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Challoner flushed again—a fine, deep warm crimson, this time. Touched.
‘You think I’m piling it on, Wick, because I don’t like the chap.’
‘Great Heavens, no.’
‘Yes, you do. I can see you do. But by God I’ll, tell you this much—if you knew what I know about Barrington—if he had tried to do to you what he has tried to do to me—if you had even an idea of the kind of blackguard that fellow is—you’d take a chance and do him in. I’m not joking. I’m not joking, Wick. I give you my solemn word—if I had the chance now, this moment, to blot him out—safely—to rid that dear little girl whose life with him is—’
He broke off abruptly, let the big clenched hand which he had shaken angrily, drop to his side, walked to the door of the room and came back.
‘I’m talking a lot, old chap,’ he said, with an unsuccessful attempt at a smile. ‘Too much. I know what I’ve said won’t go beyond you. It isn’t that I should be afraid to say anything I’ve said to you now to Barrington’s face any time—if it was merely a question of thinking of myself. But … he’d take it out of other people—if he heard. Just wash out what I’ve said. I’m a bit on the raw edge tonight.’
Gore rose.
‘I believe you’ve known me for some little time, young fellah,’ he said with mild reproach. ‘Now, get to bed. You’ve been thinking too much, young Bertie. You were never meant for that sort of thing. Night-night.’
Challoner eyed him moodily for a moment.
‘Well, I’m damn glad to see you again, anyhow,’ he said at length. ‘I’ll walk down to the end of the road with you.’
They sauntered down Selkirk Place in the fog, arranging a morning’s golf. Challoner’s two-seater had gone into dock that afternoon with a big-end gone, he explained; but any of the boys would run them out the three miles to Flax ways.
‘Thursday, then. I’ll pick you up at the Riverside. There—’ He took a hand from a trousers-pocket to wave it resentfully towards the red-brick building in front of them. ‘Just to give you an idea of the sort of swine Barrington is. There’s a little girl who looks after that bar down there. You may have seen her about the Riverside … Rather a pretty little thing—?’
‘Miss Rodney?’
‘Yes. That’s her name. Betty Rodney. Brains of a chicken, but not a bad little thing if chaps like Barrington would leave her alone. Well … mind, this is quite between ourselves. I just happen to know. He has got that poor little kid into trouble. That’s the sort of cur he is. I used to notice him hanging about round here late at night … I noticed his car first. He used to leave it just about here—I wondered what the devil he was up to at first, until one night, about a month ago, I heard him whistling up at her window. She sleeps over the bar, you see. And she came to that side-door and let him in. Silly little idiot. I believe she was to have been married to some chap or other, before Barrington came along and cut in. Now—well, I expect that’s off now. Suppose they’ll fire her from the Riverside, too, when they find out.’
‘Oh,’ said Gore, ‘so that’s the sort of gentleman Mr Barrington is. That’s very interesting. You’re quite sure about this girl, Bertie?’
Challoner laughed impatiently.
‘Sure? I bet she’s expecting him now. That’s her window where the light is. It’s always lighted up the nights he comes along.’ He laughed sardonically. ‘Though she won’t see him tonight, I fancy. Oh, yes. I’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on Mr Barrington lately. I know what I’m talking about. Look here. If you don’t believe me—I’ll whistle under that window now. You’ll see what happens. I know what I’m talking about, believe me.’
‘My dear Bertie, I’ll take your word for it—’
‘No. I just want you to see for yourself. Get out of sight though. She’ll look out of the window when she hears the whistle. I want her to come down to the door. Let’s stand here. She can’t see us here from the window.’
His big hands urged the reluctant Gore into the angle formed by the railings of the section of the Green abutting on the hotel-grounds and one of the pillars of the gates admitting to them. Then he whistled softly. A large, very wet drop fell from an overhanging branch upon the nape of Gore’s neck and descended inside his collar. The dead leaves collected under the trees inside the railings and in the angle of the roadway by the gates emitted an odour of dismal dankness. The trunks of the trees looked disagreeably slimy. The fog smelt and tasted of decaying vegetation. One of Gore’s still new evening-shoes had pinched him a good deal during the evening and was pinching him quite uncomfortably now. Its toe stirred a little mound of leaves collected against the foot of the gate-pillar with some impatience.
