Chapter XIII.Cynthia Begins to SmileIt is a maxim in warfare that he who scorns to use the enemy’s weapons will find himself defeated; unfairly, no doubt, but defeated. In her combat with guile Cynthia had no intention of being defeated. She had therefore delivered to Dora not the whole of Laura’s message but only that part which concerned the packing of the trunk. For the rest, Cynthia remarked airily, she was going up to London the next day herself and could therefore take the trunk with her.By this simple expedient Cynthia was able to ensure not only Laura’s absence while she put Mr. Priestley out of his misery, but also the further meeting for the afternoon. Cynthia knew perfectly well what she was going to do at this second interview; she was going to talk to Mr. Priestley, and then she was going to smile at him—and, if necessary, go on smiling till dusk.Had Cynthia but known it, there was reason for an added millimetre or two to her smile. It would have amused her a good deal to know that, while the two chief conspirators were chuckling over their crack-brained preparations for the confounding of Reginald Foster, Esq., an almost equally clever mind was hard at work trying to extract the foundation from the whole erection and topple it down upon the heads of its own authors.To take another maxim fromThe Child’s Guide to Warfare, it is a fatal mistake to underestimate one’s opponent. Guy and Mr. Doyle had not the faintest suspicion that they had not hoodwinked the friendly Chief Constable just as successfully as that fatherly terror of village murderers, Inspector Cottingham. Having ascertained that Mr. Foster had spent Saturday evening at home and had therefore noalibibeyond the word of his wife, they had proceeded to plant his note-paper and carve George’s boots with the utmost enjoyment and confidence. For, as to careful attention to detail, had they not previously muffled their faces in the best shilling-shocker manner and actually distributed real gent’s blood about the place, with the most gratifying results? What could any Chief Constable want more?After a thoroughly satisfactory day, therefore, the two families prepared to spend Sunday evening in their own respective houses. George would have strolled across to Dell Cottage, had he not thought that he did not wish to see very much more of Cynthia that day; for, attempting to join the other two in the drawing-room after dinner, he was promptly ejected. “For,” as Mr. Doyle pointed out with some feeling, “much though I like and esteem you, George, there are times when I like and esteem you better at a distance, and this is one of them. Go out into the garden, George, and hang yourself on a bush; that’s the proper place for gooseberries.”“You needn’t stay, really, George,” Dora added earnestly. “I’ve quite grown-up now, you know. And if the man’s intentions becometoodishonourable, I can always scream for you, can’t I?”George fled, growling. George was one of those absurdly out-of-date people who prefer their women-kind to leave unsaid those things that ought not to be said. Georgewasridiculous.It was fortunate that George took his leisure while he might. Apart from the bother of an awkward journey to a place called Manstead the next morning to retrieve his car in time to drive Dora and Mr. Doyle up to London in it for the opening of the new Jollity revue (the railway station would certainly be watched, George had had it carefully impressed upon him), there was yet another blow coming. It came at about half-past nine.There was a ring at the front door, and, unlike Mr. Priestley, George started guiltily. George was really not enjoying life very much in these days. Knowing his sister, he heaved himself reluctantly out of his chair and went to answer the ring.“Hullo, George,” said Guy’s voice. “Here’s a couple of visitors to see you, Monica and Alan. Cynthia has turned us out of the house. Can you entertain us?”“Oh, yes,” said the unhappy George. “Oh, rather.”“Hullo, George,” said Monica brightly.“Hullo,” said George with a ghastly smile. “Er—hullo, Alan.”“Hullo,” said Alan, a somewhat stout young man of fourteen.The conversation then lapsed.“Do you entertain us here, George?” Monica asked with interest. “If so, bring the piano out, too, and we’ll make an evening of it.”“Oh, sorry,” George mumbled, and stood aside to let these most unwelcome visitors enter. He closed the front door softly upon all hope and led the way to the drawing-room.The visitors stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room and looked inside with interest. George was improving as an entertainer, they felt. Even George forgot his sorrow for the moment too. For it appeared that Dora and her fiancé had not heard the door-bell. Indeed, unless they were trying to show off, it was quite evident that they had not.It seemed a pity to spoil such an idyllic scene, but Alan Spence did so. He spoilt it with a guffaw. Alan’s guffaw might have been guaranteed to spoil any idyllic scene. It was not a taking guffaw.“Oh-oh-ah-hoo!” guffawed Alan.Dora leapt off that portion of Mr. Doyle on which she was reclining as if she had suddenly discovered that it was not her fiancé at all, but a very large hornet. “George, you ass!” she cried, going so red that it seemed as if she must set fire to her frock.“George, you goop!” exclaimed Mr. Doyle, no less fiery.“George, you old idiot!” cackled Guy.“George, you scream!” shrieked Monica, quite untruthfully.Alan contented himself with merely guffawing at George.George sighed. Whatever happened, everybody seemed to blame him. Whatever he did was always wrong. Life was a bleak business. Then he looked at Dora and life did not seem quite so bleak after all. He had never seen either of his sisters embarrassed before. It was a sight which interested George a good deal.“Sorry if we were tactless, Dawks,” said Guy, “but it really wasn’t our fault, you know.”“Of course it wasn’t. It was George’s. It always is.”“May we come in now, or would you rather we didn’t?”“Guy,” said Dora with feeling, “if you say another single word on that subject, I’ll never speak to you again.”“May my tongue be cut out,” said Guy, and introduced the new-comers. While George carefully avoided every one’s eye, they sorted themselves into seats.“We were to have come on Tuesday,” Monica announced, “but when we sawThe Sunday Courierthis morning, of course we couldn’t wait till then. We just flew for the first train we could get.”“What rot, Monica,” observed her brother, with proper scorn for this feminine hyperbole. “We could have got here hours ago,” he informed the company, “if she hadn’t wasted half the day packing a lot of rotten clothes.”“So now tell us all about it,” Monica continued serenely. “Cynthia wouldn’t say a single word; can’t imagine why. She said if we wanted to talk about it, we’d got to come over here, because two more words on it to-day would send her raving mad.”“Cinders always was a bit comic,” agreed Alan with brotherly candour.Guy crossed his legs and slid down in his chair. “Go on, Doyle,” he said. “You’re the official historian.”“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” inquired Doyle cautiously.