Chapter XVI.Mr. Priestley Bursts a BombshellFor two whole days’ time, in so far as the Duffley mystery was concerned, stood still. Guy and Mr. Doyle, racking their brains in vain, were able to establish only one definite fact: Mr. Foster remained mysteriously absent from his home. Mrs. Foster, added the maid who gave them this information, was also absent.The conspirators’ uneasiness grew. Apparently Mr. Foster, still under arrest, was being held for some obscure reason. What that reason might be they could not imagine, except that it was almost too good to be true that it could be the one for which they had been working. In fact, the only thing about which the two felt quite sure was that this was not the end of all things, but merely a lull before a storm out of which almost anything might emerge.It would be too much to say that Guy and Mr. Doyle were losing their nerve; it would not be too much to say that they realised matters had slipped out of their own grasp and they rather wished they hadn’t.Nor did Cynthia’s attitude help them. With a pertinacity worthy of Cassandra she continued to prophesy disaster, and spent most of her time coming to Guy to ask him what he wanted done about this, that, and the other, “when they were all in prison.”Only George, who had no nerve to lose, and Monica, who was not committed, really retained their balance; with the quite natural consequence that they had to balance each other, mostly in the car. If you had asked George at that time whether he had any complex about hose-pipes, he would have replied according to the best judicial models: “What is a hose-pipe?” He would then have taken Monica out for another driving lesson.As for Alan, nobody seemed to want him much. Monica even went so far as to remark that if he came mooning round her any more, she’d lock him in the coal-cellar for a day or two and see how he liked it. To which Alan replied very fraternally indeed, with much recourse to the name of “George.” Monica, very pink but beautifully dignified, forbore to retort, chiefly because for once she had nothing to say, and walked off with her small nose very much in the air. Alan then abandoned the study of footprints for that of Guy’s Canadian canoe. Having fallen into the river seven times in an endeavour to learn how to propel this treacherous craft standing upright in the stern with a punt-pole, he felt a good deal better.Duffley was not the only place where people were puzzled during these days. All that portion of the population whose breakfast-tables were enlivened byThe Daily Courier, shared a common bewilderment. ForThe Courierwas just as bewildered as its readers. In other papers only the briefest notices had appeared regarding the Duffley entertainment, in some it had not even been mentioned at all. Their reporters had gone down on Sunday, investigated, and one and all returned to report that in their opinion there was something fishy about the whole thing, and a non-committal attitude, amounting even to complete ignorance, would be the wiser policy.The Courier, having already committed itself, could only pursue, at any rate for a day or two, the line it had adopted, but a shrewd man was sent down, unknown to Mr. Doyle, to look into matters himself. His subsequent report, though quite admitting the possibility that things might be as they had seemed, caused the editor some very thoughtful moments; but though inscribing Mr. Doyle’s name on a mental black list, he continued perforce to publish that gentleman’s reports.As soon as possible, however, these were shifted from the chief news-page to the secondary, progressing thence by easy stages to a corner among the advertisements; at the same time editorial notes were added in which a distinctly sceptical tone was to be discerned. Readers ofThe Courierwho were conversant with their favourite’s habits knew that by the end of the week it would be as if there were no such place as Duffley at all. In the meantime the streams of information which continued to pour intoThe Courier’s offices regarding the broken noses of the British Isles were diverted into the waste-paper basket.Mr. Doyle noted these developments and smiled; he had already obtained enough money, upon completely false pretences, to furnish two houses instead of one; and he was quite able to write other kinds of fiction.Besides the editorial offices ofThe Courierthere was another room in London in which uneasy thought had become the order of the day, and this was whatever room happened to be occupied by Miss Laura Howard. As a general rule this room was Mr. Priestley’s study.Laura had noticed a subtle change in Mr. Priestley. It had seemed to date from Monday morning. He had not talked to her very much at lunch and had looked at her several times in a curious way. Finally she asked laughingly if he was suffering from indigestion. Mr. Priestley had repudiated the indigestion, but mumbled something about this wretched business being more serious than he had realised. Hiding a stab of conscience under a smile, Laura remarked that he’d cheer up all right when he saw all the gorgeous things she’d bought. Mr. Priestley’s only reply had been to look as if he would burst into tears at the sight of them.After lunch, too, he had been queer. Setting her down almost peremptorily to the Juvenal again, he had announced that he had to go out for a short time. He did not return till past five o’clock; and though he was then no longer quite so mournful as at lunch, his seriousness had, if anything, increased. He also contrived (a considerable feat) to impart that seriousness to Laura herself.“You know,” said Mr. Priestley, looking at her very intently over his second cup of tea, “I have no wish to frighten you unduly, but this matter is very much more alarming than we thought, Laura.”“Oh?” said Laura, impressed in spite of herself by his weightiness. What on earth had happened now?Mr. Priestley selected a piece of currant cake with some care. “I’m afraid there is a great deal of which you know nothing at all. For instance, we were quite wrong when we assumed the title ‘Crown Prince’ to be a species of nickname for the dead man. It was nothing of the sort. Nor, indeed, was he the man you imagined.”“Oh?” said the surprised Laura, who had heard from Cynthia only a few hours ago exactly how the Crown Prince had come into it at all, together with all the rest of the events following her own departure from the scene. “What was he, then?” she asked.“A real Crown Prince,” replied Mr. Priestley solemnly.Laura struggled with a wild desire to laugh. “Was he really?” she managed to say with equal solemnity, trying to remember the precise points of the story she had invented the previous morning.“Indeed he was,” nodded Mr. Priestley. “So now you can see the pickle we’re in. I have a friend in the Foreign Office whom I went to see this afternoon, and I must admit that I did go with an ulterior motive. I went, in fact, to pump him.” Mr. Priestley spoke in a deprecating way and looked a little ashamed of himself.