Chapter XVII.Awkward Predicament of Some ConspiratorsOn Wednesday Cynthia had taken another trip to London. She made no secret of it. She said quite plainly that she wanted to get away from this atmosphere of intrigue and anxiety, and she was therefore going up to see Edith Marryott, whom she hadn’t seen for simplyages. It is to be regretted that Cynthia had no intention whatever of going within two miles of Edith Marryott.She took Alan with her, gave him ten shillings at Paddington, and told him to meet her there on the 5.49. Alan made a bee-line for the nearest call-box and had the ineffable joy of arranging to take a chorus-girl out to lunch. That the chorus-girl afterwards firmly insisted on paying both for her own lunch and for Alan’s too was a point which need not be laboured in subsequent conversations with Colebrook and Thomson minor.Alan squandered five and ninepence of his ten shillings afterwards on a seat at the Jollitymatinée, and later waited at the stage-door, thrilled to the soles of his boots. His beaker of heady pleasure was completed after that by being allowed to take his chorus-girl out to teaandpay for it, though the A.B.C. to which she insisted upon going did not seem quite to fit. The lady, however, assured him gravely that when not refreshing themselves with champagne and oysters, chorus-girls invariably go to A.B.C.’s, and it was all quite in order, and he accepted this information from her still excitingly grease-painted lips. Alan had the day of his life, and caught the 7.15 back to Duffley.Cynthia and Alan were not missed at Duffley. Monica, for instance, was far too busy taking an intelligent interest in the workings of George’s car to miss them. Not in George himself, of course not, though he was interesting on the subject of cars, George was. And actresses. And the relations of a man and a girl these days. “Jolly nice, feeling one can be real pals with a girl nowadays. Rotten it must have been for those old Victorians, eh? What I mean is, a man likes to feel a girl can be a sort ofpal, so to speak. Jolly to go out with and all that. Of course you can’t be pals with all girls, though. Fact is, I’ve never really met another one beside you that I could, Monica. Comic when you come to think of it, in a way, isn’t it? Here we are, just pals, all merry and bright, going out in the old bus and having a good time, and everything’s absolutely ripping. I say, Monica, I’m dashed glad you came down here, you know. I was getting bored stiff with Duffley, and that silly stunt of Guy’s was worse still. I mean to say, what I really wanted, I suppose, was apal.”And Monica listened very seriously and thought it all extremely original and clever of him. She did not introduce the subject of her soul because, luckily for George, she was not that sort of girl; but she inaugurated some very deep conversation about carburetters and magnetos, which came to much the same thing.Unlike London, Thursday morning at Duffley was peacefulness itself. Then, on Thursday afternoon, came the Chief Constable, bringing with him a tall stranger. The stranger was dressed in a suit notable more for its wearing qualities than its cut, and he had large boots and a disconcertingly piercing eye. In a voice of undeniable authority he requested the presence of Guy and Mr. Doyle in the library. Polite but mystified, they humoured him.Then the Colonel spoke. He said: “Gentlemen, this is Superintendent Peters, of Scotland Yard. He wants to ask you a few questions.”Guy and Mr. Doyle did not exchange glances, because neither dared look at the other; but something like the same thought was in both their minds. The thought might be represented in general terms as a large question-mark, and, more particularly, by: “Good Lord! Is this going to prove the cream of the whole jest, or—is it not?”For at least ten minutes the newcomer took no notice at all of the two, while the Colonel explained in minute detail exactly what had happened in the room, the position of the body, and all other necessary details. Guy and Mr. Doyle found this a trifle disconcerting. From being keyed up suddenly to the topmost pitch of their powers they found themselves beginning, through sheer inaction, to waver on their top note.When the Colonel, in his description of events, reached the Constable’s entry upon the scene and his handling of the apparent culprits, the Superintendent cut him short with some abruptness.“Yes, yes,” he said, with a touch of impatience. “We needn’t go into that, Colonel.”The Colonel’s surprise was obvious. “But Graves is the only witness we have for those two,” he said.