“Heaven forbid!” said Guy, and winked gently.“I say,” remarked Alan more respectfully, “are you that chap Doyle, who wrote about it in theSunday Courier?”“I am that chap Doyle,” agreed Mr. Doyle with grave dignity.He proceeded to retail a second version of his report toThe Courier, adding the chief points of the one he had already telephoned through for the next morning’s issue.While he talked George found himself at liberty to study Monica without fear of being observed. Hitherto he had consciously avoided looking at her; now that he did so he could hardly believe that this was the same person, who, little more than two years ago, had caused him to dance before the wedding-guests. She looked completely different. The thick plaits which had been the cause of all the merriment had disappeared and her hair, fair like her sister’s, was cut short about her small head. George was not an admirer of cropped heads on women’s shoulders, but even he could not but admit that Monica’s really didn’t look half bad, considering.Her features and figure seemed to have altered as much as her hair. The lean, disjointed look of sixteen had given place to nineteen’s curves of incipient womanhood; the curves were not pronounced but they were curves. George liked curves. Her face was curiously like Cynthia’s and curiously unlike. She had her sister’s wide forehead and straight nose, and the corners of her lips were touched with the same sense of humour, but there was an elfin look about her that was quite different from Cynthia’s air of rather amused repose. Looking more closely still, George could see that, after all, this was the person who had brought him low with a hose-pipe, but her methods, he felt, had probably developed with her curves. She would use subtler means now, but she would no doubt attain the same results. George shivered slightly.“Footprints!” Alan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Oo!”?“Did the girl leave footprints, too?” Monica asked eagerly, with her sex’s immediate conversion of the general into the personal. Just over two years ago she would also have said only: “Footprints! Oo!”Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. The glances said quite plainly: “I think we shall be able to find use for this young man.”The talk proceeded.In due course George rose, went out of the room, returned with drinks and dispensed them. Still the talk went on. At last Guy suggested that it was time to make a move. George did not contradict him. George was a courteous host, but there are limits. Hose-pipes are one, frogs another.“What are you doing to-morrow, George?” Guy asked as he rose.“Got to go over to Manstead to fetch the car,” said George, not quite so dolefully. There had been a ring in Guy’s question, and George was not sorry to have a sound excuse against whatever the ring might portend. “It’s between thirty and forty miles from here. Take me most of the morning.”“Oh, are you going to drive forty miles to-morrow morning?” asked Monica instantly. “Oh, George, how gorgeous! You’ll take me with you, won’t you?”“Um!” gulped George. “Er—yes, oh, yes. Er—rather. If—if you’re sure you’d really like to come. It’ll be a beastly journey, you know,” he added hopefully.“Thanks awfully,” said Monica, promptly extinguishing the hope. “I’d love it.”George contemplated his feet with a moody air. He had, he now realised, been quite mistaken about that trip to Manstead; he hadn’t disliked the thought of it at all, he had actually been looking forward to it intensely. It had promised a whole morning’s peace, away from everything that was making life so bleak at present. Now life was apparently to be bleaker still. Probably Monica would fill the petrol-tank up with water and the radiator with petrol, or stick pins into the tyres, or scratch her initials on the paint; at the very least she would wilfully misdirect him on the road, in order to get a sixty-mile joy-ride instead of a thirty-five. He meditated dismally.Doyle had drawn Guy aside. “What about that youth for the opening of the Inspector’s eyes?” he said in a low voice.“Just what I’d thought of, my dear fellow. Couldn’t be better. Come over as soon as you like after breakfast.”“Do these two know about keeping Dora dark, so to speak?”“By Jove, no! I’d forgotten all about it. As we’re keeping them in the dark ourselves, what reason can we give?”“Leave it to me,” adjured Mr. Doyle, thinking rapidly. He took Guy’s arm and drew him back to the little group by the door.“By the way, Nesbitt,” said Mr. Doyle loudly, “I wish you’d do me a favour. Please don’t tell anybody about Dora being here this week-end. She particularly doesn’t want her name mentioned in connection with this affair, as it would be so bad for her at the theatre. The management are very much down on any of the girls getting mixed up in murder mysteries; they think it’s bad for business. If it leaked out, Dora would probably get the sack.”“Of course, my dear chap,” said Guy gravely. “I quite understand. Nobody else knows?”“So far, no. Not even the police. Particularly not the police, I should say. And we’re going to smuggle her up to London to-morrow in time for the show. Thanks so much, Nesbitt, thanks so much.”Alan was staring at Dora with round eyes. “I say,” he said, in tones to match them, “you’re not on the stage, are you?”“I am,” Dora smiled, “yes.”“Coo! What are you in?”“Well, as there’s no Shakespeare season on at the moment, I’ve been keeping my hand in up to a few weeks ago in ‘Thumbs Up!’ at the Jollity.”“And legs, dearest,” murmured Mr. Doylesotto voce. “Be honest.”“I say, were you really? I saw that last hols. Topping show!” Mr. Spence continued to stare with round eyes. His manner had changed considerably. In place of his former air of confident and slightly contemptuous assurance he now wore one of respect verging almost upon diffidence.George looked at his sister with envy. There would clearly be no frogs in her bed.“What part did you play?” asked Monica, who seemed to be sharing something of her brother’s feelings. She spoke humbly, as a disciple addressing his master or a mate his plumber.Dora laughed. “Well, not the lead exactly. I’m in the chorus.”“Coo!” observed Alan. “Are you a chorus-girl?”“I suppose I must be,” Dora admitted. “Am I?” she appealed to her fiancé.“Certainly you are. That’s why I’m marrying you. Clever men in the best novels are always infatuated by chorus-girls.”“Don’t youlovewearing all those beautiful costumes?” said Monica soulfully.“Dora has a very good opinion of her figure, yes,” remarked Mr. Doyle. “So have I, dear,” he added hastily, catching a glint in his lady’s eye. “And I think it’s very sporting of you to have joined the——”“That’ll do, Pat. That’s quite enough from you.”Alan turned to George as one man of the world to another. “I say, you were pulling my leg, weren’t you? She’s not really your sister?” Old ideas die hard in the young.The resulting hilarity took them out into the hall.“Well, good-night, George,” said Guy, stepping out into the night.“Good-night,” said George.“Good-night, George,” said Monica. “Till to-morrow.”