“Yes?” said Laura, from whom all desire to laugh had very suddenly fled.Mr. Priestley ate three mouthfuls of cake with maddening deliberation. “The result,” he continued, “surpassed my wildest expectations.”It is a curious fact that when any normally well-educated, well-read person embarks upon the ship of fiction he immediately dons a complete outfit of clichés, such as he would shudder to use in ordinary converse; it is not until he has got his sea-legs that he discards, or does his best to discard, these atrocities. Mr. Priestley was no exception.“Wildest expectations,” he repeated. “I found my friend much distressed. The Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, who has been in this country for many years, has disappeared during the week-end. Simply disappeared!” He paused impressively.“Bosno——wheredid you say?” asked the astonished Laura.“Bosnogovina,” responded Mr. Priestley glibly. “I’m not surprised you don’t seem to know the country; I’d never heard of it myself till this afternoon. It’s a little state tucked in between the borders of Rumania and Jugo-Slavia. A buffer state, I think my friend called it. It is only a few hundred square miles in extent, but I gather that its importance in the European scheme of things is quite considerable. I am not much of a politician,” added Mr. Priestley apologetically, “but I understand that its importance lies in the fact that should Rumania and Jugo-Slavia ever contemplate going to war, one of them would have to invade Bosnogovina, and Bosnogovina’s neutrality has been guaranteed by all the big powers of Europe. A situation would therefore arise not unlike that of Belgium at the beginning of the recent war, with similar incalculable consequences. At least, I think that is what my friend said.”“Good gracious!” said Laura, and so far forgot good manners as to gape with her mouth open.Mr. Priestley glanced at her and quickly away again.“Now, after the late war,” he continued a moment later, “Bosnogovina, like so many other recently enemy countries, suffered a revolution. The reigning dynasty was driven out (quite peaceably and without bloodshed, you understand) and a republic proclaimed. The King and Queen betook themselves to Switzerland, where they still are; the Crown Prince Paulovitch, or some such name as that, came to England. My friend, whose duty it was, immediately got into touch with him and has remained so, though distantly, ever since. He tells me that the Crown Prince, while never renouncing his hopes of regaining the throne of his fathers, nevertheless thought it prudent to carve out a career for himself in this country just in case. He had been educated in England and spoke excellent English. In appearance, I may say, he was tall and burly, with a black beard and a commanding manner. Now, does that description remind you of any one?”Laura nodded dumbly. She could not do anything else.“Precisely!” crowed Mr. Priestley. “The Crown Prince joined the firm of—now what was the name? Ah, yes; Hamley and Waterhouse. Was it at Hamley and Waterhouse’s that you were employed?”Laura would have given anything to shriek out: “No! It was The Diestampers and Bedstead-Knob-Beaters Company, Ltd.!” but found herself unable to do anything of the sort. Fascinated into helplessness, she could only nod dumbly again.“Exactly!” squeaked Mr. Priestley in triumph (not unmerited triumph). “And the man you knew as plain Mr. Jones or Robinson or whatever it was, my dear, was in reality the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina.” Mr. Priestley beamed ingenuous enjoyment of this terrific climax.Laura continued to gape speechlessly. She was, in fact, flabbergasted. It never occurred to her for a single instant that Mr. Priestley was diving into hitherto unexplored depths of fiction. Why should it? Laura knew Mr. Priestley well enough, and she knew that he would never have dreamed of doing such a thing on his own volition; what she did not know was that Mr. Priestley had just been subjected for nearly two whole hours to the remarkable stimulus of Cynthia’s smile. She just went on gaping, while her mind turned a series of complicated cart-wheels.“So you see how very serious that is,” Mr. Priestley took up his tale in more sober accents. “My friend had no idea of the Crown Prince’s house at Duffley, and this really is rather extraordinary, because these Nesbitts, who seem quite respectable people, not only deny all knowledge of the affair itself but even of the Crown Prince himself. My friend has had them very carefully examined (of course without their suspecting anything of the sort) and their story checked, and on the whole he is inclined to believe they are speaking the truth. That makes it all the more remarkable that you should know about him being there, doesn’t it?”“Y-yes,” said Laura, faintly, finding her voice with an effort.“However, there is no doubt he was there, and there is no doubt that he was a blackguard even if he was a Crown Prince; what you told me quite proves that, though naturally I did not mention any of that to my friend. Even now I can’t say that I’m altogether sorry I shot him; he seems to have deserved it if ever a man did, Crown Prince or no Crown Prince. So I don’t think you need worry yourself on that score, my dear niece,” said Mr. Priestley kindly.“Th-thank you,” faltered his dear niece, who certainly was not worrying herself onthatscore.There was a little pause while Mr. Priestley extracted his cigarette-case, courteously asked permission to smoke, and received a feeble affirmative.“As for the gang,” continued Mr. Priestley, when his cigarette was alight, “they’re quite easily explained. They were a body of malcontents (Communists, I think) from Bosnogovina who have repeatedly expressed their determination to exterminate the dynasty altogether and so prevent Bosnogovina from reverting to a monarchy even should it feel inclined. My friend thinks that quite definitely established, though unfortunately no trace of the ruffians has been found. And in official circles it is taken for granted (fortunately for us!) that it was members of this gang who shot the Crown Prince. Of course they have the constable’s descriptions of you and me, but they think we are members of the Communist gang, if you understand.”“Do they?” said Laura mechanically.“Yes, I’m glad indeed to say they do. On the other hand (and this is where we are not so fortunate) the most urgent search is being prosecuted by the Secret Service, whose resources I understand to be simply unlimited, to discover our whereabouts. I realised when I heard this how extremely rash I had been in going to see my friend and actually in his official quarters. It was a terrible risk.” Mr. Priestley expelled a cloud of smoke with the modest demeanour of one who knows he is a brave and reckless fellow and has no need to brag about it.“Good Heavens!” was all Laura could think of to say, but she said it with a good deal of feeling.Mr. Priestley paused for a few moments to admire himself. He had told a good story, and he thought he had told it well. As far as he could remember, he had included every single point that had been impressed upon him. He glanced at his companion almost maliciously, if that is not too strong a word even to hint at in connection with Mr. Priestley. What he saw in that young woman’s countenance gave him a good deal of wicked pleasure. He knew it was wicked pleasure, but he just didn’t care. Mr. Priestley had developed a good deal in the last forty-eight hours.He considered his next words with the care of an artist.