley was toying with a toast-crumb. “And is it permitted to
know what you do, or where you live?” he ventured. “Don’t tell me, if
you’d rather not, of course.”
“But why shouldn’t I, Mr. Priestley? Especially considering how kind
you’ve been to me. I’m a typist, and I live——” She paused. For once
circumstances had caught Laura napping; she had no new story ready.
The word typist had risen to her lips automatically; in the
magazine-stories the distressed maiden is nearly always a typist, or a
typist masquerading as somebody else, or somebody else masquerading as
a typist. But for the moment her mind was perfectly empty of
addresses, “I don’t live anywhere,” she plunged desperately.
“You don’t live anywhere?” repeated Mr. Priestley, with not
unreasonable surprise.
“No,” said Laura, to whom had occurred a certain small light in her
darkness. “I—I was a typist, you see, but——” Her voice broke
artistically; she bent her dark head over her empty cup. “But I was
dismissed.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, much concerned. “Why?”
The look Laura turned on him was a miracle. “The manager tried to make
love to me,” she said in a low, halting voice. Laura was seeing her
way more clearly every moment. “He—he tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t let
him, so——!” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I was dismissed, of
course.”
“Scandalous!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, acutely conscious that he also
had tried to kiss this same delectable person, and successfully. Yes,
where haughty managers, with the power of doubled salary or dismissal
in their hands, had been ignominiously repulsed, he, Mr. Priestley,
had succeeded. Involuntarily he drew himself up. “Scandalous!” he
repeated. “Outrageous! Who is the scoundrel?”
“The man,” said Laura with sudden inspiration, “you shot.”
“What!” exclaimed the startled Mr. Priestley.
There was a tense pause.
Laura broke it. “Oh, why shouldn’t I tell you the truth?” she said in
low, bitter tones. “You’ve been kind to me. The only man who ever
has.” She hesitated a moment to decide exactly what the truth should
be. “Yes, that man was the manager—er—the managing-director of the
firm where I worked. I got the post through the influence of an old
friend of my father’s. He died shortly afterwards,” she added, neatly
polishing off this possibly awkward patron.
“Dear, dear!” clucked Mr. Priestley, in respectful tribute to this
very short-lived individual.
“The managing-director was kind to me,” Laura continued with more
confidence. “At least, I imagined it was kindness. He made me his own
private secretary. I was with him most of the day. Of course, you can
see what happened. I imagined that I had fallen in love with him.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley in toleration of this maidenly
madness.
“He took advantage of my innocence,” Laura went on with pathos. “I
mean,” she corrected herself somewhat hastily, “he made advances to
which I responded; and we used to write to each other.” That this
would hardly be necessary if they saw each ether every day and nearly
all day long occurred to the authoress with some force. She hurriedly
skated ever this awkward passage. “Nothing _wrong_, you know,” she
said very earnestly. “Just—well, just silly. Oh, you do understand,
don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I understand, of course,” said Mr. Priestley, who didn’t.
“Then I saw the mistake I had made. I tried to get my letters back
from him. He refused to let me have them. He tried to hold them over
my head, to force me to accept his caresses.” I must try writing for
the magazines myself, thought Laura, warming to her work; it seems to
come naturally. “If I refused, he threatened to dismiss me and said
that he would use the letters to prevent me from getting another post
anywhere else. I did refuse, and he did dismiss me. Alas,” said Laura,
bravely brushing away an imaginary tear, “it was only too true.
Whenever I succeeded in finding another post, I got a letter within a
day or two to say that a mistake had been made and my services would
not be required. Wherever I went, that scoundrel had my footsteps
dogged.” Laura paused again. “He was determined,” she added in a tense
whisper, “to break me to his will.”
“The villain!” ejaculated Mr. Priestley, moist with emotion.
“So you can imagine that I was desperate to get my letters back.
Already I had come to the end of my slender resources. I owed my
landlady, who seized all my belongings for her rent and turned me out
into the street. I was homeless, without a roof to shelter me, a rag
to my back, or a penny in my purse.”