“Till to-morrow,” echoed George dully, and walked back to the drawing-room where he had left the whisky decanter. The drawing-room door was locked.“——” said George with emphasis, and went to bed.Outside in the laurel bushes a dapper figure drew his thick overcoat about him and shivered in the cold night air. “Well, I’ll be hanged if I can make out who’s in it!” muttered the dapper figure, and also went home to bed.And that, so far as we are concerned, was the end of Sunday. The drawing-room door, it is of no interest to record, remained locked until Monday. Until twenty minutes past Monday, to be precise.George’s brain, it must be allowed (and George himself would have been the first to allow it) was not a subtle organ. It worked, much the same as a donkey-engine works; but there is little finesse about a donkey engine. During the early hours of the night George’s brain turned out for him a large number of straightforward schemes for arriving at Manstead the next morning without a passenger; but they were crude. George quite recognised that. The most ingenious was that he should start at six o’clock, before his passenger should so much as have opened an eyelid. Reluctantly George was compelled to reject even this. He had given his word, and unless a plan presented itself to involve the inevitable breaking of this inconvenient tie, and consistently with the ways of perfect gentility as George understood them, he must keep it. It is almost superfluous to add that no plan did present itself.Perhaps Monica had caught something of the notable lack of warmth in George’s voice the previous evening. In any case, she was evidently leaving nothing to chance. A forty-mile motor trip was an event in Monica’s life, and Monica liked her life to be eventful. At half-past nine she presented herself on George’s front-doorstep, hatted, fur-coated and gauntlet-gloved, the complete motorist. George greeted her with ghastly geniality.An impartial spectator, observing with pain George’s laboured attempts to appear hearty, would have said that George was hard to please. Monica looked the sort of passenger whom any right-minded, car-possessing bachelor would go miles out of his way to collect. Her pretty, eager face flushed with excitement, her tongue prattling merrily, and her trim, fur-encased figure very nearly jumping with pleasure, what better company could such a right-minded man desire? George was evidently not right-minded. His face, as he walked uneasily at Monica’s side towards the station, bore an expression of mingled apprehension and gloom; he looked as if he strongly suspected Monica of having a hose-pipe concealed somewhere about her person. George need not have bothered. Monica had few things concealed about her person, and certainly not a hose-pipe. A young woman with any pretence to fashion seldom wears a hose-pipe in these days.She began to talk very earnestly about Dora. Monica, it appeared, had long cherished the conviction that she, too, had a call to the stage. She had taken part occasionally in local amateur theatricals at home, and though that was of course nothing to go by, people really had said quite decent things. Not that she wanted to swank or anything like that, but she did somehowfeelshe could act. Did George think that Dora would be too bored to give her some advice? Did Dora know any managers? Had Dora enough influence to get one of them to give Monica a trial? Did George think Dora would let Monica come and see her in London? Was it possible to see Dora at the theatre? Could Dora, did George think, let Monica have a peepbehind the scenes—just a tiny peep? What did George think about this, about that, and about the other?George began to brighten. Here was somebody who actually wanted to know his opinion. Very few people ever wanted to know George’s opinion. It was a pleasant novelty. Monica had improved. In the old days she had shown no signs of interest in George’s opinion. If she had consulted George as to his candid opinion, he would have informed her that on the whole he did not think he much wanted to dance before the wedding-guests; but she had done nothing of the sort. Now, she seemed to be hanging on his words. By Jove, yes; Monicahadimproved. George forgot all about hose-pipes and became very nearly animated.No, George’s brain was not a subtle organ. It never occurred to him for a moment that his sudden importance was merely owing to the fact that he was his sister’s brother. He accepted Monica’s interest in his opinion as a tribute to his own worth, and as he received very few tributes of that nature was correspondingly delighted. Somebody once said something about ignorance and wisdom, turning a neat phrase upon the advisability in certain cases of the one and the drawbacks attendant upon the other. He might have applied his aphorism to George that morning. In his folly George expanded like a flower in the sun, and looked back with incredulous astonishment to the remote time when he had brooded sorrowfully upon radiators and petrol-tanks in connection with this extraordinarily nice young person.A very pleasant morning was spent.George and Monica were not the only two people to spend a pleasant morning. Cynthia did also in her way, and Mr. Doyle and Guy too, were not ill-pleased with it, though their enjoyment was not wholly unmixed. It was one thing to realise the use to them of Alan’s presence; it was another to obtain a monopoly of it.For Alan was sorely torn. On the one hand was a perfectly topping murder mystery, right on the premises, which, of course, demanded the most breathless and undivided attention; on the other, within only a few yards was a real genuine chorus-girl, who was going away that same afternoon; and Alan was naturally a good deal interested in chorus-girls, as befitted a young man of fourteen.There is a ring about the word “chorus-girl.” One wonders whether it will ever quite outlive its naughty Victorian associations. The chorus-girl of to-day is more respectable than a churchwarden, more straight than a straight line (though having more breadth to her length; even to-day, one gathers, some chorus-girls are tolerably broad-minded), more refined than Grade “A” petrol—or so we are earnestly given to understand by those who ought to know. Yet still in clubs and places where men gather, the bare mention of the word is enough to provoke the knowing wink and the cunning dig in the ribs. And where the clubs wink the public schools guffaw; there is no place where tradition is so strong as a public school. It gave Alan a pleasurable feeling of doggishness just to enter the room where Dora was sedately reading a magazine; to sit on the same couch with her was sheer daredevilry.Here he was, yes, he Alan Spence, alone in a room with a chorus girl, exchanging light badinage, keeping his wicked end up as well as a grown man! But for the unfortunate absence of champagne and oysters (the inevitable concomitant of all genuine chorus-girls, as any Victorian novelist will tell you) the scene was as abandoned as you like. Alan was looking forward quite intensely to a number of casual conversations next term which would begin; “Yes, a chorus-girl I know, told me….” Or, “Did you seeThumbs Up!last hols? I knew one of the chorus-girls in it. Quite a decent kid….” Or, “Chorus-girls don’t always dye their hair, you know. One of the girls inThumbs Up!