“Of course,” he said slowly, “you can see how this affects us. Our precautions must be intensified beyond measure.”“Must they?” said Laura quite humbly.“Indeed they must,” replied Mr. Priestley with energy. “Do you realise, my dear niece, that every policeman in the country is furnished with the most careful description of our two selves that it has been possible to obtain? Every step we take outside these rooms is fraught with danger. Simply fraught with danger,” repeated Mr. Priestley, pleased with the phrase.“Is it?”“Good gracious, yes, I should think it is. You, therefore, Laura,” continued Mr. Priestley in tones of unwonted command, “will not set foot outside these rooms at all.”Laura stared at him. “But I must! I shall have to——”“You will do nothing of the sort,” interrupted Mr. Priestley sternly. “You will stay here until I consider the coast to be clear. If you do not give me your word to do so, I shall lock you in your room and keep you here by force. This is no time for half-measures. I am not going to have my safety jeopardised, and my very life perhaps as well, by the whims and fancies of a foolish girl. Either you give me your solemn word to remain here until I accord you permission to go out, or I will call Barker and give him the necessary instructions at once. Which is it to be?” He glared at her through his glasses.Laura gazed at him with open mouth. If anybody had ever presumed to address such peremptory commands to her before, she would have walked straight out of the place. But her nerve was frayed almost to snapping point. It was yet once more on the tip of her tongue to blurt out that the whole thing was a mistake: it wasn’t the real Crown Prince at all, and she could produce the alleged corpse and everything would be plain sailing. But dazed though she was, she realised perfectly well that it would not be all plain sailing. Mr. Priestley, for instance, would flatly refuse to credit her story, and no wonder; he would, she quite believed, use force if he considered it necessary. This was yet another new Mr. Priestley, and one of whom she felt really afraid.Besides, even if she could induce him to believe the truth, what about all these other complications—policemen, and disappearing Crown Princes, and friends in the Foreign Office? There would be endless trouble before the affair was finally cleared up and the law satisfied of her own and Mr. Priestley’s innocence. Probably they would be brought to trial. At the very least they would be held in prison during the inquiry. Laura suddenly saw herself in a prison frock, embroidered with broad arrows. Her nerve snapped. “I—I give you my solemn word,” she said huskily.“If you break it,” said Mr. Priestley ominously.“I won’t!” Laura squeaked, thoroughly frightened. Nobody had ever seen Laura thoroughly frightened before. Mr. Priestley was a very favoured mortal.With a bound the normal Mr. Priestley jumped into the place of this grim stranger. “That’s all right then. That’s excellent. And now, my dear niece, you may show me those pretty frocks and things that I know you’re longing to display.”It was the last thing his dear niece was longing to do, but she rose, on somewhat shaky limbs, and tottered off to her room.“Call me when the fashion-show is ready,” Mr. Priestley remarked benignly as she disappeared, and grinned naughtily after her eloquent back.Draped professionally over the chairs in Laura’s bedroom, and less professionally on the bed, were frocks, coats, cloaks, stockings, hats, gloves, and other accessories, all the spring outfit, in fact, and some of the winter and last summer’s as well, except the undies, for which she had judged Mr. Priestley to be not quite old enough as yet despite his years—all arranged with the artless idea of affording pleasure to her benefactor. Laura cast a haggard eye over them as she walked over to the window and contemplated, with apparently deep interest, a blank wall. She was not sorry for the respite. She wanted to think.Having thought madly for five minutes, she arrived at the brilliant conclusion of telepathy. Laura had flirted with telepathy before with Dora, but she had never believed in it very seriously; now she found herself doing so with the utmost conviction. After all, it was the only possible explanation. By some curious telepathic means Dora must have received the message “Crown Prince” at the very moment when the real Crown Prince was being murdered in some totally different spot. More, she must have received something like the actual circumstances of his death. Laura was now quite prepared to believe that the leader of the band of Communists had a broken nose, and even a nickname turning upon that peculiarity.Of course she must stay in the flat. And anyhow, Cynthia knew where she was. She shivered. “The Secret Service, whose resources are simply unlimited.” Oh, what a fool she had been to get herself mixed up in that absurd joke. What an unutterablefool!A gentle tap at the door interrupted her frank comments upon herself. “Is the fashion-show ready?” asked a voice.Laura shook herself and forced a smile to her lips. At any rate she must pretend to be feeling brave, whatever was going on underneath. “Yes,” she called out. “Quite ready. Come in.”“Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley, with proper admiration. “Delightful, Laura. Charming indeed. Now show them to me in detail. Well, well!”If his adopted niece seemed a trifledistraitein her attention to the matter in hand, Mr. Priestley evidently did not notice it. His manner was utterly correct. He admired duly, he cocked his head on one side to consider the difficult point of whether saxe-blue really suited his niece better than jade-green, he said all the right things and surprisingly few of the wrong ones. In short, for a man introduced for the first time to this extremely delicate business, Mr. Priestley acquitted himself uncommonly well.But if Mr. Priestley could, and did, take an intelligent interest in his niece’s hobby, Laura failed dismally when the rôles were reversed. Mr. Priestley led her back to the study and there informed her that, as she was evidently destined to be his secretary for rather longer than had been anticipated, she must buckle to and learn Latin at once if she was to be of any real use to him. Nor did he voice this proposition in a deprecating way, as last evening; he spoke it out boldly and firmly, so that it took on practically the air of a command.“Besides,” added Mr. Priestley more kindly, “it will help to occupy your mind a little during the anxious time.”Laura, far too crushed now to dream of objecting (oh, shades of that resourceful young woman in the tube to Maida Vale!) allowed herself to be settled at the table with Kennedy’s Latin Grammar in front of her and meekly received her orders to have the first and second declensions off pat before dinner-time. In case he was not back for that meal, Mr. Priestley added airily, she might dine at eight o’clock and master the third declension afterwards before going to bed. Mr. Priestley was clearly going to prove a sweating employer. A trade union of secretaries would have had a good deal to say about Mr. Priestley, it was plain.