‘Gone to bed and forgotten to switch off her light, old chap,’ he said. ‘Serve us right. Let’s get to bed.’
A small glistening object, revealed by the disturbance of the leaves at his feet, had attracted his attention—the vague attention of a sleepy man awaiting against his will the dénouement of a rather silly practical joke. As he stooped idly to pick it up, he heard the door beside the bar open cautiously and straightened himself again as Miss Rodney came into sight round the angle of the wall and halted abruptly upon perceiving him and his companion.
Challoner smiled at her grimly.
‘Good-night, Miss Rodney. Not in bed yet?’
She hesitated, plainly disconcerted; then decided upon haughty flippancy.
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it, Mr Challoner?’ she said tartly, and disappeared, remembering, however, to close the door as softly as she had opened it.
‘You see,’ said Challoner.
‘I see,’ said Gore. ‘Though I’m bound to say that Miss Rodney’s little amoors leave me cold.’
He yawned without the faintest attempt at concealment as he stooped and picked up the little glistening object which had attracted his attention amongst the leaves, and twiddled it between his fingers. Challoner however, displayed no resentment of his indifference nor any eagerness to adopt his advice as to getting to bed.
He stood frowning, apparently lost in thought, until Gore turned to leave him.
‘I say, old chap,’ he asked abruptly, ‘what time was it when you broke up at the Melhuishs’?’
‘About a quarter to twelve.’
‘Barrington left then—at a quarter to twelve?’
‘Yes. He and I came away together. Why?’
‘Nothing. I just wanted to know. Was he walking, or driving?’
‘Walking. At least I saw no car about, when I left him in Aberdeen Place.’
‘Oh,’ Challoner said musingly, ‘then he must have gone home on foot from the Melhuishs’—and taken his car out then … It was after one when Arndale said he saw it in Aberdeen Place.’
Despite his sleepiness and his aching toes, Gore’s interest in Mr Barrington’s nocturnal wanderings revived sharply.
‘In Aberdeen Place?’ he repeated.
‘Yes. Arndale told me he saw it there then—somewhere near the Melhuishs’ door. He must have gone home and taken it out—if you’re sure you didn’t see it there when he went away from the Melhuishs’ with you.’
Gore was to discover subsequently the reason for which the hour at which Barrington had reached home that night and taken out his car was of such interest to his companion. For him, at the moment, the point possessed no interest whatever beside the information that Barrington’s car had been in the neighbourhood of the Melhuishs’ hall door at the hour at which Arndale apparently had seen it there … after one o’clock. So he had gone, then—and found the door open, presumably … Left his car near the door, too, to advertise the affair to anyone who might happen to see it and recognise it … as Arndale had done—
‘Well, good-night, Bertie,’ he said curtly, and turned so that his companion might not see his face.
‘Good-night, Wick. Mind—mum’s the word, old chap.’
Gore crossed the hotel-grounds, and, finding the door of the annexe still open, gained his own quarters that way. Before he took off his overcoat one of the hands which explored its pockets mechanically drew out the small object which he had picked up near the gates. He stared at it in astonishment. It was a little hide knife-sheath, thickly ornamented with coloured beads—exactly like the sheaths of those two little Masai knives which had been included in his wedding-present to Pickles, and which he had seen a couple of hours before hanging in Melhuish’s hall.
He examined the thing carefully. Obviously it had not lain for any length of time amongst the damp leaves in which he had discovered it. It appeared to him too improbable a conjecture to surmise that chance should have brought to that spot—a bare hundred yards from the other two—a third such sheath. Common sense assured him that there was no third sheath—that this was one of the two which he had touched with a finger to draw the attention of Melhuish and Barrington to it.
How, then, had the blessed thing got out of Melhuish’s hall, across the road, and into that heap of leaves in the corner by the gates?
And the knife that should, for all prudence sake, have been in the sheath—where was that?
For a little while he pondered over the matter drowsily, half-minded to go out again and look about for the knife. But it was now getting towards half-past two. He smoked a final cigarette before his dying fire cheerlessly, and went to bed.