“And a perfectly unimportant witness,” snapped the other, in the best detective-story manner. “Except as witnesses themselves, these two have no bearing on the business. Their story was perfectly true; like your man, they came on the scene immediately after the shot had been fired. If the constable had had the intelligence of a louse he’d have realised that and not frightened them off as he did. We’ve traced ’em all right now, but it wasn’t any too easy.”“Good gracious! This puts rather a different complexion on things. Who are they, then?”“The man’s name is Priestley.” If Guy and Mr. Doyle started violently, apparently the Superintendent did not notice. “Priestley. He’s got a flat in Half Moon Street. Well-to-do bachelor, with quiet tastes. Last man in the world to do anything of this sort, we’ve satisfied ourselves on that point all right. The girl’s his cousin. As a matter of fact he employs her, out of charity, no doubt, as his secretary. Perfectly respectable, both of them.”This time Guy and Mr. Doyle did exchange glances. It was beyond the powers of human self-restraint not to do so. Each read in the other’s eye bewilderment charged with faint alarm. “What in the deuce is happening?” eye asked eye, and received no answer.“You haven’t found the Crown Prince’s body yet, I suppose?” the Colonel ventured, as the Superintendent gazed moodily out through the French windows towards the river.“We have, though,” the man from Scotland Yard replied grimly. “Just as we expected, on a boat passing Greenwich.”“Bound for Bosnogovina?”“Exactly. We thought they’d want to show it to the people, to prove he really was dead; and that’s just what happened.”“Ah!”Again Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. This time the glances said to each other: “Havetheygone mad, or havewe?”There was a very intense silence.Suddenly the Superintendent wheeled round and fixed Guy with his disconcerting pale blue eyes. “You two gentlemen stay here, please.” He walked abruptly out into the garden, followed by the Colonel.“I don’t think,” observed Mr. Doyle with some care, “that I quite like that gentleman, Nesbitt. I don’t like any of him much, but least of all his eyes.”Guy smiled, a little unsecurely. “Was I totally mistaken, Doyle, ordidhe murmur something to our friend about a dead Crown Prince’s body being recovered off Greenwichen routefor Bosnogosomethingorother? I think I must have been totally mistaken.”“If you were, then I was too. I don’t think we can both have been, you know.”“Then what,” said Guy, “in the name of all that’s unholy was he talking about?”“There you’ve chased me up a gum-tree,” admitted Mr. Doyle.They looked out of the window to where the Superintendent was intently examining the mass of footprints.“It’s pusillanimous, no doubt,” said Mr. Doyle, “but do you know the effect that man has on me? He makes me almost wish we hadn’t made those beautiful footprints. He doesn’t look to me the sort of person to take a harmless joke at all well.”After a few minutes the Superintendent rose and engaged the Colonel in talk. The next thing was that both walked briskly to the gate that led into George’s garden and passed out of sight.George was at home that afternoon. Cynthia had insisted upon Monica going out to pay a couple of calls with her; she had had to insist very hard, but she had carried her point. George, drawing the line quite properly at calls, was at home.“There’s two gentlemen to see you, sir,” said George’s elderly daily maid. (She had rabbit teeth, very little hair, puce elbows, and a very large before-and-after effect; when entering a doorway she contrived both to precede and to follow herself. She was not even a maid; she was a cook, and her name was Mrs. Bagsworthy. We shall never meet her again.)The two gentlemen followed her announcement. They did not insist upon the ceremony of awaiting George’s permission to enter. They had no intention of consulting George’s wishes on the matter.As before, the Colonel introduced his companion, who at once fixed George with his steely eye. George began to wish that some one was there to hold his hand.“Where were you last Saturday evening, Mr. Howard?” demanded the Superintendent, immediately after his introduction, not even pausing to make the usual inquiries as to George’s health.“Over at the N—— here!” said George.The Superintendent did not say: “You lie!” but George did not quite know why not. He might just as well have done.Instead he said: “Do you know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered at some place on the Thames between here and Oxford on Saturday night, and his body embarked on a large motor-boat out of which it was recovered this morning off Greenwich?”“Great Scott, no!” said George, with perfect truth.“You did not know that he was murdered in the next house, while you say you were sitting in here? You heard nothing—no shot, no cry, no shouting or confusion?”“No,” dithered George. “I—no, I—that is, no.”The Superintendent bored a neat hole in George’s forehead with his gimlet eyes. “Isn’t that very strange, Mr. Howard? Isn’t it exceedinglystrangethat you heard nothing?”