“Not back?” said Laura, looking up from the distasteful book in front of her. “Surely you’re not going out, are you?”With simple pride Mr. Priestley drew the large black beard from his pocket which Cynthia had taken him to buy immediately before she left him. He hooked it over his ears and beamed at his niece, looking like a cross between a Bolshevik and a black nanny-goat. Laura shuddered.“I shall be safe enough in this, my dear,” said Mr. Priestley.It flashed into Laura’s mind that he would be more likely to be arrested for causing a crowd to collect, but she no longer had the spirit to put it into words. In some strange way Mr. Priestley had taken autocratic control of the whole affair, and whatever she might say had no more weight than one of the hairs in Mr. Priestley’s beard. She knew this, but she did not resent it. It was a strange feeling to Laura to be in contact with somebody who ordered her about like a rather fatuous sort of dog, and disregarded her wishes and inclinations as though she were more of a hindrance in the scheme of things than a help; and to her amazement she found that she rather liked it. Mr. Priestley was not the only person in his flat who was finding out things he did not know about himself.“Very well, Mr. Priestley,” was all she said.“Uncle Matthew,” corrected Mr. Priestley, with severity.“Uncle Matthew,” Laura repeated humbly.Mr. Priestley almost strode out of the room.Outside his own front-door he whisked the atrocious beard off his face and stowed it away in his pocket. Then he proceeded, with an unwontedly brisk air, to keep the appointment for which he had telegraphed nearly three hours ago. And as he proceeded Mr. Priestley smiled abandonedly.That was on Monday, and thereafter nothing happened, as has already been said, until Thursday.Perhaps, however, in Laura’s case this statement needs a certain qualification. Something did happen to Laura, and it was Latin grammar. Latin grammar happened to Laura all day long, and in the evenings as well. No pupil less anxious to master Latin grammar could have been found in any school in the country, yet through sheer force of will-power Mr. Priestley caused Laura in two days to learn the five declensions, quite a large proportion of the four conjugations, and to have more than a nodding acquaintance with the intricacies of the adjectives and pronouns.“Regebam, regebas, regebat,” said Laura wearily on Wednesday evening, “regebamus, regebabitis——”“Regebatis,” corrected Mr. Priestley relentlessly.“Regebatis,” said Laura, “regebant.”“Yes. Now the perfect.”“Rexi, rexisti, rexit,” Laura droned, “rexeymus——”“Rex-imus!”“Rex-imus, rexistis, rexerunt.”“Excellent! That’s fifth time I’ve heard you that tense, isn’t it?”“The seventh,” said Laura colourlessly.“The seventh? Dear, dear. Well, we’ve got it right at last. And now,” said Mr. Priestley with the air of one conferring a substantial favour, “I think we might actually go on to Syntax.”“Oh?” said Laura, with the air of one wondering just where the favour lies.Mr. Priestley picked up the Kennedy and fluttered its pages lovingly. “Vir bonus bonam uxorem habet,” he crooned. “‘The good man has a good wife.’Vir bonusis the subject, you see,habetthe verb, andbonam uxoremthe object. A verb, of course, agrees with its subject in number and person. Just repeat that, please.”“A verb, of course, agrees with its subject in number and person.”“Yes, and an adjective, as I’ve told you already, agrees in gender, number, and case with the substantive it qualifies.”“An adjective, as you’ve told me already, agrees in gender, number, and case with the substantive it qualifies,” repeated Laura listlessly. “May I go to bed now, please, Uncle Matthew?”“Certainly not. We must master this first page of syntax before bedtime. It’s only just past ten o’clock.Veræ amicitiæ sempiternæ sunt. ‘True friendships are everlasting.’ That is another example of….”Let us draw a veil.It was on Thursday morning that Mr. Priestley burst his bombshell.He had been gloomy and apprehensive at breakfast, starting nervously at trifles and refusing to give any reason for his agitation, and had gone out, disguised as a black nanny-goat, immediately afterwards. Laura’s nerves, already strained, naturally caused his anxiety to communicate itself to her. Poring over her Kennedy during the morning alone in the study, she was unable to assimilate a word. Vague terrors afflicted her, drastic plans for ending everything by flying from the country, or at least down to Duffley, flitted in and out of her mind like passengers in a tube lift. The farmer tilled his fields for her in vain, his wife fruitlessly looked after the house; even the news that Hannibal and Philopœmen were cut off by poison left her unmoved.By the time Mr. Priestley returned, wild of eye and distraught of mien, half an hour before lunch-time, she had worked herself up to the pitch of tears; and for a young woman of Laura’s disposition there is no need to say more.“We’re done for!” announced Mr. Priestley melodramatically. “They’re on our track. It’s only a question of hours.”“Oh, no!” cried Laura.Mr. Priestley clutched at his collar. “I can feel the rope round my neck already. Our arrest is imminent. Laura, the game’s up.”They stared at each other with horrified eyes.Now Laura knew perfectly well that Mr. Priestley was in no sort of danger really. She knew it, but she couldn’t realise it. To her it seemed by this time as if the truth could never be proved. Whatever she said, whatever George said, whatever any of them said would make no difference. They had plotted too well. They had staged a murder, and a murder had been committed. It was not the least use to say that their murder was not the real one. Who was going to believe that? They were caught helplessly and hopelessly in the trap of their own setting.“Oh!” she wailed. “Can’t anything be done?”“Yes!” said Mr. Priestley, in a low, tense voice. “There is just one hope for us. Consider the circumstances. Nobody except you saw me shoot him. Without you, there is no evidence against me except the constable’s, and I am told that a clever lawyer could make hay of that. It isyouwho are the stumbling-block, Laura.”“Oh!” squeaked Laura, aghast at the implication of his words. “You’re not—you’re not going to shoot me too?”Mr. Priestley hurriedly turned his face away. His shoulders quivered slightly. When he turned round again he had recovered his composure.“No, Laura,” he said, neither sternly nor gently but with a curious blend of the two. “No, that is not what I meant. Fortunately there is no need to go to such extremes. It suits our case well enough to remember that a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, nor a husband against his wife.”“A—a—a——”“Exactly,” said Mr. Priestley gravely. “I have made all the necessary arrangements, and I have a special licence in my pocket. You are going to marry me at the registry office in Albemarle Street at ten o’clock to-morrow morning—if we are both still at liberty!”