CHAPTER V (#u27eb795b-f308-58e6-9316-a4e44c7b6774)
HE lunched next day with some friends out at Penbury, and was subsequently inveigled into participation in a hockey-match, in the course of which an enthusiastic curate inflicted such grievous injury upon one of his shins that he was compelled to abandon his intention of walking the four miles back to Linwood, and returned a full hour earlier than he had expected, in his host’s car. A page stopped him in the hall of the hotel to deliver a message received by telephone at two o’clock. Would Colonel Gore please ring up Linwood 7420 immediately upon his return, as Mrs Melhuish wished to speak to him urgently. Mrs Melhuish had been informed that Colonel Gore was not expected back until five o’clock, and had seemed annoyed, the page said. He had personally undertaken, if Colonel Gore returned before five, to ask him to ring up Linwood 7420 at once.
‘Urgently …’ Gore repeated to himself, as he limped to the telephone-cabinet. ‘Urgently …?’
An odd premonition of misfortune chilled him momentarily. The cheerful activities of his afternoon, the mob of light-hearted young people in whose company he had spent it, had banished most of the rather gloomy pessimism which had clouded his morning. But it was with an anxiety which he was quite unable to control that he awaited the reply to his call—an anxiety which increased sharply at the first sound of her voice.
‘Is that you, Wick? Can you come across here—now—at once? I must see you. I can’t explain over the phone. Can you come?’
‘Of course. My collar is a ruin—my boots are unspeakable—I’ve been playing hockey—’
‘Never mind. Never mind. Don’t wait to change. Please come at once.’
‘Coming right now.’
The dusk was deepening to darkness as he limped down Albemarle Hill and up Aberdeen Place to the door of Number 33. It opened to admit a patient and let out another as he came up to it. Melhuish’s busy time, of course—from two to six—the hour at which he would be out of the way … Gore’s depression deepened a shade.
He waited in the hall for a moment or two while Clegg ushered the incoming patient into the waiting-room and summoned from it the next in turn for the consulting-room. His eyes strayed to the trophy on the wall facing him, and instantly his memory recalled the sheath which he had found the night before by the back entrance to the Riverside. One of the two knives which had formed the lower apex of the trophy was missing. How the blazes had its sheath found its way to that heap of leaves?
‘Mrs Melhuish is in the morning-room, sir,’ said Clegg, pausing as the elderly lady whose name he had called emerged slowly from the waiting-room on the arm of a companion. ‘That door, sir, on the first landing. If you would kindly go up, sir.’
The room was in darkness when Gore entered, save for the glow of the fire before which she sat in a low chair, leaning forward, her chin cupped in her hands. She looked up eagerly.
‘Shut that door, Wick,’ she commanded. ‘And then come and sit down here. I want you not to look at me. That’s why I’ve switched off the lights. I’m in a most shocking mess.’
He obeyed her silently, seating himself, when he had shut the door, so that he, too, faced the glow of the fire.
‘I rang you up,’ she said, after a moment, ‘because I thought it just possible you might be able to help me out of it. Jolly cool, I expect you’ll think. But even if you do, I know you’ll listen to me. I simply must tell someone about it. And I could think of no one but you.’
‘Carry on,’ he said quietly. ‘What kind of a mess is it? Money—or a man?’
‘Both,’ she said curtly. ‘It’s simply a shocking mess.’
‘Told your husband about it?’
‘Heavens, no.’
‘That’s bad. Why not?’
‘I couldn’t. I’ve tried to screw myself up to do it—to tell him everything. But I can’t. I know he’d never forgive me … in his heart … even if the outside of him pretended to forgive me. He’s the best—the noblest man I have ever known. You can’t know, Wick, how good and fine he is. But … he’d never forgive … this.’
‘Rot,’ said Gore succinctly. ‘Piffle. Humbug.’
She made a little wretched gesture.
‘Ah, you’ve no idea what an idiot I’ve been, Wick.’
‘I wonder.’
‘You wonder?’
Her face turned to him sharply in the twilight.
‘No, no,’ he assured her quietly. ‘No one has told me anything. My wonder is merely the result of my own, I’m afraid, rather impertinent observation … and, if you’ll permit me to say so, your own infernal carelessness, young woman. I heard—you really compelled me to hear—a remark which you made last night, practically in my ear—not to me—but to … er … someone else.’
‘My God!’ she said in alarm, ‘you heard—What did I say?’
‘Er … something about a door, which might possibly not be open, you thought, but which Mr … er … the gentleman to whom you made the remark … seemed to think would be open.’
