Blanche who got it for him, in an instant. "Thank you! I'd say more if
my blessing was worth having--but here's something that is. Listen to
this, you American gentleman: I was the man who wrote to him in Naples.
Leave it at that a minute; it was my second letter to him; the first was
to Australia, in answer to one from him. It was the full history of my
downfall. I got a warder to smuggle it out. That letter was my one
chance."
"I know it by heart," said Cazalet. "It was that and nothing else that
made me leave before the shearing."
"To meet me when I came out!" Scruton explained in a hoarse whisper.
"To--to keep me from going straight to that man, as I'd told him I
should in my first letter! But you can't hit these things off to the day
or the week; he'd told me where to write to him on his voyage, and I
wrote to Naples, but that letter did not get smuggled out. My warder
friend had got the sack. I had to put what I'd got to say so that you
could read it two ways. So I told you, Cazalet, I was going straight up
the river for a row--and you can pronounce that two ways. And I said I
hoped I shouldn't break a scull--but there's another way of spelling
that, and it was the other way I meant!" He chuckled grimly. "I wanted
you to lie low and let _me_ lie low if that happened. I wanted just one
man in the world to know I'd done it. But that's how we came to miss
each other, for you timed it to a tick, if you hadn't misread me about
the river."
He drank again, stood straighter, and found a fuller voice.
"Yet I never meant to do it unless he made me, and at the back of my
brain I never thought he would. I thought he'd do something for me,
after all he'd done before! Shall I tell you what he did?"
"Got out his revolver!" cried Cazalet in a voice that was his own
justification as well.
"Pretending it was going to be his check-book!" said Scruton through
his teeth. "But I heard him trying to cock it inside his drawer. There
was his special constable's truncheon hanging on the wall--silver
mounted, for all the world to know how he'd stood up for law and order
in the sight of men! I tell you it was a joy to feel the weight of that
truncheon, and to see the hero of Trafalgar Square fumbling with a thing
he didn't understand! I hit him as hard as God would let me--and the
rest you know--except that I nearly did trip over the man who swore it
was broad daylight at the time!"
He tottered to the folding-doors, and stood there a moment, pointing to
Cazalet with a hand that twitched as terribly as his dreadful face.
"No--the rest you did--the rest you did to save what wasn't worth
saving! But--I think--I'll hold out long enough to thank you--just a
little!" He was gone with a gibbering smile.
Cazalet turned straight to Toye at the other door. "Well? Aren't you
going, too? You were near enough, you see! I'm an accessory all
right"--he dropped his voice--"but I'd be principal if I could instead
of _him_!"
But Toye had come back into the room, twinkling with triumph, even
rubbing his hands. "You didn't see? You didn't see? I never meant to go
at all; it was a bit of bluff to make him own up, and it did, too,
bully!"
The couple gasped.
"You mean to tell me," cried Cazalet, "that you believed my story all
the time?"
"Why, I didn't have a moment's doubt about it!"
Cazalet drew away from the chuckling creature and his crafty glee. But
Blanche came forward and held out her hand.
"Will you forgive me, Mr. Toye?"
"Sure, if I had anything to forgive. It's the other way around, I guess,
and about time I did something to help." He edged up to the
folding-door. "This is a two-man job, Cazalet, the way I make it out.
Guess it's my watch on deck!"
"The other's the way to the police station," said Cazalet densely.
Toye turned solemn on the word. "It's the way to hell, if Miss Blanche
will forgive me! This is more like the other place, thanks to you folks.
Guess I'll leave the angels in charge!"
Angelic or not, the pair were alone at last; and through the doors they
heard a quavering croak of welcome to the rather human god from the
American machine.
"I'm afraid he'll never go back with you to the bush," whispered
Blanche.
"Scruton?"
"Yes."
"I'm afraid, too. But I wanted to take somebody else out, too. I was
trying to say so over a week ago, when we were talking about old Venus
Potts. Blanchie, will you come?"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Thousandth Woman, by Ernest W. Hornung