—Dora, her name is; frightfully decent sort—told me that …” That Dora really was George’s sister, Alan could still hardly bring himself to believe; but he was quite sure he knew why her presence was being kept so dark. (Yes, madam, public schools are dreadful places, aren’t they? I certainly shouldn’t send your boy to one.)Inspector Cottingham did not put in an appearance till nearly half-past eleven, so that the two conspirators were not unduly pressed for time. Their idea was a simple one. They wished Alan to make the discovery for himself that the undisputed footprint of Mr. Reginald Foster in the flower-bed bore a striking likeness to certain newly manufactured prints on the river bank, and to draw the obvious conclusion. This conclusion they were then prepared to scoff at and deride, with the result that Alan, seeking a more sympathetic audience for the news with which he ought to be bursting, would have recourse to the Inspector. The Inspector was then hopefully expected to put three and two together, and make it four. There is nothing so honest as honesty, and in this means Guy and Mr. Doyle saw a way of causing their new clues to be officially swallowed with no possible suspicions as to their administration.Up to a point matters turned out as they intended. Alan was conveyed into the garden immediately after breakfast, as agog as Guy could have hoped, and shown Mr. Foster’s footprint; thence he was led to the river bank and shown the other footprints. Unfortunately, however, he failed to notice any connecting link. He was impressed, even thrilled, but he displayed no brightness of uptake. Guy left him for a moment to confer with Mr. Doyle, who was strolling through the dividing gate between the gardens to join them; when they looked round, the lad was gone.It took them a quarter of an hour to run him to earth, in George’s drawing-room. Then they led him back and repeated the process. It was like training a dog to find tennis-balls; the dog is willing enough to gaze for a space into the shrubbery, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what he is expected to find inside it. Guy found himself in an even worse position than that of the dog’s master, for he was precluded from giving an intimation that there was anything to be found at all. Having gazed respectfully at the footprints a second time, Alan announced that they certainly were top-hole and took himself back to the drawing-room and daredevilry.Mr. Doyle retrieved him five minutes later with a resigned expression and led him back once more. This time the two did not leave things quite so much to chance. They pointed out to each other with bland surprise that Mr. Foster must have had a tear in the soles of one of his boots; they remarked that it might be quite interesting to look around for other such footprints with a tear in one of the soles; they obtusely ignored a string of such prints leading from the flower-bed towards the library, and another leading from the latter to the bank. Then they observed loudly that they were going in for a short time to have a smoke in George’s drawing-room in the absence of Dora, who was upstairs making her bed, her bed, upstairs making herbed! They went, and through the curtains of the window peeped out upon their victim.Fixity of purpose does occasionally meet with its reward. Alan having absorbed the information that Dora was no longer on view, began to walk aimlessly about, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. They saw him stop suddenly and stoop. He progressed slowly in a bent position. He crawled like a crab towards the library windows, and thence to the bank. He ran swiftly across the garden and through the separating gate. Guy and Mr. Doyle, timing things to a nicety, met him half-way across George’s lawn.“Isay,” said Alan, “I’ve made the hell of a discovery!”“Oh?” said Guy.“Really?” said Mr. Doyle. “But talking of emigration, Nesbitt, I do think that the Government——”“Listen, you chaps! You know what you were saying about footprints just now? Well, dashed if I haven’t——”“Footprints?” said Guy vaguely. “Were we?”“Good Lord, yes; you know you were. About that chap Foster having a bit out of one of his boots. You know. Well, I’ve spotted tons of other prints just the same. Do you know what I think, Guy? I think Foster’s one of ’em!”“One of whom, Alan?” Guy asked in maddeningly tolerant tones.“The gang, of course. Stands to reason. Come and have a squint. On the bank, his footprints are, up to the library, all round. I——”“Is Alan often taken like this, Guy?” asked Mr. Doyle rudely.“Foster!” Guy laughed in a superior way. “Come, Alan, come. You’ll be saying he’s the Man with the Broken Nose next.”“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if he was,” retorted Alan defiantly. “You needn’t laugh. He’s mixed up with ’em all right. Bet you anything you like. I should tell the police if I were you.”“The police!” crowed Mr. Doyle, and staggered as if his mirth were incapable of human control.“The police!” echoed Guy, and staggered too.Alan flushed. “All right. You see! If you won’t tell ’em, I will. Yes, you can laugh if you like, but you’ll jolly soon find I’m right. Huh! Fancy having a clue like that under your noses and never spotting it. Huh!” And with considerable dignity Alan stalked, so well as a slightly stout youth may stalk, towards the road.“Go and ask Mr. Foster if he’s ever broken his nose, Alan,” Mr. Doyle called after him derisively.“All right, blast you, I will!” Master Spence called back.Doyle caught Guy’s arm. “Look, there’s the Colonel and Cottingham coming down the road. Nesbitt, I think this is where we retire.”They did not retire at once, however. They waited till the three actors on their stage met and stopped. The words came faintly to them: “I say, are you the Inspector? I read about you in theSunday Courier. I’m Mrs. Nesbitt’s brother. I say, were you going to have a look at the scene of the crime? I say, have you noticed something jolly important about those footprints? I have. I’ll tell you if you like. I told my brother-in-law, but he laughed. It’s jolly well nothing to laugh about. I say, do you know if that chap Foster’s ever broken his nose?”The two in the garden began to stroll towards George’s house.“He might have been coached for the part,” observed Mr. Doyle with some awe.“He wouldn’t have done it as well if he had been,” murmured Guy. “Doyle, this is all very pleasant and interesting, isn’t it?”They went in to warn Dora that policemen were about. She was not there.To tell the truth, Dora had found herself, except for short minutes during the last thirty-six hours, frankly bored. In addition she was not altogether satisfied with the part she had played in the comedy; it was all right, so far as it went, but it had not gone far enough. She thought she saw a way of combining amusement with a little helpful spadework. Unnoticed, she had slipped out of the house and gone off to combine them.