“Er—yes—I suppose it is. Er—frightfully strange. Must be, mustn’t it? Er—how extraordinary!”The Superintendent continued to bore holes in George in silence. George wished he wouldn’t.“I have a warrant to search this house, Mr. Howard,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you wish to see it?”“Good Lord, no,” said George, apparently much shocked at the suggestion. Fancy asking him if he wanted toseea warrant to search his house! How frightfully indelicate!“Very well. Kindly go over to the library of the house next door, and wait there till I come.”“I say, you know,” George protested feebly in spite of his alarm. There was good sterling stuff in George. “I say, you know, what’s all this about? Searching my house and—and ordering me about and—and——” His words faded away under the menacing light in the Superintendent’s eyes.“I think you will find it better to do as I suggest, Mr. Howard,” said the Superintendent, oh, so gently.George did it.Guy and Mr. Doyle received him with effusive jocularity, in which, nevertheless, a somewhat forced note was detectable. On hearing his account of the interview, the jocularity disappeared altogether.“But this is absurd!” Guy said blankly. “This fellow seems not only to be taking our silly story as solemn truth, but to be dovetailing it in with something that really has happened.”“But my dear chap,” expostulated Mr. Doyle, “we can’t take itseriously.”“You’ll take that superintendent chap seriously when he gets on your tail, Pat,” observed George with feeling.There was an uneasy pause. “Bosnogo—whatdid he say?” remarked Guy. “Has anybody ever heard of the place?”“I say,” said Doyle, “I wonder what it really is all about?”They went on wondering. Upon their speculations entered Dora.“Hallo!” said Dora without joy. “Hallo, youarehere, are you? Good. I was afraid you’d all have been carried off to jail.”“Jail?” echoed the others, jumping nimbly.“What have you come down for, Dora?” asked Mr. Doyle.“Because I was brought,” said Dora shortly. “I’m under arrest, or something ridiculous. For being an accessory to the murder of the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, or some extraordinary tale. Have you any idea what’s happening, anybody? This really is rather gorgeous, isn’t it?” She laughed without exuberant mirth.“Frightfully,” agreed Mr. Doyle gloomily.“I’m afraid,” said Guy, “very much afraid, that we shall have to tell them the truth. It’s a pity, but there it is. Unless, of course, you’d like to carry the thing on to the end and sample the skilly, would you? I’ve always wondered what skilly was really like.”“If you mean, go to prison,” Dora said with energy, “most certainly not, even to help your experiments, Guy. I’m sorry, but I’ve got a complex about prisons. I don’t like them.”George looked relieved. He had a complex about prisons too. Perhaps it ran in the family.“Come, Dora,” observed Mr. Doyle, jesting manfully, “you——”“I say,” said George. “Look out. Here they come.”The Superintendent and Colonel Ratcliffe were crossing the lawn. In one hand the former held a pair of boots.“By Jove,” said Guy softly, “I wonder ifthisis why old Foster was arrested so mysteriously. I suppose we ought to have had Foster rather on our consciences, but as I’ve always said, to be arrested was just the very thing that Foster needed.”Amid a respectful silence the Superintendent walked up to George. “Do you admit that these are your boots?” he asked curtly.George looked at the boots. Undoubtedly they were his. On the other hand, was he to admit the fact? He glanced at the others, but their blank faces gave him no help. “Yes,” he said. “At least—well—yes, I—I think so.”“Ah!” said the Superintendent.Guy came forward with an easy smile. “I’m afraid, Superintendent,” he said smoothly, “that we’ve got a confession to make. I can’t imagine what’s been happening elsewhere, but apparently we planned rather better than we knew. The most amazing coincidence——”“Have you anything you wish to say?” cut in the Superintendent in properly incisive tones.“I have,” said Guy, unperturbed. “The whole thing was a joke. This is the truth.” He went on to give a detailed account of it.At first the faces of his fellow-conspirators showed a certain relief. Though none of them would have admitted it, except George, they were all getting tired of the jest; it had been pleasant while it lasted, but life would become more simple without it. As Guy proceeded, however, relief gave place to growing uneasiness. The Superintendent was perhaps not a tactful man, and the complete incredulity with which he listened to Guy’s words was only too visible on his countenance.“And is that all you’ve got to say, Mr. Nesbitt?” he asked, when Guy, a little haltingly as he saw the very poor impression he was making, had brought his story to an end.