“But—but what about that car of yours,” stammered Mr. Priestley, whose
eyes were nearly starting out of his head.
“Oh!” said Laura, who had been far too carried away by her sense of
drama to remember such unimportant items as speedy two-seater cars.
“The car, yes. The car,” she went on, pulling herself together,
“belongs to the man himself.”
“The deuce it does!” commented Mr. Priestley.
“Yes,” said Laura with more confidence. “He used to lend it to me in
the old days. They know me quite well at that garage where he keeps
it; so of course I had no difficulty in getting it last night. You
see, it was only on the spur of the moment that I spoke to you at
all.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, who appeared to be conversing
chiefly in exclamations.
“Yes, I’m afraid I was dreadfully wicked,” Laura said with engaging
candour, and looked dreadfully innocent. “But I was at my wits’ end.
Without a roof to cover me, a penny in my purse, a—oh, I said that
before. By the way, I was wrong about the penny. I had a half-crown. I
used it to pay for our coffees at the Piccadilly Palace. Anyhow, I was
desperate. And I knew that I _must_ get my letters back,
or—unutterable things would happen. Unutterable things,” she added,
pleased with the phrase. “He had already offered them to me—at a
price,” she added further in a low voice, modestly averting her head.
It was a phrase which pleased her even more.
“The abominable scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley, positively puce
about the gills. “I’m—yes, I’m glad I shot him. Thoroughly glad. I was
glad when you told me he was a blackmailer. But now!”
“He deserved it,” said Laura simply, “if ever a man did.”
Once again there was a little pause while Laura congratulated herself
with some heartiness. It was a good story, and it had gone down well.
Besides, she pointed out to herself with conscious altruism, it would
all tend to relieve Mr. Priestley’s mind. It is much less of a burden
to have a death on one’s conscience for which one is extremely glad
than one which calls for remorse and self-surrender.
“This car,” said Mr. Priestley, not quite so happily. “You say they
know you at that garage?”
“Oh, yes; perfectly well.”
“Know your name, and all about you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Then,” said Mr. Priestley very solemnly, “my dear Miss
Spettiman—er—Merrigrew—er——”
“Won’t you call me Laura?” said his companion with timid deference,
but not unhelpfully.
“Thank you, my dear Laura. Yes. Then as I was saying, my dear
Laura—er—Laura, this is very serious indeed. Don’t you see? They’ll
know who took that car, and I am afraid your name is bound to crop up
in connection with the crime. With the accident, I should say.”
“But they won’t know it was taken down to Duffley.”
“Won’t they?” said Mr. Priestley unhappily. “I’m afraid it may come
out. I believe the police are very clever indeed at tracing things.
Probably they are on the look out for its number already. We must
leave nothing to chance. We must abandon it by the road-side.”
“Oh!” said Laura, who did not at all wish to abandon by the road-side
George’s perfectly good and very expensive car.
They stared at each other.
“This is very serious,” said Mr. Priestley again, and looked so
concerned that Laura very nearly told him not to worry because there
wasn’t a word of truth in her whole story. The number of times that
Laura was brought to the brink of revelation, and the number of times
she was jerked back from it just in time were becoming as the sands of
the sea, countless.
This time it was the landlady who assisted in the jerking process,
choosing that moment to enter the room with an armful of newspapers.
“Here you are, sir,” she said cheerfully. “I bought one of each, like
you said.” She beamed at Laura with affectionate solicitude, a beam so
knowing that Laura, who did not naturally blush very easily, coloured
up to the roots of her hair. For a habitual non-blusher, Laura had put
in some very good work since she arrived at Sandersworth.
Fortunately Mr. Priestley was far too intent upon his newspapers to
notice her facial activities.
“I hope the breakfast was satisfactory, mum,” said the landlady,
hovering eloquently.
