Various People Get Busy
Colonel Ratcliffe straightened himself up from the last footprint with
a sigh of relief; he was no longer as young as he had been, and
continuous stooping is a little arduous for a frame, however dapper,
that is beginning to stiffen. He threw a thoughtful glance round and
his eye kindled.
“Not a word about this to anybody, mind, Cottingham,” he remarked now
to the Inspector at his side. “No, sir,” said the crestfallen
Inspector. The Colonel had been careful not to rub things in too much,
but Inspector Cottingham was a disillusioned man. The revenge for
which he was thirsting would have surprised the intimates of this
hitherto genial policeman; it was nothing less than that the authors
of his ignominy should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and that
Inspector Cottingham might be granted official permission to dance on
their graves.
“We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do about ft first,” continued
the Colonel. “The blighter! Gad, I should never have thought he’d got
it in him.”
“Neither should I, sir,” agreed the Inspector mournfully.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, by Jove! And there was that
newspaper feller with the whole story under his eyes, if only he’d had
the gumption to read it. You know, Cottingham, I seriously suspected
those two at first, Doyle and Nesbitt; I did really. Until we found
that bit of paper at the cross-roads, in fact. I was certain we were
on a wild-goose chase over that; thought it was just a faked-up tale.
And I admit that not for one moment did I expect that blood to be
anything but chicken’s.”
“Yes, sir; we were all taken in at one time,” said the Inspector,
neatly including his chief in the general obtuseness. “And if I hadn’t
traced the ownership of that bit of paper,” he added carefully, “we’d
all be in the dark still.”
“That’s right, Cottingham,” said the Colonel, ever generous. Far too
generous, for instance, than to refer to a certain handkerchief whose
damning initials had first put them on their present tack. “You did
very well there; very well indeed. You know, now one comes to think of
it, I can’t imagine why we ever paid any serious attention to the
man’s story at all. Far too wild. Crown Prince, indeed! And never even
arranging a sound _alibi_ for his movements that evening. Why, the
thing was obviously a hoax on the face of it, if we’d only had our
wits about us.” The way the Colonel used the first person plural
instead of the second was kindness itself.
“But what about the couple Graves saw?” asked the Inspector, shifting
the conversation away from this awkward topic. “And the corpse, for
the matter of that? In that case there must have been three others in
it beside Mr. Foster.”
“That’s right, there must have been. Mind you, Cottingham, I don’t
imagine that the thing was planned with the intention of deceiving us.
Graves’ intervention seems to me purely fortuitous. I shouldn’t be
surprised if it wasn’t all directed against the Nesbitts; or even
against that fellow who was in the room with the girl. She was in it
all right. That’s how the thing looks to me.”
“Well, there might be something in that, sir, yes,” conceded the
Inspector handsomely.
The Colonel lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the river.
“Still, it’s impossible to say either way yet. We must hear what this
blighter Foster’s got to say for himself; ought not to be difficult to
get him to give himself away. We’ll do that this afternoon.”
Colonel Ratcliffe was no fool. His reasoning had been sound and, up to
a point, perfectly correct. But unfortunately, the two brains pitted
against his were just a shade shrewder; they also had the advantage of
being perfectly unscrupulous. It was these two facts which caused the
Colonel’s reasoning to deflect from the line of correctness and come
to an end at the person of Reginald Foster, Esq.
He began to stroll towards the road. “You know, Cottingham,” he
remarked, “I don’t really know what we’re going to do with this feller
Foster. We could arrest him, I suppose, and charge him with contempt
of police or something like that; but we’d only make laughing-stocks
of ourselves if we did. So far as I can see what we’d better do is to
frighten him out of his wits and let him go. I fancy _The Courier_ and
Doyle between them will see to it that he doesn’t get off too
lightly.”
If the Inspector was going to protest vehemently against this proposed
clemency, or if he then and there violently made up his mind to be no
party to it, he gave no sign at the moment, for two figures had
suddenly sprung into sight in the gateway between the two gardens, and
were now leisurely strolling towards them. Mr. Doyle and Guy had
indeed been at some pains, by means of a careful watch maintained for
nearly an hour, to choose this particular moment to learn the result
of their venture.
“Good-morning, Colonel,” Guy began politely. “Well, any news?”
The Colonel looked as innocent as a new-born infant. “News?” he
repeated, as if not quite sure what the word meant.
