"And as for that Mrs. Bantam of his, the old frump! _She_ actually swore
that there'd never been a sack in the house! Well, it stands to reason,
if Mr. Egerton borrowed that sack to collect wood in, she _must_ have
seen it, unless he kept it locked up somewhere--and if he did lock it up
somewhere--well, he must have had some funny reason for it...."
Mrs. Vincent shrugged her shoulders expressively.
"So _that_ didn't do him any good--especially as she cheeked the
Coroner."
"And what was the verdict?"
"Oh, the jury were _very_ quick--I only waited ten minutes or so, you
know, just on the chance--and when they came back they said, 'Wilful
murder against somebody unknown'--or something like that. I must say, I
was surprised, because the Coroner was _very_ down on Mr. Egerton--"
"And so were you, I gather," said Mrs. Whittaker, with forced calm; the
Whittakers liked Egerton, and Mrs. Vincent was slowly bringing them to
the boil.
"Well, if you ask me, I really _don't_ think he comes out of it very
well. Of course, I know the jury didn't say anything about him, but--"
"And that being so, Mrs. Vincent, if you will allow me"--Mr. Dimple at
last cast off his judicial detachment; he spoke with his usual
deprecating and kindly air, with a kind of halting fluency that made it
seem as if his sentences would never end--"if you will allow me--er, as
a lawyer--to ah, venture a little advice--that being so, I think one
ought to be careful--not to say anything--which might be--ah,
repeated--by perhaps thoughtless people--of course I know we are all
friends here--and possibly misinterpreted--as a suggestion--that Mr.
Egerton's part in this affair--though I know, of course, that there
were--er--puzzling circumstances--about the evidence--I thought so
myself--that Mr. Egerton's part--was--er--more serious--than one is
entitled strictly to deduce--from the verdict--which _as_ you say--Mrs.
Vincent--did not refer to him directly in any way. You won't mind my
saying so, will you?--but I almost think--"
Mr. Dimple always talked like that. He was a noble little man, with a
thin, peaked, legal countenance and mild eyes that expressed
unutterable kindness and impartiality to the whole world. His natural
benevolence and a long training in the law had produced in him a
complete incapacity for downright censure. His judgments were a tangle
of parentheses; and people said that if he were ever raised to the Bench
his delivery of the death sentence would generate in the condemned
person a positive glow of righteousness and content. He never "thought"
or "said"; he only "almost thought" or "ventured to suggest" or
"hazarded the opinion, subject of course to--" And this, combined with
his habit of parenthesis and periphrasis and polysyllaby (if there is a
word like that), made his utterances of almost unendurable duration. He
was one of those men during whose anecdotes it is almost impossible to
keep awake. Polite people, who knew him well and honoured him for the
goodness of his heart and the charity of his life, sometimes rebuked
themselves because of this failure, and swore to be better when they met
him again. At the beginning of a story (and he had many) they would say
to themselves firmly, "I will keep awake during the whole of this
anecdote; I will attend to the very end; I will understand it and laugh
sincerely about it." Then Mr. Dimple would ramble off into his genial
forest of qualifications and brackets, and the minds of his hearers
immediately left him; they thought of their homes, or their work, or
the food they were eating, or of the clothes of some other person, or of
some story they intended to tell when Mr. Dimple had done; and they came
suddenly out of their dreams, to find Mr. Dimple yet labouring onward to
his climax; and they said, with shame and mortification, "I have failed
again," and laughed very heartily at the wrong moment.
Yet people loved Mr. Dimple; and if it was impossible sometimes to
deduce from what he actually said what it was he actually thought, one
was often able to make a good guess on the assumption that he never
wittingly said anything cruel or unkind or even mildly censorious to or
about anybody.
Mr. Whittaker knew this, and he interrupted with:
"Thank you, Dimple--I thoroughly agree with you--but I don't think you
go nearly far enough." He stood up, looking very severely at Mrs.
Vincent. "I think it's _disgusting_ to say such things about a
man--especially about a man like Egerton. I think we ought to get home
now, Dorothy. Good night, Mrs. Petway."
Mrs. Petway spluttered feebly, but was unable to utter. The Whittakers
departed, trailing clouds of anger.
Mrs. Vincent assumed an air of injury.
"Well, my dear, I'm sure I'm sorry if I said anything to upset them,
but really--Of course, I know I don't understand the _law_, Mr. Dimple,
and I don't want to be unfair to any man, but one must use one's common
sense, and what I think is that Mr. Egerton made away with that poor
girl, and that's all about it."
She looked defiantly at Mr. Dimple. Mr. Dimple opened his mouth and shut
it again. Then he went away.