Chapter XV.Various People Get BusyColonel 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 soundalibifor 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 fancyThe Courierand 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 toThe Courierat 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 makesThe Courierpay, 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 inThe 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 itveryunpleasant, 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 Courierman, 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 inThe 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 inThe 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.Whatwas 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 upThe Courieroffices 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, whetherThe Courierwanted 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. Inthatcase….“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.”
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 soundalibifor 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 fancyThe Courierand 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 toThe Courierat 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 makesThe Courierpay, 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 inThe 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 itveryunpleasant, 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 Courierman, 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 inThe 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 inThe 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.Whatwas 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 upThe Courieroffices 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, whetherThe Courierwanted 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. Inthatcase….
“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.”
“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.”