Guy was much too cunning himself to introduce the subject of
footprints. He said nothing.
“Would you rather I retired, Colonel?” smiled Doyle. “I know that all
official persons seem to have a good deal of difficulty in talking in
my presence. It’s a rotten business being a journalist. Everybody
treats one with suspicion.”
The Colonel laughed. “Well, I’m afraid I haven’t anything in the way
of news to tell you, officially or unofficially.”
“Nothing I can pass on to _The Courier_ at all? Oh, come, Colonel; try
and think of something. I shall get the sack if I don’t send them
something startling to-day, you know. A sensation a day makes _The
Courier_ pay, is their motto.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” said the Colonel, his eyes twinkling, “you
can tell them this, that the police are confident of solving the
mystery within twenty-four hours. That ought to keep them going for a
bit.”
“Then you have got some news, sir?” Mr. Doyle cried with admirable
eagerness. “You haven’t unearthed some fresh clues, by any chance,
have you?”
The Colonel’s eyes twinkled again. “Go and look in the garden where
we’ve been all the morning. Your eyes are as good as ours. By the way,
all sorts of people are taking a hand in solving this mystery. Your
brother-in-law is the latest recruit, Nesbitt.”
“Alan? Yes, he’s as keen as mustard. He came to me this morning full
of some ridiculous story. I gather that he’s decided that the Man with
the Broken Nose is Mr. Foster. Why don’t you put that in _The
Courier_, Doyle?”
Both laughed with considerable amusement. The Colonel laughed too.
Then Guy offered the Colonel an appetiser before lunch, which the
latter (to Inspector Cottingham’s patent regret) refused, and they
parted.
“He’s swallowed it,” Doyle whispered happily, as the two of them
continued their nonchalant stroll towards the house. “I’m certain he
has.”
“Yes, I think we can write that off as another success,” agreed Guy,
quivering with joy. “I knew that if he didn’t comment on my remarks
about Alan, it would be because he took his story seriously.”
“What a thing it is to be a psychologist!” said Mr. Doyle, with proper
admiration.
They passed indoors and refreshed themselves with the appetisers
declined by the Colonel.
As they passed in, Alan, timing things to a nicety, passed out. He
pounded down the road in the wake of the Colonel, uttering subdued
cries.
“Hullo?” said the Colonel, stopping. “What’s the matter, Spence?”
Alan pounded up, very red and breathless. “I’ve got him!” he
announced. “He’s—oof!—locked in the celler—oof! I say, are you going
to arrest him?”
An unholy smile appeared on the Colonel’s face. “Is it a nice cellar,
Spence?” he asked gently.
“No, a bit damp, you know; so near the river. My sister says it was
flooded last month.”
“But not now?” said the Colonel, with regret. “Never mind; it’ll do.
No, I’m not going to arrest him now. I’ll come back and see him later
in the day. In the meantime—well, I think he might stay there, don’t
you?”
Alan grinned. “I won’t let him out. But he’ll make a hell of a noise,
won’t he?”
“I doubt it. But if he does, you can tell your brother-in-law that
I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing his cellar for a few hours, and I
should be obliged if he would consider it commandeered for that time
in the name of the law. It’s quite illegal, but I fancy he won’t
mind.”
“Right-ho, I’ll tell him. I say, here’s the key.”
The Colonel pouched it, and uttered words of commendation and high
praise. Thoroughly pleased with each other, they parted.
Alan delivered his message to Guy with considerable satisfaction. The
burden of his remarks ran jubilantly along the lines of “I told you
so.”
Guy had already taken the precaution of telegraphing instructions to
both his maids to prolong their holiday till further notice—orders
which both those ladies received with profound regret; never can
English servants have been so anxious to get on with the job for which
they were being paid as Guy’s cook and parlourmaid that Monday
morning.
Lunch was therefore taken at George’s house, Mr. Doyle acting as host.
George and Monica failed to put in an appearance; Dora was still
mysteriously absent. It cannot be said that Mr. Doyle was unduly
worried about his fiancée, but he did express a little mild wonderment
as to what in the name of all that was holy she could be up to now. If
he had known that what she was up to was the roof of a stout
tool-shed, it is to be feared that his wonderment would have given
place to indecorous mirth.
For Dora had spent a dull morning.