‘My God!’ she said again, her hands twisting nervously. ‘Did Lady Wellmore hear?’
‘I hope not. I think not. Though that’s not your fault. Then, the man is Mr Barrington?’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence. Gore rose to his feet abruptly, walked to the door, and flooded the room with light.
‘Well, Pickles, all I have to say to you—and I prefer to say it to your face, please—is this. You’re the silliest kind of silly ass. Mind—I know very little about this chap Barrington—can’t say I care much for most of what I do know. But if he were the best man that ever stepped—and he isn’t that—I should say just the same thing to you. Sorry I can’t be more sympathetic. I presume you expected I should be. But, as a confidant of illicit love-affairs, I’m afraid I’m rather a wash-out.’
She turned back upon him with a movement of exasperation.
‘Oh, don’t be a fool, Wick,’ she said sharply. ‘Good Heavens … I’m not that sort of idiot.’
‘Not that sort of idiot?’ he repeated. ‘Then may I ask what sort of idiot you are?’
‘Sit down. Don’t fidget about that way. I’ll tell you the whole thing—right from the beginning … It began this way. I met Mr Barrington four years ago … and … well, I had an affair with him … I didn’t know Sidney then—I hadn’t met him. He had only just come to Linwood, and I hadn’t come across him. If I had … well, this would never have happened …’
‘Suppose … er … we keep to what did happen …?’
‘I met Mr Barrington—he was Captain Barrington then—at a gymkhana got up by the Remount Depot people at Barhams. There was a Remount Depot out there, you know. He was stationed there then—in the summer of nineteen-eighteen. He won all sorts of things that afternoon—he’s a magnificent horseman—and, well, I was introduced to him and fell in love with him on the spot—that’s the long and the short of it—over head and ears the very first moment he spoke to me. You don’t understand that sort of thing. I know it will seem just silly to you—’
‘No, no, no. I’ve known it to happen before. Carry on.’
‘Well, it lasted for just five months—’
‘Five months is quite a long time. And then … it stopped?’
‘Yes. Something happened—and suddenly I saw what a frightful idiot I had been. It stopped then—very abruptly. He went away for a bit—when the depot was broken up—in the January of nineteen-nineteen. Then, a few months later, when he had been demobbed, he came back here again … to live. He had a flat at first in York Gardens, until he married and moved to Hatfield Place. He married Ethel Melville that spring—the very week I met Sidney. Of course I had to come across him. I couldn’t avoid it. I had known Ethel Melville all my life, and of course I had to call and dine with them and ask them to dine here, and so on. He was always at the Arndales’ house … In fact I ran into him and Ethel everywhere I went. However, he was always just polite—you know?—just like any other man one met. I thought at that time that the whole thing was done with—that he had done with me. But he hadn’t. He hasn’t. And that’s the mess.’
Gore shrugged his shoulders.
‘I suppose I’m more stupid than usual, or something. What, in the name of Heaven, is the mess?’
‘I’m not going into lurid details, Wick. You’ve got to try to understand that girls—even girls who are supposed, by misguided people like yourself, to be quite nice girls—are liable to be swept off their feet absolutely … if they happen just to have the bad luck to come across … a certain sort of man … the sort of man that Mr Barrington is. You can understand yourself, can’t you … that he is the sort of man who would sweep a girl off her feet?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘When I say sweep off her feet … I mean … well … the limit. You’re such an old dear that I know you’ll hardly believe that I could be capable of the limit. I’m afraid I am … or rather, was. At any rate … on a certain night in December, nineteen-eighteen, I got as near to it as doesn’t matter—with Mr Barrington’s kind assistance. Don’t look so unconvincing, Wick. I know you’re shocked to the marrow … However … there it is. By the merest fluke, I stopped there and had a good look at things. And nothing happened. Which was a jolly sight more than I deserved. Delightfully candid, am I not? I assure you there isn’t another man in the world upon whom I would inflict my candour so lavishly … if that is any consolation …’
‘Good. Let’s get to the ’osses.’
‘Well … as I say … nothing did happen. But nobody, you see … as things were … would believe that. That’s the trouble. Most of it, anyhow. I was fool enough … mad enough … to stay a night at a hotel at Bournemouth—with Mr Barrington … just before Christmas, nineteen-eighteen.’