“That’s all, yes. I’m sorry.”The Superintendent seemed sorry too—sorry that any one should really think it any use to waste his time with such a hotch-potch of nonsense. He rubbed his chin and looked at Guy more in pity than in anger. The others hung on his words.“Then according to you, Mr. Nesbitt, you don’t know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered here on Saturday night? You thought it was just a bit of play-acting, did you? You mixed up the parties that did it with your own friends?”“But hewasn’tmurdered here! I’ve just explained.”“This is incredible, Superintendent,” exclaimed Mr. Doyle. “You surely aren’t seriously imagining that——”“That will do,” snapped the Superintendent, without any pretence of courtesy. “Any observations you wish to make can be put to the magistrates to-morrow morning.”“Magistrates!” gasped four unhappy mouths.“You don’t mean,” cried Dora, “that—that——”The Superintendent eyed her grimly. “May I remind you, Miss Howard, that you are already under arrest?” he observed. “You will undergo a formal identification by a Mr. Foster, whom we have been compelled to keep in detention for his own safety, as soon as we get to the police-station; and——”“Foster?” squeaked Mr. Doyle. “His own safety? What on earth are you talking about now?”The Superintendent was very patient. “No doubt it had never occurred to you that, apart from the constable, who only saw the Crown Prince’s dead body, and two other persons who had nothing to do with the murder, Mr. Foster is our only witness, did it?”Guy also was very patient. “My dear good man,” he said very patiently, “haven’t I already told you thatthisis our Crown Prince, very much alive and no doubt longing to be kicking?”George smiled deprecatingly. He hadn’t the least idea what was happening, but he did realise that Guy’s tone was not calculated to soothe the Superintendent. “That’s right,” he mumbled. “Really quite true, you know. I’m not dead—not a bit of it.”The Superintendent looked unimpressed.“Might I ask, then, what you intend to do with us?” Guy inquired in silky tones.“Certainly, Mr. Nesbitt,” replied the Superintendent briskly. “Take you with me.” He looked round the room with his penetrating blue eyes, and added in an official voice: “Guy Nesbitt, Patrick Doyle, George Howard, I arrest you on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina in this room on the night of the 10th instant, either as principals or as accessories before and after the fact, and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you at your trial.”“But good Heavens,” spluttered Mr. Doyle, “we’re not—not Bosnogovinians, or whatever the place is.”“No? But you speak the language, don’t you? You must remember that we have our evidence. And the constable has already identified you, without your knowledge, as the persons who removed the Crown Prince’s body from this room.”“But, my dear good man, we’veexplainedthat. Don’t you see what a colossal idiot you’re making of yourself?”“That’s my affair,” retorted the Superintendent, unmoved. “By the way, don’t attempt any funny business, any of you. The Colonel and I are both armed.” He took a whistle from his pocket and blew it shrilly. Two large men at once entered the French windows from the garden and stood as if on guard just inside. Another, whom Dora recognised as the man who had brought her down, came in from the passage outside.This latter was not an imposing figure, even for a policeman in plain clothes. He was short and rather round, he wore a neatly trimmed black beard cut in a point and a pair of enormous horn-rimmed spectacles.The same thought seemed to have occurred to Guy, for he nudged Mr. Doyle, and remarked: “Cheer up, Pat, you’ll get a lot of copy out of this. Look at that fellow, for instance. Did you ever hear of any one like it outside a detective story? I never dreamed these chaps existed in real life.”It was a pity that the attention of Guy and Mr. Doyle was thus engaged, because even the Superintendent’s lips twitched spasmodically as his underling entered the room. The next minute, however, his face was as stern as before as he threw this newcomer a brief nod and remarked: “Carry on, Bateman.”Bateman carried on. From the pocket of his large overcoat he produced, with a slightly apologetic air, two pairs of handcuffs, one link of each he proceeded to lock round either of Guy’s wrists. Unfortunately Guy was so busy looking mockingly contemptuous that he quite failed to notice the unusual clumsiness with which the operation was being performed. In the same way neither did Mr. Doyle nor George when they in turn were tethered each to one of Guy’s wrists. None of the three offered any physical resistance, because they were not going to spoil a good case by losing their heads; but Mr. Doyle suddenly found his tongue, and with it several pithy things which he wished to say to this dunderheaded Superintendent. He said them.