It is a maxim in warfare that he who scorns to use the enemy’s weapons will find himself defeated; unfairly, no doubt, but defeated. In her combat with guile Cynthia had no intention of being defeated. She had therefore delivered to Dora not the whole of Laura’s message but only that part which concerned the packing of the trunk. For the rest, Cynthia remarked airily, she was going up to London the next day herself and could therefore take the trunk with her.
By this simple expedient Cynthia was able to ensure not only Laura’s absence while she put Mr. Priestley out of his misery, but also the further meeting for the afternoon. Cynthia knew perfectly well what she was going to do at this second interview; she was going to talk to Mr. Priestley, and then she was going to smile at him—and, if necessary, go on smiling till dusk.
Had Cynthia but known it, there was reason for an added millimetre or two to her smile. It would have amused her a good deal to know that, while the two chief conspirators were chuckling over their crack-brained preparations for the confounding of Reginald Foster, Esq., an almost equally clever mind was hard at work trying to extract the foundation from the whole erection and topple it down upon the heads of its own authors.
To take another maxim fromThe Child’s Guide to Warfare, it is a fatal mistake to underestimate one’s opponent. Guy and Mr. Doyle had not the faintest suspicion that they had not hoodwinked the friendly Chief Constable just as successfully as that fatherly terror of village murderers, Inspector Cottingham. Having ascertained that Mr. Foster had spent Saturday evening at home and had therefore noalibibeyond the word of his wife, they had proceeded to plant his note-paper and carve George’s boots with the utmost enjoyment and confidence. For, as to careful attention to detail, had they not previously muffled their faces in the best shilling-shocker manner and actually distributed real gent’s blood about the place, with the most gratifying results? What could any Chief Constable want more?
After a thoroughly satisfactory day, therefore, the two families prepared to spend Sunday evening in their own respective houses. George would have strolled across to Dell Cottage, had he not thought that he did not wish to see very much more of Cynthia that day; for, attempting to join the other two in the drawing-room after dinner, he was promptly ejected. “For,” as Mr. Doyle pointed out with some feeling, “much though I like and esteem you, George, there are times when I like and esteem you better at a distance, and this is one of them. Go out into the garden, George, and hang yourself on a bush; that’s the proper place for gooseberries.”
“You needn’t stay, really, George,” Dora added earnestly. “I’ve quite grown-up now, you know. And if the man’s intentions becometoodishonourable, I can always scream for you, can’t I?”
George fled, growling. George was one of those absurdly out-of-date people who prefer their women-kind to leave unsaid those things that ought not to be said. Georgewasridiculous.
It was fortunate that George took his leisure while he might. Apart from the bother of an awkward journey to a place called Manstead the next morning to retrieve his car in time to drive Dora and Mr. Doyle up to London in it for the opening of the new Jollity revue (the railway station would certainly be watched, George had had it carefully impressed upon him), there was yet another blow coming. It came at about half-past nine.
There was a ring at the front door, and, unlike Mr. Priestley, George started guiltily. George was really not enjoying life very much in these days. Knowing his sister, he heaved himself reluctantly out of his chair and went to answer the ring.
“Hullo, George,” said Guy’s voice. “Here’s a couple of visitors to see you, Monica and Alan. Cynthia has turned us out of the house. Can you entertain us?”
“Oh, yes,” said the unhappy George. “Oh, rather.”
“Hullo, George,” said Monica brightly.
“Hullo,” said George with a ghastly smile. “Er—hullo, Alan.”
“Hullo,” said Alan, a somewhat stout young man of fourteen.
The conversation then lapsed.
“Do you entertain us here, George?” Monica asked with interest. “If so, bring the piano out, too, and we’ll make an evening of it.”
“Oh, sorry,” George mumbled, and stood aside to let these most unwelcome visitors enter. He closed the front door softly upon all hope and led the way to the drawing-room.
The visitors stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room and looked inside with interest. George was improving as an entertainer, they felt. Even George forgot his sorrow for the moment too. For it appeared that Dora and her fiancé had not heard the door-bell. Indeed, unless they were trying to show off, it was quite evident that they had not.
It seemed a pity to spoil such an idyllic scene, but Alan Spence did so. He spoilt it with a guffaw. Alan’s guffaw might have been guaranteed to spoil any idyllic scene. It was not a taking guffaw.
“Oh-oh-ah-hoo!” guffawed Alan.
Dora leapt off that portion of Mr. Doyle on which she was reclining as if she had suddenly discovered that it was not her fiancé at all, but a very large hornet. “George, you ass!” she cried, going so red that it seemed as if she must set fire to her frock.
“George, you goop!” exclaimed Mr. Doyle, no less fiery.
“George, you old idiot!” cackled Guy.
“George, you scream!” shrieked Monica, quite untruthfully.
Alan contented himself with merely guffawing at George.
George sighed. Whatever happened, everybody seemed to blame him. Whatever he did was always wrong. Life was a bleak business. Then he looked at Dora and life did not seem quite so bleak after all. He had never seen either of his sisters embarrassed before. It was a sight which interested George a good deal.
“Sorry if we were tactless, Dawks,” said Guy, “but it really wasn’t our fault, you know.”
“Of course it wasn’t. It was George’s. It always is.”
“May we come in now, or would you rather we didn’t?”
“Guy,” said Dora with feeling, “if you say another single word on that subject, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“May my tongue be cut out,” said Guy, and introduced the new-comers. While George carefully avoided every one’s eye, they sorted themselves into seats.
“We were to have come on Tuesday,” Monica announced, “but when we sawThe Sunday Courierthis morning, of course we couldn’t wait till then. We just flew for the first train we could get.”
“What rot, Monica,” observed her brother, with proper scorn for this feminine hyperbole. “We could have got here hours ago,” he informed the company, “if she hadn’t wasted half the day packing a lot of rotten clothes.”
“So now tell us all about it,” Monica continued serenely. “Cynthia wouldn’t say a single word; can’t imagine why. She said if we wanted to talk about it, we’d got to come over here, because two more words on it to-day would send her raving mad.”
“Cinders always was a bit comic,” agreed Alan with brotherly candour.
Guy crossed his legs and slid down in his chair. “Go on, Doyle,” he said. “You’re the official historian.”
“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” inquired Doyle cautiously.