Mr. Priestley looked up for a moment. “Yes, thank you; we’ll ring when
we want you, Mrs. Er—er—um,” he said in tones of such finality that
the landlady had no option but to take a reluctant departure.
Laura looked at her pseudo-husband with renewed respect. Even she
could not have got rid of the garrulous little woman quite so
expeditiously.
“Well, anything about it?” she asked.
_The Sunday Times_ followed _The Observer_ on to the floor. “Nothing
in either of those two, so far as I can see,” Mr. Priestley muttered,
feverishly scuttering pages.
“Try _The News of the World_,” Laura advised.
Mr. Priestley did so, and added it to the growing heap on the floor.
Two others followed. He opened _The Sunday Courier_.
“God bless my soul!” muttered Mr. Priestley.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley.
“What the devil!” demanded Mr. Priestley, descending abruptly.
“Well, I’ll be _hanged_!” prophesied Mr. Priestley, and relapsed into
awed silence.
“What is it?” almost screamed Laura, dancing in her chair with
impatience.
Mr. Priestley continued to run a hectic eye over the lurid columns and
spoke no word. Lost to the decencies, Laura jumped up and leaned
openly on his shoulder, reading over it with incredulous eyes.
Suddenly she turned, ran a few steps towards the centre of the room,
halted there for a moment with heaving shoulders, her back towards her
startled companion, then buried her face in her hands and fled out of
the room, uttering startling sounds. Mr. Priestley, hurrying in her
wake, was just in time to see her disappearing into the bedroom.
He stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs, much disconcerted;
not very much experience in the art of soothing feminine emotion had
come his way. Did one leave them alone, or did one try and calm them
down? Mr. Priestley was much tempted to leave this one alone, but the
memory of those pathetically heaving shoulders was too much for him.
Heroically he mounted, on soothing bent.
Laura was lying on her face in the middle of the bed, her whole frame
shaking with the most heartrending convulsions. Her face was buried in
the pillow, but she waved a feeble hand towards the door as Mr.
Priestley entered, as if bidding him leave her alone with her grief.
Though terribly tempted to take her at her gesture Mr. Priestley
forced himself forward: He progressed in a tentative way as far as the
bed and stood looking down on its quivering burden.
“Er—Laura!” he hazarded, very uncomfortably.
The hand gestured again. “Go _away_!” beseeched a stifled voice from
the depths of the pillow.
Mr. Priestley laid an uncertain hand on a slim shoulder. “Laura!” he
repeated unhappily. “Er—please don’t cry.”
A fresh spasm shook the slender form. “Oh—oh, _please_ go away!”
choked the voice from the pillow.
Mr. Priestley hesitated. This was really very awkward, very awkward
indeed. But it was too late to draw back now. He had come up here to
soothe, and soothe he must. In the meantime, his heart-strings were
being twanged to a positively painful degree by the pathetic spectacle
of this intense suffering.
“L-Laura!” he squeaked in imploring tones. Nothing happened. “Oh,
dear!” said Mr. Priestley. His heart-strings continued to twang.
It was too much. The vast sympathy which had been flooding Mr.
Priestley’s soul for this poor forlorn little creature suddenly burst
its bounds and swamped his self-consciousness. With nothing more than
the instinctive impulse of the adult to comfort a child in the only
way it really understands, he sat down on the edge of the bed, gently
kissed the white nape and, noticing not at all the resulting very
faint exclamation, gathered the slim frame up into his arms. Its
owner, after a half-hearted attempt to resist, laid her dark head on
his shoulder and there continued to choke.
“There, there!” said Mr. Priestley, patting gingerly. “It’s all right,
my dear, it’s all right.”
For a moment Laura raised a very red face, stained with real tears.
“But—b-but you—you h-haven’t _got_ a b-broken nose!” she articulated
with difficulty, and at once plunged into a further paroxysm, her head
flying back to the shelter of Mr. Priestley’s shoulder like a bird to
its nest.