For two whole days’ time, in so far as the Duffley mystery was concerned, stood still. Guy and Mr. Doyle, racking their brains in vain, were able to establish only one definite fact: Mr. Foster remained mysteriously absent from his home. Mrs. Foster, added the maid who gave them this information, was also absent.
The conspirators’ uneasiness grew. Apparently Mr. Foster, still under arrest, was being held for some obscure reason. What that reason might be they could not imagine, except that it was almost too good to be true that it could be the one for which they had been working. In fact, the only thing about which the two felt quite sure was that this was not the end of all things, but merely a lull before a storm out of which almost anything might emerge.
It would be too much to say that Guy and Mr. Doyle were losing their nerve; it would not be too much to say that they realised matters had slipped out of their own grasp and they rather wished they hadn’t.
Nor did Cynthia’s attitude help them. With a pertinacity worthy of Cassandra she continued to prophesy disaster, and spent most of her time coming to Guy to ask him what he wanted done about this, that, and the other, “when they were all in prison.”
Only George, who had no nerve to lose, and Monica, who was not committed, really retained their balance; with the quite natural consequence that they had to balance each other, mostly in the car. If you had asked George at that time whether he had any complex about hose-pipes, he would have replied according to the best judicial models: “What is a hose-pipe?” He would then have taken Monica out for another driving lesson.
As for Alan, nobody seemed to want him much. Monica even went so far as to remark that if he came mooning round her any more, she’d lock him in the coal-cellar for a day or two and see how he liked it. To which Alan replied very fraternally indeed, with much recourse to the name of “George.” Monica, very pink but beautifully dignified, forbore to retort, chiefly because for once she had nothing to say, and walked off with her small nose very much in the air. Alan then abandoned the study of footprints for that of Guy’s Canadian canoe. Having fallen into the river seven times in an endeavour to learn how to propel this treacherous craft standing upright in the stern with a punt-pole, he felt a good deal better.
Duffley was not the only place where people were puzzled during these days. All that portion of the population whose breakfast-tables were enlivened byThe Daily Courier, shared a common bewilderment. ForThe Courierwas just as bewildered as its readers. In other papers only the briefest notices had appeared regarding the Duffley entertainment, in some it had not even been mentioned at all. Their reporters had gone down on Sunday, investigated, and one and all returned to report that in their opinion there was something fishy about the whole thing, and a non-committal attitude, amounting even to complete ignorance, would be the wiser policy.The Courier, having already committed itself, could only pursue, at any rate for a day or two, the line it had adopted, but a shrewd man was sent down, unknown to Mr. Doyle, to look into matters himself. His subsequent report, though quite admitting the possibility that things might be as they had seemed, caused the editor some very thoughtful moments; but though inscribing Mr. Doyle’s name on a mental black list, he continued perforce to publish that gentleman’s reports.
As soon as possible, however, these were shifted from the chief news-page to the secondary, progressing thence by easy stages to a corner among the advertisements; at the same time editorial notes were added in which a distinctly sceptical tone was to be discerned. Readers ofThe Courierwho were conversant with their favourite’s habits knew that by the end of the week it would be as if there were no such place as Duffley at all. In the meantime the streams of information which continued to pour intoThe Courier’s offices regarding the broken noses of the British Isles were diverted into the waste-paper basket.
Mr. Doyle noted these developments and smiled; he had already obtained enough money, upon completely false pretences, to furnish two houses instead of one; and he was quite able to write other kinds of fiction.
Besides the editorial offices ofThe Courierthere was another room in London in which uneasy thought had become the order of the day, and this was whatever room happened to be occupied by Miss Laura Howard. As a general rule this room was Mr. Priestley’s study.
Laura had noticed a subtle change in Mr. Priestley. It had seemed to date from Monday morning. He had not talked to her very much at lunch and had looked at her several times in a curious way. Finally she asked laughingly if he was suffering from indigestion. Mr. Priestley had repudiated the indigestion, but mumbled something about this wretched business being more serious than he had realised. Hiding a stab of conscience under a smile, Laura remarked that he’d cheer up all right when he saw all the gorgeous things she’d bought. Mr. Priestley’s only reply had been to look as if he would burst into tears at the sight of them.
After lunch, too, he had been queer. Setting her down almost peremptorily to the Juvenal again, he had announced that he had to go out for a short time. He did not return till past five o’clock; and though he was then no longer quite so mournful as at lunch, his seriousness had, if anything, increased. He also contrived (a considerable feat) to impart that seriousness to Laura herself.
“You know,” said Mr. Priestley, looking at her very intently over his second cup of tea, “I have no wish to frighten you unduly, but this matter is very much more alarming than we thought, Laura.”
“Oh?” said Laura, impressed in spite of herself by his weightiness. What on earth had happened now?
Mr. Priestley selected a piece of currant cake with some care. “I’m afraid there is a great deal of which you know nothing at all. For instance, we were quite wrong when we assumed the title ‘Crown Prince’ to be a species of nickname for the dead man. It was nothing of the sort. Nor, indeed, was he the man you imagined.”
“Oh?” said the surprised Laura, who had heard from Cynthia only a few hours ago exactly how the Crown Prince had come into it at all, together with all the rest of the events following her own departure from the scene. “What was he, then?” she asked.
“A real Crown Prince,” replied Mr. Priestley solemnly.
Laura struggled with a wild desire to laugh. “Was he really?” she managed to say with equal solemnity, trying to remember the precise points of the story she had invented the previous morning.
“Indeed he was,” nodded Mr. Priestley. “So now you can see the pickle we’re in. I have a friend in the Foreign Office whom I went to see this afternoon, and I must admit that I did go with an ulterior motive. I went, in fact, to pump him.” Mr. Priestley spoke in a deprecating way and looked a little ashamed of himself.
“Yes?” said Laura, from whom all desire to laugh had very suddenly fled.
Mr. Priestley ate three mouthfuls of cake with maddening deliberation. “The result,” he continued, “surpassed my wildest expectations.”
It is a curious fact that when any normally well-educated, well-read person embarks upon the ship of fiction he immediately dons a complete outfit of clichés, such as he would shudder to use in ordinary converse; it is not until he has got his sea-legs that he discards, or does his best to discard, these atrocities. Mr. Priestley was no exception.