When at first Mr. Foster did not return she was not alarmed, and
stretched herself on the convenient camp-bed the better to enjoy the
full flavour of her jest. It was annoying that her jailer should have
thought it necessary to lock her in, but she had no anxiety as to her
final escape when the time should arrive. She was still in a recumbent
position when, some twenty minutes later, she heard, not without
relief, stealthy footsteps approaching.
The tool-shed was, for its kind, a well-lighted structure. There were
two windows, both small but comparatively free from dust, in each side
fronting the garden, so that the light, entering in two different
directions, was well diffused. The footsteps stopped by the door, and
for a few moments there was an unaccountable silence. Then, looking
up, Dora became aware of a face peering in at one of the windows. It
was a nondescript sort of face, of the female genus, and it wore an
indescribable expression. Startled by this unexpected appearance, Dora
lifted herself on one elbow and stared at the face. The face stared
back. Having stared its full it withdrew, and footsteps an instant
later showed that its owner was taking it back to the house very much
more quickly than she had brought it.
“Well, I’ll be bothered!” said Miss Dora Howard.
She remained bothered, on her back, for another half-hour, until her
wrist-watch showed that it was past one o’clock. Then she began to
prowl round her prison, her soul filled with dark thoughts about Mr.
Foster. Unconscious that at the same moment he also was prowling round
a prison, and a much more repellent one at that, she was now very much
less sure of her success with that gentleman. Either he had seen
through her and was now fitting her punishment to her crime, or else
he simply considered that by providing her with food and bedding and a
stout locked door, he had done quite enough for her for the time
being. In either case the outlook was not bright. She went on
prowling.
At a quarter to two she gave up the walls and door as hopeless for a
poor weak woman, even armed with a hoe. The windows were two small to
bother with, so she mounted on the wheelbarrow to examine the roof.
The roof was composed of far too many stout rafters covered with much
too much corrugated iron. At a quarter-past two she had managed, with
the aid of the hoe, a fork, and a piece of the broken dibber, to slide
a piece of the latter far enough down the slope to enable her to
protrude her head tortoise-like through the aperture and survey the
outer world, her shoulders pressed against the rafters; farther than
that the wretched thing refused to budge.
At half-past two a small boy and a dog went by along the lane; at
twenty minutes to three two old women. After these the stream of
traffic ran dry.
At ten minutes to four George and Monica were approaching the main
road at Duffley, when a subdued shriek on their right engaged their
attention. George, avoiding the ditch by a millimetre as the car
swerved violently on seeing the head of one of its mistresses
protruding from the middle of a corrugated roof, came to a standstill.
There are times when it is singularly useful to be a man. It took
George just ninety-eight seconds to swing himself up on to the
tool-house roof and rip off the obstinate strip of corrugated iron,
and another twenty-three to haul Dora up by her wrists between the
rafters. Looking down at the latter afterwards, George wondered how
the deuce he had been able to squeeze her between them. So did Dora.
She got into the car a little pensively. Monica, who had been torn
between the respect due to a real actress on the real stage and a
violent inclination to begin laughing hopelessly and go on laughing
for ever, just managed to conquer her desires.
As George was steering the car through his own gates a few moments
later, he remarked very airily: “By the way, Dawks, you needn’t bother
about Monica. Er—knowing things, you know. I told her.”
“It certainly does save a lot of trouble,” Dora agreed.
“I think it’s a frightful rag,” Monica giggled.
“Do you? But you haven’t been spending the morning in Mr. Foster’s
tool-shed. Well, I must fly. We’ve just time for a cup of tea before
we start, George.”
George looked at Monica a little wistfully. “I suppose you’d really
better not go by train?” he asked his sister.
“Certainly not,” said Dora, who much preferred cars to trains.
George reddened somewhat and bent to fumble quite unnecessarily with
the petrol-tap. “Wouldn’t care to come up, too, Monica?” he remarked
gruffly. “Keep me company coming back and all that? Bit too late for
you, eh?”
“Oh, George, you angel! I’d love it. I was simply longing to be asked,
but thought you wouldn’t want me as well as the others.”
George’s red area extended to the back of his ears. “What rot. Why
ever not? That’s settled then. Good.” He caught his sister’s quivering
eye and looked hastily away. George hated being winked at when he was
red.