“Heaven forbid!” said Guy, and winked gently.
“I say,” remarked Alan more respectfully, “are you that chap Doyle, who wrote about it in theSunday Courier?”
“I am that chap Doyle,” agreed Mr. Doyle with grave dignity.
He proceeded to retail a second version of his report toThe Courier, adding the chief points of the one he had already telephoned through for the next morning’s issue.
While he talked George found himself at liberty to study Monica without fear of being observed. Hitherto he had consciously avoided looking at her; now that he did so he could hardly believe that this was the same person, who, little more than two years ago, had caused him to dance before the wedding-guests. She looked completely different. The thick plaits which had been the cause of all the merriment had disappeared and her hair, fair like her sister’s, was cut short about her small head. George was not an admirer of cropped heads on women’s shoulders, but even he could not but admit that Monica’s really didn’t look half bad, considering.
Her features and figure seemed to have altered as much as her hair. The lean, disjointed look of sixteen had given place to nineteen’s curves of incipient womanhood; the curves were not pronounced but they were curves. George liked curves. Her face was curiously like Cynthia’s and curiously unlike. She had her sister’s wide forehead and straight nose, and the corners of her lips were touched with the same sense of humour, but there was an elfin look about her that was quite different from Cynthia’s air of rather amused repose. Looking more closely still, George could see that, after all, this was the person who had brought him low with a hose-pipe, but her methods, he felt, had probably developed with her curves. She would use subtler means now, but she would no doubt attain the same results. George shivered slightly.
“Footprints!” Alan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Oo!”?
“Did the girl leave footprints, too?” Monica asked eagerly, with her sex’s immediate conversion of the general into the personal. Just over two years ago she would also have said only: “Footprints! Oo!”
Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. The glances said quite plainly: “I think we shall be able to find use for this young man.”
The talk proceeded.
In due course George rose, went out of the room, returned with drinks and dispensed them. Still the talk went on. At last Guy suggested that it was time to make a move. George did not contradict him. George was a courteous host, but there are limits. Hose-pipes are one, frogs another.
“What are you doing to-morrow, George?” Guy asked as he rose.
“Got to go over to Manstead to fetch the car,” said George, not quite so dolefully. There had been a ring in Guy’s question, and George was not sorry to have a sound excuse against whatever the ring might portend. “It’s between thirty and forty miles from here. Take me most of the morning.”
“Oh, are you going to drive forty miles to-morrow morning?” asked Monica instantly. “Oh, George, how gorgeous! You’ll take me with you, won’t you?”
“Um!” gulped George. “Er—yes, oh, yes. Er—rather. If—if you’re sure you’d really like to come. It’ll be a beastly journey, you know,” he added hopefully.
“Thanks awfully,” said Monica, promptly extinguishing the hope. “I’d love it.”
George contemplated his feet with a moody air. He had, he now realised, been quite mistaken about that trip to Manstead; he hadn’t disliked the thought of it at all, he had actually been looking forward to it intensely. It had promised a whole morning’s peace, away from everything that was making life so bleak at present. Now life was apparently to be bleaker still. Probably Monica would fill the petrol-tank up with water and the radiator with petrol, or stick pins into the tyres, or scratch her initials on the paint; at the very least she would wilfully misdirect him on the road, in order to get a sixty-mile joy-ride instead of a thirty-five. He meditated dismally.
Doyle had drawn Guy aside. “What about that youth for the opening of the Inspector’s eyes?” he said in a low voice.
“Just what I’d thought of, my dear fellow. Couldn’t be better. Come over as soon as you like after breakfast.”
“Do these two know about keeping Dora dark, so to speak?”
“By Jove, no! I’d forgotten all about it. As we’re keeping them in the dark ourselves, what reason can we give?”
“Leave it to me,” adjured Mr. Doyle, thinking rapidly. He took Guy’s arm and drew him back to the little group by the door.
“By the way, Nesbitt,” said Mr. Doyle loudly, “I wish you’d do me a favour. Please don’t tell anybody about Dora being here this week-end. She particularly doesn’t want her name mentioned in connection with this affair, as it would be so bad for her at the theatre. The management are very much down on any of the girls getting mixed up in murder mysteries; they think it’s bad for business. If it leaked out, Dora would probably get the sack.”
“Of course, my dear chap,” said Guy gravely. “I quite understand. Nobody else knows?”
“So far, no. Not even the police. Particularly not the police, I should say. And we’re going to smuggle her up to London to-morrow in time for the show. Thanks so much, Nesbitt, thanks so much.”
Alan was staring at Dora with round eyes. “I say,” he said, in tones to match them, “you’re not on the stage, are you?”
“I am,” Dora smiled, “yes.”
“Coo! What are you in?”
“Well, as there’s no Shakespeare season on at the moment, I’ve been keeping my hand in up to a few weeks ago in ‘Thumbs Up!’ at the Jollity.”
“And legs, dearest,” murmured Mr. Doylesotto voce. “Be honest.”
“I say, were you really? I saw that last hols. Topping show!” Mr. Spence continued to stare with round eyes. His manner had changed considerably. In place of his former air of confident and slightly contemptuous assurance he now wore one of respect verging almost upon diffidence.
George looked at his sister with envy. There would clearly be no frogs in her bed.
“What part did you play?” asked Monica, who seemed to be sharing something of her brother’s feelings. She spoke humbly, as a disciple addressing his master or a mate his plumber.
Dora laughed. “Well, not the lead exactly. I’m in the chorus.”
“Coo!” observed Alan. “Are you a chorus-girl?”
“I suppose I must be,” Dora admitted. “Am I?” she appealed to her fiancé.
“Certainly you are. That’s why I’m marrying you. Clever men in the best novels are always infatuated by chorus-girls.”
“Don’t youlovewearing all those beautiful costumes?” said Monica soulfully.
“Dora has a very good opinion of her figure, yes,” remarked Mr. Doyle. “So have I, dear,” he added hastily, catching a glint in his lady’s eye. “And I think it’s very sporting of you to have joined the——”
“That’ll do, Pat. That’s quite enough from you.”
Alan turned to George as one man of the world to another. “I say, you were pulling my leg, weren’t you? She’s not really your sister?” Old ideas die hard in the young.