“Wildest expectations,” he repeated. “I found my friend much distressed. The Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, who has been in this country for many years, has disappeared during the week-end. Simply disappeared!” He paused impressively.
“Bosno——wheredid you say?” asked the astonished Laura.
“Bosnogovina,” responded Mr. Priestley glibly. “I’m not surprised you don’t seem to know the country; I’d never heard of it myself till this afternoon. It’s a little state tucked in between the borders of Rumania and Jugo-Slavia. A buffer state, I think my friend called it. It is only a few hundred square miles in extent, but I gather that its importance in the European scheme of things is quite considerable. I am not much of a politician,” added Mr. Priestley apologetically, “but I understand that its importance lies in the fact that should Rumania and Jugo-Slavia ever contemplate going to war, one of them would have to invade Bosnogovina, and Bosnogovina’s neutrality has been guaranteed by all the big powers of Europe. A situation would therefore arise not unlike that of Belgium at the beginning of the recent war, with similar incalculable consequences. At least, I think that is what my friend said.”
“Good gracious!” said Laura, and so far forgot good manners as to gape with her mouth open.
Mr. Priestley glanced at her and quickly away again.
“Now, after the late war,” he continued a moment later, “Bosnogovina, like so many other recently enemy countries, suffered a revolution. The reigning dynasty was driven out (quite peaceably and without bloodshed, you understand) and a republic proclaimed. The King and Queen betook themselves to Switzerland, where they still are; the Crown Prince Paulovitch, or some such name as that, came to England. My friend, whose duty it was, immediately got into touch with him and has remained so, though distantly, ever since. He tells me that the Crown Prince, while never renouncing his hopes of regaining the throne of his fathers, nevertheless thought it prudent to carve out a career for himself in this country just in case. He had been educated in England and spoke excellent English. In appearance, I may say, he was tall and burly, with a black beard and a commanding manner. Now, does that description remind you of any one?”
Laura nodded dumbly. She could not do anything else.
“Precisely!” crowed Mr. Priestley. “The Crown Prince joined the firm of—now what was the name? Ah, yes; Hamley and Waterhouse. Was it at Hamley and Waterhouse’s that you were employed?”
Laura would have given anything to shriek out: “No! It was The Diestampers and Bedstead-Knob-Beaters Company, Ltd.!” but found herself unable to do anything of the sort. Fascinated into helplessness, she could only nod dumbly again.
“Exactly!” squeaked Mr. Priestley in triumph (not unmerited triumph). “And the man you knew as plain Mr. Jones or Robinson or whatever it was, my dear, was in reality the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina.” Mr. Priestley beamed ingenuous enjoyment of this terrific climax.
Laura continued to gape speechlessly. She was, in fact, flabbergasted. It never occurred to her for a single instant that Mr. Priestley was diving into hitherto unexplored depths of fiction. Why should it? Laura knew Mr. Priestley well enough, and she knew that he would never have dreamed of doing such a thing on his own volition; what she did not know was that Mr. Priestley had just been subjected for nearly two whole hours to the remarkable stimulus of Cynthia’s smile. She just went on gaping, while her mind turned a series of complicated cart-wheels.
“So you see how very serious that is,” Mr. Priestley took up his tale in more sober accents. “My friend had no idea of the Crown Prince’s house at Duffley, and this really is rather extraordinary, because these Nesbitts, who seem quite respectable people, not only deny all knowledge of the affair itself but even of the Crown Prince himself. My friend has had them very carefully examined (of course without their suspecting anything of the sort) and their story checked, and on the whole he is inclined to believe they are speaking the truth. That makes it all the more remarkable that you should know about him being there, doesn’t it?”
“Y-yes,” said Laura, faintly, finding her voice with an effort.
“However, there is no doubt he was there, and there is no doubt that he was a blackguard even if he was a Crown Prince; what you told me quite proves that, though naturally I did not mention any of that to my friend. Even now I can’t say that I’m altogether sorry I shot him; he seems to have deserved it if ever a man did, Crown Prince or no Crown Prince. So I don’t think you need worry yourself on that score, my dear niece,” said Mr. Priestley kindly.
“Th-thank you,” faltered his dear niece, who certainly was not worrying herself onthatscore.
There was a little pause while Mr. Priestley extracted his cigarette-case, courteously asked permission to smoke, and received a feeble affirmative.
“As for the gang,” continued Mr. Priestley, when his cigarette was alight, “they’re quite easily explained. They were a body of malcontents (Communists, I think) from Bosnogovina who have repeatedly expressed their determination to exterminate the dynasty altogether and so prevent Bosnogovina from reverting to a monarchy even should it feel inclined. My friend thinks that quite definitely established, though unfortunately no trace of the ruffians has been found. And in official circles it is taken for granted (fortunately for us!) that it was members of this gang who shot the Crown Prince. Of course they have the constable’s descriptions of you and me, but they think we are members of the Communist gang, if you understand.”
“Do they?” said Laura mechanically.
“Yes, I’m glad indeed to say they do. On the other hand (and this is where we are not so fortunate) the most urgent search is being prosecuted by the Secret Service, whose resources I understand to be simply unlimited, to discover our whereabouts. I realised when I heard this how extremely rash I had been in going to see my friend and actually in his official quarters. It was a terrible risk.” Mr. Priestley expelled a cloud of smoke with the modest demeanour of one who knows he is a brave and reckless fellow and has no need to brag about it.
“Good Heavens!” was all Laura could think of to say, but she said it with a good deal of feeling.
Mr. Priestley paused for a few moments to admire himself. He had told a good story, and he thought he had told it well. As far as he could remember, he had included every single point that had been impressed upon him. He glanced at his companion almost maliciously, if that is not too strong a word even to hint at in connection with Mr. Priestley. What he saw in that young woman’s countenance gave him a good deal of wicked pleasure. He knew it was wicked pleasure, but he just didn’t care. Mr. Priestley had developed a good deal in the last forty-eight hours.
He considered his next words with the care of an artist.
“Of course,” he said slowly, “you can see how this affects us. Our precautions must be intensified beyond measure.”
“Must they?” said Laura quite humbly.