Not unintrigued, Dora ran into the house. Between the first and last
of the dozen odd steps she took she had considered Monica’s
advisability as a wife for George, decided whole-heartedly in favour
of her, got them engaged, helped them choose their furniture, married
them, despatched them on their honeymoon, and gone to dinner with Pat
with them a year later. Women have nimble minds.
Twenty minutes later the car and its complement departed.
Guy walked back to Dell Cottage with a distinctly flat feeling. True,
Mr. Foster was still in its cellars, which was a pleasing thought; but
a joke loses most of its savour when there is nobody to share it with.
Goodness knew when Cynthia would be back, and it was obviously
impossible to say anything to Alan.
As if in answer to his prayer for company, he saw the Inspector and
Colonel Ratcliffe enter his front garden as he reached the house, and
hurried round to meet them.
“Whatever’s happening now, Colonel?” he greeted that gentleman, with a
nod to the Inspector. “Alan tells me you’ve got Mr. Foster of all
people shut up in my cellar. Why?”
The Colonel grinned like a schoolboy. Now that he had penetrated the
mystery he was as ready to enjoy its joke as any one; but he was
determined that Mr. Foster was not going to get away with it
unscathed. He was quite looking forward to the next half-hour.
“Why have I kept Mr. Foster locked up in your cellar, Nesbitt?” he
said. “For the good of his soul. I’m now going to have an interview
with the gentleman. If you’d care to be present, I think you might be
interested.”
“Good Heavens!” Guy cried, with praiseworthy ingenuousness. “You don’t
think he actually had anything to do with it, do you?”
The Colonel looked at his frank, bewildered countenance and grinned
again. Funny how he’d suspected Nesbitt first of all; any one could
see now that he was as innocent as a babe. Scholarly sort of chap, he
looked; not a bit the kind to plan an elaborate hoax of this kind. But
just the sort of chap, on the other hand, to have an elaborate hoax
played on him.
“Lead on to the cellar, there’s a good chap,” grinned the Colonel.
With a puzzled shrug, Guy led on; Colonel Ratcliffe and the Inspector
followed; a palpitating Alan brought up the rear. Guy opened the
cellar door and instantly, like a jack from its box, a round black
figure shot out, exuding coal-dust at every pore and buzzing like an
angry wasp.
“What the devil . . . unwarrantable outrage . . . have the law . . .
police . . . gross abuse of . . .” buzzed the figure.
The Colonel dealt sharply and efficiently with the buzz. “Now then,
Mr. Foster,” he barked, in the voice which had made a Guards battalion
quiver in its buttons, “that’ll do. If you’ve anything to say, kindly
say it to me.”
Mr. Foster was not a Guards battalion. He quivered, certainly, but for
quite another reason. Arresting his coal-dusty progress half-way up
the stairs he complied with the Colonel’s invitation at some length.
“I’ve a good deal to say, sir,” spluttered Mr. Foster, and went on to
prove the truth of his words.
He might have gone on proving them all night had not the Colonel cut
him short once more. “That’s enough, Foster,” said the Colonel. “The
game’s up. We know all about you. Come upstairs.”
Mr. Foster came, as gently as any sucking-pig. Into his mind had
flashed a horrible realisation—they had discovered that girl in his
tool-shed and were going to arrest him for sheltering a murderess! He
was—what was the phrase? Yes, an accessory after the fact. And
accessories after facts, Mr. Foster had an uncomfortable notion, were
just as guilty in the eyes of the law as the principals. Disturbing
thought—if they hanged that girl they would probably hang him too! Mr.
Foster felt very sorry for the girl, but he felt still more sorry for
Mr. Foster. By the time the little party reached the scullery, whither
they led him out of consideration for the rest of Guy’s house, Mr.
Foster was quite certain that he was going to be hanged. He simply
hated the idea.
“Now then,” barked the Colonel, as the circle closed round Mr. Foster
in the scullery. “Now then, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“N-nothing,” quavered the moribund Mr. Foster, and exuded a small
shower of coal-dust from his clothes by way of emphasis.
“Ah!” said the Colonel. “You admit it, then, do you?”
“Y-yes,” trembled Mr. Foster. Since they knew all about it, he might
just as well. He would not have admitted that he was covered with
coal-dust had he seen any hope in denying it, but as they must have
heard the girl’s story, and checked its truth by the nightgown, the
camp outfit, and the cook’s evidence about food conveyed out of her
larder that morning, he could see no earthly point in refusing to
acknowledge his guilt. Perhaps, on the other hand, if he threw himself
on their mercy, they might be more lenient.