Somewhat mystified, Mr. Priestley continued his ministrations. Why
exactly the wholeness of his nose should be a source of such poignant
grief to the poor little thing, escaped him for the moment; but the
anguish was only too evident. He patted in silence for a space, then
he rocked.
By degrees Laura grew more calm. She ceased to shake, and disengaged
herself from Mr. Priestley’s soothing arms, still keeping her head
averted. A fresh spasm shook her slightly from time to time, but not
so violently.
“I’m all right now,” she said weakly, scrambling off the bed. “But
please don’t l-look at me.”
“No,” said Mr. Priestley at once; “of course not.” He also rose and
hovered uneasily.
Laura made her way, with somewhat uncertain steps, to the wash-stand,
where she contemplated herself in the mirror with watery eyes. “Oh, my
hat, what a ghastly fright!” was her verdict, and clinging to the
marble edge, she collapsed again.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Mr. Priestley of the wardrobe
opposite, hearing with dismay these renewed sounds of distress behind
him.
“Y-yes, quite,” quavered Laura. “Please go down now. I’ll follow as
soon as I’ve sponged my face. I’m sorry I made such an idiot of
myself. I’m—oh, _dear_, I positively ache all over!” she collapsed
over the wash-stand again.
“I shall be up again to see how you are if you’re not down in five
minutes,” warned Mr. Priestley from the doorway, and made a somewhat
relieved escape.
Just outside the door he all but collided with the landlady, who had a
broom in her hand and an intense expression on her face.
“Oh, sir,” said the landlady at once, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help
but hear, seeing as I was sweeping outside. Poor young lady! If you’ll
take my advice, sir (and no offence meant, I’m sure) you’ll let her
off lightly at first. She’ll love you all the better for it later on.
I’ve been through it meself, and I know.”
Mr. Priestley fled.
“May I go in to do the room now, sir?” the landlady called after him,
a world of emphatic meaning in her penultimate word.
Mr. Priestley fled faster.
In the dining-room was peace. Pulling himself together with an effort,
Mr. Priestley took out a cigarette and proceeded to peruse the
incredible report in the _Sunday Courier_. Eight minutes later, the
cigarette between his fingers still unlighted, he had read it through
three times and still he could hardly believe his eyes.
“Amazing!” he commented aloud, as if to reassure himself that he
really did exist and his voice really would work. “I can hardly credit
it. ‘R. S. P. Doyle.’ That’s Pat Doyle. How on earth does he come to
be mixed up in it?” He referred to the paper again. “‘Happened to be
staying in the neighbourhood.’ Extraordinary coincidence. Whole set of
extraordinary coincidences for that matter. Well, God bless my soul,
what is coming now?”
The entrance of Laura supplied the answer at any rate to his last
question. A rehabilitated, dry-eyed, nose-powdered Laura, very
different from the moaning creature of ten minutes ago.
She began to apologise for her lack of self-control. “But really,” she
added, not without adroitness, “seeing it all in print like that
brought it home to me so forcibly. It seemed like a nightmare this
morning; now I know it really is true. I ought not to have given way,
I know, but I was so frightened. Terribly frightened.” She looked at
him with wide eyes. “Oh, Mr. Priestley, what shall I do?” With a
superhuman effort she refrained from expressing a preference for
Birmingham, and regrets at finding herself in Crewe.
Mr. Priestley removed his pince-nez, polished them vigorously and
replaced them. “Don’t you worry about that, my dear,” he told her,
with a warmth which belied the paternal turn of phrase. “I shall see
to that. You have already placed yourself in my hands. And very proud
and gratified I am at the trust you put in me. Indeed, I have the
glimmerings of a plan already. But I must ask you to read through this
perfectly extraordinary report in the _Sunday Courier_. Incredible!
You’ll see it isn’t at all what you thought at first. Nothing like it.
In fact, I—but read it for yourself.” He placed a chair for her by the
window and gave her the paper.