The resulting hilarity took them out into the hall.
“Well, good-night, George,” said Guy, stepping out into the night.
“Good-night,” said George.
“Good-night, George,” said Monica. “Till to-morrow.”
“Till to-morrow,” echoed George dully, and walked back to the drawing-room where he had left the whisky decanter. The drawing-room door was locked.
“——” said George with emphasis, and went to bed.
Outside in the laurel bushes a dapper figure drew his thick overcoat about him and shivered in the cold night air. “Well, I’ll be hanged if I can make out who’s in it!” muttered the dapper figure, and also went home to bed.
And that, so far as we are concerned, was the end of Sunday. The drawing-room door, it is of no interest to record, remained locked until Monday. Until twenty minutes past Monday, to be precise.
George’s brain, it must be allowed (and George himself would have been the first to allow it) was not a subtle organ. It worked, much the same as a donkey-engine works; but there is little finesse about a donkey engine. During the early hours of the night George’s brain turned out for him a large number of straightforward schemes for arriving at Manstead the next morning without a passenger; but they were crude. George quite recognised that. The most ingenious was that he should start at six o’clock, before his passenger should so much as have opened an eyelid. Reluctantly George was compelled to reject even this. He had given his word, and unless a plan presented itself to involve the inevitable breaking of this inconvenient tie, and consistently with the ways of perfect gentility as George understood them, he must keep it. It is almost superfluous to add that no plan did present itself.
Perhaps Monica had caught something of the notable lack of warmth in George’s voice the previous evening. In any case, she was evidently leaving nothing to chance. A forty-mile motor trip was an event in Monica’s life, and Monica liked her life to be eventful. At half-past nine she presented herself on George’s front-doorstep, hatted, fur-coated and gauntlet-gloved, the complete motorist. George greeted her with ghastly geniality.
An impartial spectator, observing with pain George’s laboured attempts to appear hearty, would have said that George was hard to please. Monica looked the sort of passenger whom any right-minded, car-possessing bachelor would go miles out of his way to collect. Her pretty, eager face flushed with excitement, her tongue prattling merrily, and her trim, fur-encased figure very nearly jumping with pleasure, what better company could such a right-minded man desire? George was evidently not right-minded. His face, as he walked uneasily at Monica’s side towards the station, bore an expression of mingled apprehension and gloom; he looked as if he strongly suspected Monica of having a hose-pipe concealed somewhere about her person. George need not have bothered. Monica had few things concealed about her person, and certainly not a hose-pipe. A young woman with any pretence to fashion seldom wears a hose-pipe in these days.
She began to talk very earnestly about Dora. Monica, it appeared, had long cherished the conviction that she, too, had a call to the stage. She had taken part occasionally in local amateur theatricals at home, and though that was of course nothing to go by, people really had said quite decent things. Not that she wanted to swank or anything like that, but she did somehowfeelshe could act. Did George think that Dora would be too bored to give her some advice? Did Dora know any managers? Had Dora enough influence to get one of them to give Monica a trial? Did George think Dora would let Monica come and see her in London? Was it possible to see Dora at the theatre? Could Dora, did George think, let Monica have a peepbehind the scenes—just a tiny peep? What did George think about this, about that, and about the other?
George began to brighten. Here was somebody who actually wanted to know his opinion. Very few people ever wanted to know George’s opinion. It was a pleasant novelty. Monica had improved. In the old days she had shown no signs of interest in George’s opinion. If she had consulted George as to his candid opinion, he would have informed her that on the whole he did not think he much wanted to dance before the wedding-guests; but she had done nothing of the sort. Now, she seemed to be hanging on his words. By Jove, yes; Monicahadimproved. George forgot all about hose-pipes and became very nearly animated.
No, George’s brain was not a subtle organ. It never occurred to him for a moment that his sudden importance was merely owing to the fact that he was his sister’s brother. He accepted Monica’s interest in his opinion as a tribute to his own worth, and as he received very few tributes of that nature was correspondingly delighted. Somebody once said something about ignorance and wisdom, turning a neat phrase upon the advisability in certain cases of the one and the drawbacks attendant upon the other. He might have applied his aphorism to George that morning. In his folly George expanded like a flower in the sun, and looked back with incredulous astonishment to the remote time when he had brooded sorrowfully upon radiators and petrol-tanks in connection with this extraordinarily nice young person.
A very pleasant morning was spent.
George and Monica were not the only two people to spend a pleasant morning. Cynthia did also in her way, and Mr. Doyle and Guy too, were not ill-pleased with it, though their enjoyment was not wholly unmixed. It was one thing to realise the use to them of Alan’s presence; it was another to obtain a monopoly of it.
For Alan was sorely torn. On the one hand was a perfectly topping murder mystery, right on the premises, which, of course, demanded the most breathless and undivided attention; on the other, within only a few yards was a real genuine chorus-girl, who was going away that same afternoon; and Alan was naturally a good deal interested in chorus-girls, as befitted a young man of fourteen.
There is a ring about the word “chorus-girl.” One wonders whether it will ever quite outlive its naughty Victorian associations. The chorus-girl of to-day is more respectable than a churchwarden, more straight than a straight line (though having more breadth to her length; even to-day, one gathers, some chorus-girls are tolerably broad-minded), more refined than Grade “A” petrol—or so we are earnestly given to understand by those who ought to know. Yet still in clubs and places where men gather, the bare mention of the word is enough to provoke the knowing wink and the cunning dig in the ribs. And where the clubs wink the public schools guffaw; there is no place where tradition is so strong as a public school. It gave Alan a pleasurable feeling of doggishness just to enter the room where Dora was sedately reading a magazine; to sit on the same couch with her was sheer daredevilry.