Guy was puzzled. He had the best of reasons for knowing that Mr.
Foster had not committed the crime to which he was apparently
confessing. What was the idea, then? He brightened. The nature of the
crime had not been mentioned as yet, so that quite possibly Mr. Foster
did not know of what he was accused. In that case he must be
confessing to some totally different crime. Guy’s delighted smile
broadened. What had the terrible fellow been up to? Embezzlement?
Arson? Falsifying his income-tax return? Buying cigarettes after
hours? Something devilish, no doubt.
“Inspector,” said the Colonel in a voice of iron, “do your duty.”
The Inspector stepped forward. He knew what to do, because the Colonel
had been rehearsing him for most of the afternoon. His little job was
to go as near to arresting Mr. Foster as one might without actually
putting him under arrest. He frowned terrifically, both to intimidate
his now abject victim and because he had suddenly and completely
forgotten the neat little speech which the Colonel had been at some
pains to compose for him.
“Reginald Foster,” he said portentously, and frowned again, “Reginald
Foster, you——” No, it was no use. “Reginald Foster, you
comealongerme!” said the Inspector with the utmost ferocity. “And I
warn you that everythink you say will be used in evidence against
you,” he added perfunctorily and not altogether correctly.
Guy turned hastily away to screen his face, and Mr. Foster looked
pathetically from one to the other of his captors. Was it _very_
unpleasant, being hanged? And how upsetting for Agatha. In the
background Alan hovered ecstatically.
With an effort Guy regained control of his face and voice.
“Are you going to arrest him?” he managed to ask the Colonel.
The Colonel did not reply directly. “Take him away, Inspector,” he
said first in an official voice, and watched their progress out of the
back door. Then he turned to Guy. “That friend of yours, _The Courier_
man, Doyle, he’s gone back to London, hasn’t he?” he asked, with
apparent irrelevance.
“Yes,” said Guy, somewhat mystified.
“Well, if you’re in communication with him tell him about this little
scene by all means, but at the same time tell him not to use it in
_The Courier_.”
“Not to use it?” repeated Guy, now completely bewildered.
“Yes, he’ll thank me for it later. It’s—well, you can say I want it
kept secret, and you can add that that’s an order. If I’m not very
much surprised he’ll understand.”
“Will he?” said Guy, who was not inclined to agree.
The Colonel was half-way to the door. He turned back for a moment. “If
he doesn’t,” he added over his shoulder, “you can tell him also
‘Because of the Crown Prince.’” And suppressing a chuckle, the Colonel
vanished after the Inspector and Mr. Foster.
On second thoughts the Colonel had decided to say nothing to Guy about
the whole business being a hoax. He would have to think things over a
little more officially first before allowing the news to be
promulgated that the police had been trapped into investigating a
mare’s nest for the last forty-eight hours; and perhaps he had better
consult a magistrate in Abingchester too. Colonel Ratcliffe had not
held the post of Chief Constable very long, and he was uncertain as to
the correct method of procedure on discovering his official leg, and
the official legs of those under him, to have been successfully
pulled.
Guy stared after him. The Colonel’s manner had been mysterious in the
extreme. He seemed to have no doubt of Mr. Foster’s guilt, but why had
he given that order about not mentioning the arrest in _The Courier_?
Decidedly he had given the impression that there was a good deal more
in his mind than he was willing to speak about. Guy rubbed his chin.
_What_ was in the Colonel’s mind?
He took a half-step in the direction of the hall and the telephone,
then halted again. It was no good ringing up _The Courier_ offices and
leaving a message. Doyle had said that he would be in the building
from nine to ten, in case anything happened; he would wait till then.
And one thing was very certain: Doyle would have to come back to
Duffley to-morrow morning as early as possible, whether _The Courier_
wanted him to do so or not. Something was in the wind, and the two of
them had got to lay their heads together and find out what it was.
In the meantime there was this matter of Mr. Foster’s arrest. Not in
his wildest dreams had Guy ever expected Mr. Foster to be arrested.