Laura read the two columns through. That she was able to do so and at
the same time preserve a straight face she reckoned afterwards as
perhaps the greatest of her histrionic feats. But apart from mirth,
there was interest to help her. Obviously the conspirators had seen
their way to improving the situation and, though some of the details
were obscure, she had no difficulty in following the main lines. When
she came to Mr. Reginald Foster’s story and recognised Dora’s
handiwork it was all she could do not to give way again, but the test
was successfully passed.
She held the paper up for a few minutes after she had come to the end,
in order to give herself a thinking-space. Clearly the others hoped
that the report would reach her eyes and expected her to shape her own
end of the business accordingly. But what exactly were they trying to
effect, and what did they want her to do? For the moment the answers
to both these questions eluded her.
She dropped the paper into her lap, with a fitting expression of
amazement.
“You see what must have happened?” said Mr. Priestley eagerly, whose
brain also had not been inactive during this period. “Your schemes
must have conflicted with something else that that scoundrel had on
hand. I gather he was mixed up with this criminal gang led by the Man
with the Broken Nose. They found his body, which, for some obscure
reason of their own, they seem to have removed, and decamped. But why
did that poor girl, who seems to be an unwilling accomplice, refer to
the dead man as the Crown Prince? I don’t understand that at all.”
Nor, in fact, did Laura. The Crown Prince seemed to her the only flaw
in an otherwise perfect case. “Perhaps,” she said, with a flash of
inspiration, “perhaps that was the gang’s name for him, in the same
way as they call their leader the Man with the Broken Nose.”
Mr. Priestley looked his admiration. “Of course! Undoubtedly that must
be it. And to think that the _Sunday Courier_ never tumbled to it!
Very good, indeed, Laura, very good. And now there’s another
extraordinary coincidence. You see that the report is written by a man
named Doyle—R. S. P. Doyle? He’s actually a personal friend of my
own.” Mr. Priestley beamed at this remarkable revelation.
“_No!_” said Laura, properly impressed.
“Yes, indeed he is. And it may be most useful to us, as you can
understand. But about this astonishing story; it appears to me to play
directly into our hands. The police and public and every one else are
looking for a gang; they imagine us, indeed, to be members of the
gang. We are, however, not members of any gang. Surely this is in our
favour?”
“You mean, we shan’t be so easy to trace?”
“Precisely!” Mr. Priestley shone with pleasure both in Laura’s
perspicacity and their combined untraceability.
They went on to discuss the affair with zest. Mr. Priestley was at
first a little confused between the identity of Guy Nesbitt. Esq., and
that of the dead man, till Laura pointed out that the latter was
merely a paying guest for the summer in the former’s house; perfectly
reasonable. Why had he been dressed up in that extraordinary way?
Obviously to take part in some formal ceremony connected with the
gang. Was the scoundrel a foreigner himself, like his associates?
Laura believed he was, though he spoke excellent English; he had what
you might call a foreign look about him. Mr. Priestley agreed that he
had. Was it Laura who had sent the message which drew the Nesbitts
away from the house? No, that was the extraordinary thing, she hadn’t;
she had thought they were going away for the week-end, as their maids
had been given leave of absence. Evidently the message must have been
sent by some member of the gang, probably the dead one, in order to
leave the house clear for their own activities.
In short, it was, as they both agreed, a Very Extraordinary Business.
Mr. Priestley then announced that it was time for them to be leaving
the inn and getting rid of the car, and Laura meekly went upstairs to
put on her hat. Mr. Priestley very unwillingly sought out the landlady
and obtained both his bill, which he wanted, and a great quantity of
useful advice to young husbands, which he didn’t.
They got into the incriminating two-seater and drove off, the landlady
continuing to press them to return each year on this important
anniversary in their lives and she’d turn the place upside-down to
give them a welcome. Mr. Priestley, smiling and nodding uneasily, did
not point out that he much preferred the houses where he was made
welcome to be right way up; the result might be less striking, but it
was much more convenient.
They drove towards Manstead.