“Indeed they must,” replied Mr. Priestley with energy. “Do you realise, my dear niece, that every policeman in the country is furnished with the most careful description of our two selves that it has been possible to obtain? Every step we take outside these rooms is fraught with danger. Simply fraught with danger,” repeated Mr. Priestley, pleased with the phrase.
“Is it?”
“Good gracious, yes, I should think it is. You, therefore, Laura,” continued Mr. Priestley in tones of unwonted command, “will not set foot outside these rooms at all.”
Laura stared at him. “But I must! I shall have to——”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” interrupted Mr. Priestley sternly. “You will stay here until I consider the coast to be clear. If you do not give me your word to do so, I shall lock you in your room and keep you here by force. This is no time for half-measures. I am not going to have my safety jeopardised, and my very life perhaps as well, by the whims and fancies of a foolish girl. Either you give me your solemn word to remain here until I accord you permission to go out, or I will call Barker and give him the necessary instructions at once. Which is it to be?” He glared at her through his glasses.
Laura gazed at him with open mouth. If anybody had ever presumed to address such peremptory commands to her before, she would have walked straight out of the place. But her nerve was frayed almost to snapping point. It was yet once more on the tip of her tongue to blurt out that the whole thing was a mistake: it wasn’t the real Crown Prince at all, and she could produce the alleged corpse and everything would be plain sailing. But dazed though she was, she realised perfectly well that it would not be all plain sailing. Mr. Priestley, for instance, would flatly refuse to credit her story, and no wonder; he would, she quite believed, use force if he considered it necessary. This was yet another new Mr. Priestley, and one of whom she felt really afraid.
Besides, even if she could induce him to believe the truth, what about all these other complications—policemen, and disappearing Crown Princes, and friends in the Foreign Office? There would be endless trouble before the affair was finally cleared up and the law satisfied of her own and Mr. Priestley’s innocence. Probably they would be brought to trial. At the very least they would be held in prison during the inquiry. Laura suddenly saw herself in a prison frock, embroidered with broad arrows. Her nerve snapped. “I—I give you my solemn word,” she said huskily.
“If you break it,” said Mr. Priestley ominously.
“I won’t!” Laura squeaked, thoroughly frightened. Nobody had ever seen Laura thoroughly frightened before. Mr. Priestley was a very favoured mortal.
With a bound the normal Mr. Priestley jumped into the place of this grim stranger. “That’s all right then. That’s excellent. And now, my dear niece, you may show me those pretty frocks and things that I know you’re longing to display.”
It was the last thing his dear niece was longing to do, but she rose, on somewhat shaky limbs, and tottered off to her room.
“Call me when the fashion-show is ready,” Mr. Priestley remarked benignly as she disappeared, and grinned naughtily after her eloquent back.
Draped professionally over the chairs in Laura’s bedroom, and less professionally on the bed, were frocks, coats, cloaks, stockings, hats, gloves, and other accessories, all the spring outfit, in fact, and some of the winter and last summer’s as well, except the undies, for which she had judged Mr. Priestley to be not quite old enough as yet despite his years—all arranged with the artless idea of affording pleasure to her benefactor. Laura cast a haggard eye over them as she walked over to the window and contemplated, with apparently deep interest, a blank wall. She was not sorry for the respite. She wanted to think.
Having thought madly for five minutes, she arrived at the brilliant conclusion of telepathy. Laura had flirted with telepathy before with Dora, but she had never believed in it very seriously; now she found herself doing so with the utmost conviction. After all, it was the only possible explanation. By some curious telepathic means Dora must have received the message “Crown Prince” at the very moment when the real Crown Prince was being murdered in some totally different spot. More, she must have received something like the actual circumstances of his death. Laura was now quite prepared to believe that the leader of the band of Communists had a broken nose, and even a nickname turning upon that peculiarity.
Of course she must stay in the flat. And anyhow, Cynthia knew where she was. She shivered. “The Secret Service, whose resources are simply unlimited.” Oh, what a fool she had been to get herself mixed up in that absurd joke. What an unutterablefool!
A gentle tap at the door interrupted her frank comments upon herself. “Is the fashion-show ready?” asked a voice.
Laura shook herself and forced a smile to her lips. At any rate she must pretend to be feeling brave, whatever was going on underneath. “Yes,” she called out. “Quite ready. Come in.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley, with proper admiration. “Delightful, Laura. Charming indeed. Now show them to me in detail. Well, well!”
If his adopted niece seemed a trifledistraitein her attention to the matter in hand, Mr. Priestley evidently did not notice it. His manner was utterly correct. He admired duly, he cocked his head on one side to consider the difficult point of whether saxe-blue really suited his niece better than jade-green, he said all the right things and surprisingly few of the wrong ones. In short, for a man introduced for the first time to this extremely delicate business, Mr. Priestley acquitted himself uncommonly well.
But if Mr. Priestley could, and did, take an intelligent interest in his niece’s hobby, Laura failed dismally when the rôles were reversed. Mr. Priestley led her back to the study and there informed her that, as she was evidently destined to be his secretary for rather longer than had been anticipated, she must buckle to and learn Latin at once if she was to be of any real use to him. Nor did he voice this proposition in a deprecating way, as last evening; he spoke it out boldly and firmly, so that it took on practically the air of a command.
“Besides,” added Mr. Priestley more kindly, “it will help to occupy your mind a little during the anxious time.”
Laura, far too crushed now to dream of objecting (oh, shades of that resourceful young woman in the tube to Maida Vale!) allowed herself to be settled at the table with Kennedy’s Latin Grammar in front of her and meekly received her orders to have the first and second declensions off pat before dinner-time. In case he was not back for that meal, Mr. Priestley added airily, she might dine at eight o’clock and master the third declension afterwards before going to bed. Mr. Priestley was clearly going to prove a sweating employer. A trade union of secretaries would have had a good deal to say about Mr. Priestley, it was plain.
“Not back?” said Laura, looking up from the distasteful book in front of her. “Surely you’re not going out, are you?”
With simple pride Mr. Priestley drew the large black beard from his pocket which Cynthia had taken him to buy immediately before she left him. He hooked it over his ears and beamed at his niece, looking like a cross between a Bolshevik and a black nanny-goat. Laura shuddered.