Until a body is forthcoming, surely an arrest for murder cannot be
effected; Guy was not very sure on the point, but certainly that was
his impression. What, then, was the Colonel’s game? What, moreover,
had Foster been confessing to?
With knitted brows Guy walked into his library and threw himself into
a chair to think things out. Either the scheme was being successful
beyond all hopes, or else a nasty snag had made its appearance
somewhere. He wondered which it was.
In the meantime the objects of his earnest thought were walking along
the road, followed by Alan’s eager eyes, like Jezebel’s from an upper
window. They walked slowly, for all three had plenty to think about,
and in silence. Two hundred yards or more had been covered before the
Colonel gave tongue.
“You know, Foster,” he remarked, with more of the easy chattiness of
the victor to the vanquished than he had hitherto displayed, “you
know, it was that note that really gave you away. What on earth made
you write it on your own note-paper?”
Mr. Foster raised dull eyes from an inward contemplation of last
breakfasts and clergyman’s ministrations. “What note?” he asked
apathetically.
“That note you wrote Nesbitt, of course, to get him away from the
house. By the way, who was the girl?”
“I don’t know,” mourned Mr. Foster.
“You don’t know?” repeated the Colonel incredulously.
“No, I’d never even asked her her name.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
“What was that you said about a note?” asked Mr. Foster after a little
pause. “I never wrote a note to Nesbitt.”
“Don’t be funny,” snapped the Colonel.
“I wasn’t,” replied Mr. Foster humbly, registering a mental memorandum
that denying the authorship of notes he hadn’t written was considered
humorous.
There was another little silence.
“Well,” said the Colonel, “got any reason why I shouldn’t have you
clapped into jail, Foster, eh?”
Mr. Foster’s face brightened under its coal. Had he a chance after
all?
“I—I didn’t know I was doing wrong,” he said eagerly. “She told me she
meant to reform, you see. I wasn’t exactly sheltering her from the
law: only from those scoundrels who were after her. I—I thought it
right to do so. Of course,” added Mr. Foster virtuously, “I was going
to inform the police when the danger was over, that is, in an hour or
two. I—I know my duty as a citizen, I hope. Especially after she’d
actually confessed to the murder. That’s what makes it so unfair, I
think, arresting me too. If you’d only given me time you’d have heard
from me all about it.” In his anxiety to escape the dock himself Mr.
Foster had no compunction in pushing his recent visitor more securely
inside it.
“What the blazes are you talking about?” demanded the Colonel blankly.
The Inspector drew out his notebook and looked official.
“The girl you found in my tool-shed,” said Mr. Foster, with some
surprise. “I assure you there was no previous arrangement. I was as
astonished when I saw her looking over my fence this morning as you
would have been.”
The Colonel was no fool. He knew that cross-purposes had crept into
the conversation somehow, and he was not going to give his own case
away. “Tell me the whole story in your own words, from the very
beginning,” he said curtly.
Mr. Foster told it.
The Colonel listened with increasing astonishment. Either this man was
the most plausible scoundrel unhanged, or else he was the biggest fool
unstrangled. As the story proceeded, the Colonel inclined to the
latter explanation. The idiot’s words rang true; he did not sound as
if he were inventing his tale, the details were convincing. Good Gad!
“Well, we’ll soon see if you’re speaking the truth,” he said, when Mr.
Foster’s bleating accents had come to an end almost at his own front
door. “Take us to this tool-shed of yours and let’s have a look at
this girl.”
“But—but haven’t you arrested her?” stammered Mr. Foster.
“Never you mind what I’ve done or what I haven’t,” replied the Colonel
gruffly.
In a state of mental chaos Mr. Foster led them to the tool-shed,
produced the key and automatically unlocked the door. No girl was
there. A strip of twilit sky visible through the roof, however, showed
where a girl, a very slim girl, might possibly have been. Around them
stood camp bedding, a muddy nightgown, pieces of bread and a burnt
sausage, mute witnesses to Mr. Foster’s veracity.
“She’s gone,” said Mr. Foster, inspired.
Against his will the Colonel was almost convinced. There and then,
among the camp bedding, the muddy nightgown and the burnt sausage, he
questioned Mr. Foster at considerable length, and the answers he
obtained completed his conversion. He had been wrong: the man was only
a consummate ass. Then in that case. . . . The Colonel’s eye grew grim
and his brow darkened. In _that_ case. . . .