Here he was, yes, he Alan Spence, alone in a room with a chorus girl, exchanging light badinage, keeping his wicked end up as well as a grown man! But for the unfortunate absence of champagne and oysters (the inevitable concomitant of all genuine chorus-girls, as any Victorian novelist will tell you) the scene was as abandoned as you like. Alan was looking forward quite intensely to a number of casual conversations next term which would begin; “Yes, a chorus-girl I know, told me….” Or, “Did you seeThumbs Up!last hols? I knew one of the chorus-girls in it. Quite a decent kid….” Or, “Chorus-girls don’t always dye their hair, you know. One of the girls inThumbs Up!—Dora, her name is; frightfully decent sort—told me that …” That Dora really was George’s sister, Alan could still hardly bring himself to believe; but he was quite sure he knew why her presence was being kept so dark. (Yes, madam, public schools are dreadful places, aren’t they? I certainly shouldn’t send your boy to one.)
Inspector Cottingham did not put in an appearance till nearly half-past eleven, so that the two conspirators were not unduly pressed for time. Their idea was a simple one. They wished Alan to make the discovery for himself that the undisputed footprint of Mr. Reginald Foster in the flower-bed bore a striking likeness to certain newly manufactured prints on the river bank, and to draw the obvious conclusion. This conclusion they were then prepared to scoff at and deride, with the result that Alan, seeking a more sympathetic audience for the news with which he ought to be bursting, would have recourse to the Inspector. The Inspector was then hopefully expected to put three and two together, and make it four. There is nothing so honest as honesty, and in this means Guy and Mr. Doyle saw a way of causing their new clues to be officially swallowed with no possible suspicions as to their administration.
Up to a point matters turned out as they intended. Alan was conveyed into the garden immediately after breakfast, as agog as Guy could have hoped, and shown Mr. Foster’s footprint; thence he was led to the river bank and shown the other footprints. Unfortunately, however, he failed to notice any connecting link. He was impressed, even thrilled, but he displayed no brightness of uptake. Guy left him for a moment to confer with Mr. Doyle, who was strolling through the dividing gate between the gardens to join them; when they looked round, the lad was gone.
It took them a quarter of an hour to run him to earth, in George’s drawing-room. Then they led him back and repeated the process. It was like training a dog to find tennis-balls; the dog is willing enough to gaze for a space into the shrubbery, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what he is expected to find inside it. Guy found himself in an even worse position than that of the dog’s master, for he was precluded from giving an intimation that there was anything to be found at all. Having gazed respectfully at the footprints a second time, Alan announced that they certainly were top-hole and took himself back to the drawing-room and daredevilry.
Mr. Doyle retrieved him five minutes later with a resigned expression and led him back once more. This time the two did not leave things quite so much to chance. They pointed out to each other with bland surprise that Mr. Foster must have had a tear in the soles of one of his boots; they remarked that it might be quite interesting to look around for other such footprints with a tear in one of the soles; they obtusely ignored a string of such prints leading from the flower-bed towards the library, and another leading from the latter to the bank. Then they observed loudly that they were going in for a short time to have a smoke in George’s drawing-room in the absence of Dora, who was upstairs making her bed, her bed, upstairs making herbed! They went, and through the curtains of the window peeped out upon their victim.
Fixity of purpose does occasionally meet with its reward. Alan having absorbed the information that Dora was no longer on view, began to walk aimlessly about, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. They saw him stop suddenly and stoop. He progressed slowly in a bent position. He crawled like a crab towards the library windows, and thence to the bank. He ran swiftly across the garden and through the separating gate. Guy and Mr. Doyle, timing things to a nicety, met him half-way across George’s lawn.
“Isay,” said Alan, “I’ve made the hell of a discovery!”
“Oh?” said Guy.
“Really?” said Mr. Doyle. “But talking of emigration, Nesbitt, I do think that the Government——”
“Listen, you chaps! You know what you were saying about footprints just now? Well, dashed if I haven’t——”
“Footprints?” said Guy vaguely. “Were we?”
“Good Lord, yes; you know you were. About that chap Foster having a bit out of one of his boots. You know. Well, I’ve spotted tons of other prints just the same. Do you know what I think, Guy? I think Foster’s one of ’em!”
“One of whom, Alan?” Guy asked in maddeningly tolerant tones.
“The gang, of course. Stands to reason. Come and have a squint. On the bank, his footprints are, up to the library, all round. I——”
“Is Alan often taken like this, Guy?” asked Mr. Doyle rudely.
“Foster!” Guy laughed in a superior way. “Come, Alan, come. You’ll be saying he’s the Man with the Broken Nose next.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if he was,” retorted Alan defiantly. “You needn’t laugh. He’s mixed up with ’em all right. Bet you anything you like. I should tell the police if I were you.”
“The police!” crowed Mr. Doyle, and staggered as if his mirth were incapable of human control.
“The police!” echoed Guy, and staggered too.
Alan flushed. “All right. You see! If you won’t tell ’em, I will. Yes, you can laugh if you like, but you’ll jolly soon find I’m right. Huh! Fancy having a clue like that under your noses and never spotting it. Huh!” And with considerable dignity Alan stalked, so well as a slightly stout youth may stalk, towards the road.
“Go and ask Mr. Foster if he’s ever broken his nose, Alan,” Mr. Doyle called after him derisively.
“All right, blast you, I will!” Master Spence called back.
Doyle caught Guy’s arm. “Look, there’s the Colonel and Cottingham coming down the road. Nesbitt, I think this is where we retire.”
They did not retire at once, however. They waited till the three actors on their stage met and stopped. The words came faintly to them: “I say, are you the Inspector? I read about you in theSunday Courier. I’m Mrs. Nesbitt’s brother. I say, were you going to have a look at the scene of the crime? I say, have you noticed something jolly important about those footprints? I have. I’ll tell you if you like. I told my brother-in-law, but he laughed. It’s jolly well nothing to laugh about. I say, do you know if that chap Foster’s ever broken his nose?”
The two in the garden began to stroll towards George’s house.
“He might have been coached for the part,” observed Mr. Doyle with some awe.
“He wouldn’t have done it as well if he had been,” murmured Guy. “Doyle, this is all very pleasant and interesting, isn’t it?”
They went in to warn Dora that policemen were about. She was not there.
To tell the truth, Dora had found herself, except for short minutes during the last thirty-six hours, frankly bored. In addition she was not altogether satisfied with the part she had played in the comedy; it was all right, so far as it went, but it had not gone far enough. She thought she saw a way of combining amusement with a little helpful spadework. Unnoticed, she had slipped out of the house and gone off to combine them.