Mr. Priestley was of the opinion that the car should be abandoned by
the side of the road. Laura was determined to do nothing of the sort
and said so, emphasising her decision by the argument that this would
inevitably put the police on their trail, whereas the car might lie in
a garage for months without being found. Mr. Priestley was impressed
by this reasoning and acquiesced.
In Manstead, therefore, Laura dropped Mr. Priestley by the station and
drove the car alone to the nearest garage that was open. She told him
that she was doing this in order to lessen the chances of detection,
for while one young woman is very much like another young woman,
because both will inevitably be wearing exactly the same shape of hat
and the same length of skirt, Mr. Priestley was emphatically only like
Mr. Priestley. Laura was, therefore, at liberty to tell the man at the
garage that the car would be called for in a day or two by a large
gentleman answering to the name of Mr. George Howard, who would pay
all dues upon it. Having said this, she thoughtfully added that while
the car was there it might just as well as not have its brakes taken
up a little, its clutch eased, its paintwork washed down and, in
short, a general and comprehensive overhaul, with replacement of all
defective parts. Laura and the garage man then parted, excellent
friends.
Mr. Priestley had taken two tickets to London, and was awaiting his
travelling-companion with feverish impatience. There was a train just
due, and not another for three hours.
They caught it, by the skin of Mr. Priestley’s left shin.
At ease in an empty first-class compartment they were at liberty to
relax and regain their breath, which Mr Priestley did to the
accompaniment of vigorous rubbing of his left shin. Then he replaced
his pince-nez, which had fallen off in the rush, and beamed with
altruistic (or nearly altruistic) benevolence at his protégée.
“About this plan of mine that I mentioned,” beamed Mr. Priestley. “I
never told you about it, did I?”
“No, I don’t believe you did,” politely said Laura, who had also been
making a plan of her own. Laura’s plan was simple. It consisted in
giving Mr. Priestley the slip on the first opportunity after they had
reached London, and taking the first available train back to Duffley.
“Well,” said Mr. Priestley, happily unconscious of this, “what I
propose is that you take up your residence in my rooms, where you can
remain to all intents and purposes in hiding.”
“Oh!” said Laura, somewhat taken aback. “But——”
Mr. Priestley held up a protesting hand. “No, please! I know exactly
what you are going to say. You are a high-spirited girl, and I quite
understand. But it will not be charity at all. I propose also to offer
you the post of private secretary to myself.” And with the triumphant
air of one who has removed all obstacles, Mr. Priestley leaned back in
his corner and smiled happily.
“But,” began Laura again, a little more faintly this time. “But——”
Once more Mr. Priestley held up a hand, now invested with quiet
authority. “I insist,” he said with dignity, “You, yourself, have
conferred the privilege of insistence upon me, and I exercise it. I
insist!”
“Oh!” said Laura feebly. “All right, then. Er—thank you, Mr.
Priestley, very much.”
“If I call you Laura,” Mr. Priestley pointed out with gentle reproof,
“surely you ought to call me Matthew.”
“Thank you, Matthew,” said Laura meekly.
She had not the heart to point out to this engaging babe that it
really is not done to keep young women in bachelor rooms, even with
the most unselfish intentions; nor is it exactly healthy for the said
young woman’s reputation to consent to take up her residence in a
bachelor’s rooms, even through a desire not to hurt the bachelor’s
feelings by refusing to do so. These things did not appear to touch
Mr. Priestley. He was not of the world, worldly; he was of the elect,
a big-hearted infant. And to talk of scandal to infants and put nasty
worldly, prurient ideas into their innocent heads is manifestly no
woman’s job.
But as to what was really going to happen——! Laura shrugged her
shoulders whimsically and looked out of the window. She had asked for
it, and apparently she was getting it. But it was a pity that she did
not appear to be able to invent any story at all which did not recoil
on her own shingled head.
What was she going to do? She shrugged her shoulders again.
Anyhow—it was deadly dull in Duffley.