“Describe this girl as closely as you can,” he ordered.
It is surprising how misleading a perfectly accurate description may
be. Dora Howard and Cynthia Nesbitt were not in the slightest degree
alike. Mr. Foster gave a very fair working description of Dora; the
Colonel received a perfect impression of Cynthia.
“You know Mrs. Nesbitt, don’t you?” he asked casually, when the
perfect impression was complete.
“No,” said Mr. Foster, with mild surprise at the irrelevance. “I
believe my wife’s called on her, and I know Nesbitt at the club, of
course, but I’ve never met his wife personally. Why?”
“Nothing!” snapped the Colonel, and took a curt departure. Colonel
Ratcliffe was in a very bad temper indeed.
It was unfortunate that his way took him past the station at the very
moment when Cynthia was leaving it on her return from London. He
crossed the road and dabbed at his hat as if grudging the courtesy of
removing it.
“Evening, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he said, on the impulse of the moment. “Will
you come over to the police-station, please?”
“Certainly,” Cynthia agreed charmingly. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Jolly good mind to,” growled the Colonel, who was not going to beat
about bushes any longer. “I’ll pay you one compliment, though, Mrs.
Nesbitt. You don’t look as if you’d been spending the day in a
tool-shed and scrambled out through the roof, I must say.”
“What!” exclaimed the astonished Cynthia, who had anticipated certain
unpleasant topics of conversation but certainly not tool-sheds.
“You look,” amplified the Colonel, making his point clearer, “as if
you’d just come back from a day in London.”
“But that’s just what I have done!”
“What!” exclaimed the Colonel in his turn.
Cynthia amplified her own point. Seeing that the Colonel looked
sceptical, she led him into the station and produced for him
unimpeachable evidence, in the shape of a grinning
porter-ticket-inspector, that she really had left Duffley on the 9.47
train for London, and returned on the 6.19.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said the Colonel.
“Don’t you think you’d better tell me exactly what was in your mind?”
Cynthia asked gently, and smiled at him.
The Colonel hesitated, took another look at the smile, then led her
out into the road and told her.
“Poor Mr. Foster,” said Cynthia, her lips twitching. “And now,
Colonel, I think you’d better take me along to that police-station of
yours. I want to talk to you a little, and I can’t very well do it
here.” She smiled at him again.
The Colonel took her. He led her into the Inspector’s room and ejected
that worthy into the company of Constable Graves. He put Cynthia into
the best chair and smiled at her. Cynthia smiled back.
Then Cynthia talked, and as she talked she smiled. The Colonel grew as
wax before her, and the more Cynthia smiled the more the Colonel
melted. In a quarter of an hour he was a deliquescent mass, promising
impossible things in all directions.
“And you really ought to apologise to Mr. Foster, you know,” smiled
Cynthia, as she rose at last to go.
The Colonel even promised this. “Damn it, I’ll do it this evening,”
said the deliquescent Colonel.
It is quite certain that he really meant to do so too, at the moment.
Fortunately, however, for his official dignity, a circumstance had
already arisen which was to make it impossible for this particular
promise to be fulfilled. At the very moment when the Colonel was
giving utterance to it Mr. Foster was standing in his big double
bedroom with a dazed expression on his face and a letter in his hand.
The letter was of considerable length. It was from Mrs. Foster and in
it she had seen fit to give expression to all the thoughts about her
husband which had crowded her bosom for the last twenty years; there
had been a good many such thoughts, and Mrs. Foster had done her
conscientious best not to omit a single one. The result would have
been surprising to a complete stranger; to Mr. Foster it was
paralysing.
But not so paralysing as the end of this remarkable effusion. The end
ran as follows:—
“All this I’ve put up with, because I knew it only arose out of your
inordinate conceit, self-satisfaction, and egotism, and was not
really based on wickedness. But when it comes to your keeping a
mistress in a tool-shed at the bottom of the garden, then things
have reached their limit. Thanks to the money you have settled on me
from time to time, I am financially independent. I am therefore
leaving you for good and going up to London at once. Don’t try to
follow me, because you won’t find me, and in any case I never want
to set eyes on you again. Even if you do find me, nothing will ever
induce me to live with you again, and if you want me to divorce you
so that you can marry your mistress, I shall only be too delighted
to do so; you can communicate with me, on that subject only, through
our solicitors —Agatha.”