“I shall be safe enough in this, my dear,” said Mr. Priestley.
It flashed into Laura’s mind that he would be more likely to be arrested for causing a crowd to collect, but she no longer had the spirit to put it into words. In some strange way Mr. Priestley had taken autocratic control of the whole affair, and whatever she might say had no more weight than one of the hairs in Mr. Priestley’s beard. She knew this, but she did not resent it. It was a strange feeling to Laura to be in contact with somebody who ordered her about like a rather fatuous sort of dog, and disregarded her wishes and inclinations as though she were more of a hindrance in the scheme of things than a help; and to her amazement she found that she rather liked it. Mr. Priestley was not the only person in his flat who was finding out things he did not know about himself.
“Very well, Mr. Priestley,” was all she said.
“Uncle Matthew,” corrected Mr. Priestley, with severity.
“Uncle Matthew,” Laura repeated humbly.
Mr. Priestley almost strode out of the room.
Outside his own front-door he whisked the atrocious beard off his face and stowed it away in his pocket. Then he proceeded, with an unwontedly brisk air, to keep the appointment for which he had telegraphed nearly three hours ago. And as he proceeded Mr. Priestley smiled abandonedly.
That was on Monday, and thereafter nothing happened, as has already been said, until Thursday.
Perhaps, however, in Laura’s case this statement needs a certain qualification. Something did happen to Laura, and it was Latin grammar. Latin grammar happened to Laura all day long, and in the evenings as well. No pupil less anxious to master Latin grammar could have been found in any school in the country, yet through sheer force of will-power Mr. Priestley caused Laura in two days to learn the five declensions, quite a large proportion of the four conjugations, and to have more than a nodding acquaintance with the intricacies of the adjectives and pronouns.
“Regebam, regebas, regebat,” said Laura wearily on Wednesday evening, “regebamus, regebabitis——”
“Regebatis,” corrected Mr. Priestley relentlessly.
“Regebatis,” said Laura, “regebant.”
“Yes. Now the perfect.”
“Rexi, rexisti, rexit,” Laura droned, “rexeymus——”
“Rex-imus!”
“Rex-imus, rexistis, rexerunt.”
“Excellent! That’s fifth time I’ve heard you that tense, isn’t it?”
“The seventh,” said Laura colourlessly.
“The seventh? Dear, dear. Well, we’ve got it right at last. And now,” said Mr. Priestley with the air of one conferring a substantial favour, “I think we might actually go on to Syntax.”
“Oh?” said Laura, with the air of one wondering just where the favour lies.
Mr. Priestley picked up the Kennedy and fluttered its pages lovingly. “Vir bonus bonam uxorem habet,” he crooned. “‘The good man has a good wife.’Vir bonusis the subject, you see,habetthe verb, andbonam uxoremthe object. A verb, of course, agrees with its subject in number and person. Just repeat that, please.”
“A verb, of course, agrees with its subject in number and person.”
“Yes, and an adjective, as I’ve told you already, agrees in gender, number, and case with the substantive it qualifies.”
“An adjective, as you’ve told me already, agrees in gender, number, and case with the substantive it qualifies,” repeated Laura listlessly. “May I go to bed now, please, Uncle Matthew?”
“Certainly not. We must master this first page of syntax before bedtime. It’s only just past ten o’clock.Veræ amicitiæ sempiternæ sunt. ‘True friendships are everlasting.’ That is another example of….”
Let us draw a veil.
It was on Thursday morning that Mr. Priestley burst his bombshell.
He had been gloomy and apprehensive at breakfast, starting nervously at trifles and refusing to give any reason for his agitation, and had gone out, disguised as a black nanny-goat, immediately afterwards. Laura’s nerves, already strained, naturally caused his anxiety to communicate itself to her. Poring over her Kennedy during the morning alone in the study, she was unable to assimilate a word. Vague terrors afflicted her, drastic plans for ending everything by flying from the country, or at least down to Duffley, flitted in and out of her mind like passengers in a tube lift. The farmer tilled his fields for her in vain, his wife fruitlessly looked after the house; even the news that Hannibal and Philopœmen were cut off by poison left her unmoved.
By the time Mr. Priestley returned, wild of eye and distraught of mien, half an hour before lunch-time, she had worked herself up to the pitch of tears; and for a young woman of Laura’s disposition there is no need to say more.
“We’re done for!” announced Mr. Priestley melodramatically. “They’re on our track. It’s only a question of hours.”
“Oh, no!” cried Laura.
Mr. Priestley clutched at his collar. “I can feel the rope round my neck already. Our arrest is imminent. Laura, the game’s up.”
They stared at each other with horrified eyes.
Now Laura knew perfectly well that Mr. Priestley was in no sort of danger really. She knew it, but she couldn’t realise it. To her it seemed by this time as if the truth could never be proved. Whatever she said, whatever George said, whatever any of them said would make no difference. They had plotted too well. They had staged a murder, and a murder had been committed. It was not the least use to say that their murder was not the real one. Who was going to believe that? They were caught helplessly and hopelessly in the trap of their own setting.
“Oh!” she wailed. “Can’t anything be done?”
“Yes!” said Mr. Priestley, in a low, tense voice. “There is just one hope for us. Consider the circumstances. Nobody except you saw me shoot him. Without you, there is no evidence against me except the constable’s, and I am told that a clever lawyer could make hay of that. It isyouwho are the stumbling-block, Laura.”
“Oh!” squeaked Laura, aghast at the implication of his words. “You’re not—you’re not going to shoot me too?”
Mr. Priestley hurriedly turned his face away. His shoulders quivered slightly. When he turned round again he had recovered his composure.
“No, Laura,” he said, neither sternly nor gently but with a curious blend of the two. “No, that is not what I meant. Fortunately there is no need to go to such extremes. It suits our case well enough to remember that a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, nor a husband against his wife.”
“A—a—a——”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Priestley gravely. “I have made all the necessary arrangements, and I have a special licence in my pocket. You are going to marry me at the registry office in Albemarle Street at ten o’clock to-morrow morning—if we are both still at liberty!”