“The detective stories always make the chap from Scotland Yard a perfect fool,” concluded Mr. Doyle bitterly, “and my God! I’m not surprised.”“Shut up, Pat,” said Dora crossly. “He’ll find out all in good time the fool he’s making of himself. What’s worrying me is that apparently I’ve got to miss the show to-night. I shall be getting the sack soon if this goes on.”“The sack, Dora?” said a pleasant voice from the door. “Well, my dear, what are you doing—goodgracious!” Cynthia stared at the linked trio in amazement. “Whatishappening?”“This is Superintendent Peters of Scotland Yard,” said her husband pleasantly. “He’s labouring under a slight delusion, we think.”“He’s the biggest idiot Scotland Yard ever turned out,” Mr. Doyle put it less tactfully.George grinned ruefully and did not put it at all. A cautious man, George.“Is this Mrs. Nesbitt, Colonel?” asked the Superintendent.The Colonel nodded.“Cynthia Nesbitt,” the Superintendent said snappily, “I arrest you …” He continued the speech as before, and again nodded to the horn-rimmed Bateman.That representative of the law drew yet another pair of handcuffs from his pocket, small ladies’ this time, and in deathly silence proceeded to yoke Cynthia and Dora together—Cynthia apparently too dumbfounded to resist, Dora submitting with outward disdain and inward turbulence.“Is that really necessary, Superintendent?” Guy asked in a voice of ice.The Superintendent did not even trouble to reply.“My God,” Mr. Doyle boiled over on seeing his lady thus ignominiously treated, “I’ll get you turned out of the force, you miserable bungler, if there’s any power left inThe Courier’s elbow at all.”“But Guy!” said Cynthia, breathing a little quickly. “This is simply farcical.”“That’s just what we’ve been pointing out to the idiot, my dear.”“Colonel!” appealed Cynthia.The Colonel shook his head. “Matter’s out of my hands, I’m afraid, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he replied gruffly.“I told you so, Guy!” Cynthia cried. “I told you it would end like this.”“Make a note of that admission, Bateman,” the Superintendent remarked with satisfaction. “Robinson, march ’em off. Bateman, you’ll take the women in the other car to Abingchester. Right!”The two watchers by the door approached. They were burly men, both, and they had the advantage of having their wrists free.“Now then, step lively,” said one.“Come along, you,” said the other. “Jump to it.”“But hang it all, Superintendent,” said Guy, “you must let us pack a bag first. Colonel, this is——”“Step lively, you,” said the first watcher, and pushed.“Jump to it,” urged the second, and pulled.The five passed out of the room; the Superintendent and the Colonel followed them. In the road was a large car. It was a very large car, and the seven just managed to get in. They drove off.Five hundred yards farther on they passed Monica and Alan, who had been sent into the village on a quite unnecessary errand.“Hi, George!” cried Monica. “Where are you off to? I thought you were going to——”But George, grinning feebly, had been swept past.“Can’t you let old George alone forfiveminutes?” asked Alan disgustedly, and went on to be very brotherly indeed.From a window of the house Detective Bateman watched the result of Alan’s brotherliness with an interested eye before hurrying back to the library.“They’ve gone,” he said. “And I think your brother and sister are coming back. I’m sure it’s your brother and sister,” he added with a smile.“Oh,” said Cynthia. “Well, we’d better get this absurd thing off then.” She extended a slender wrist, and Detective Bateman did something with a key. The wrist was freed. “I think,” Cynthia smiled, “that Dora really ought to keep hers on a lot longer. However, perhaps we mustn’t be too harsh with her.”“What on earth——?” cried Dora, finding her voice with an effort as the detective bent over her wrist in turn.“Yes, dear,” said Cynthia sweetly. “Quite. By the way, I don’t think you’ve ever met Mr. Priestley, have you? Take that dreadful beard off, Mr. Priestley, and be introduced properly.”For a couple of moments there was silence; then babel, produced largely by Dora, ensued.“Cynthia, you loathsome person,” observed Miss Howard, some two minutes later, “just be quiet a minute and let me get this straight. You say the Superintendent really isn’t a superintendent at all, but a friend of Mr. Priestley’s?”“Quite correct,” beamed that gentleman. “His name is Adams. We were at school together.”Dora digested this. “And the other two are friends too?”“All friends of mine,” agreed Mr. Priestley, without a single sign of compunction.“And you persuaded the Colonel into the business, you vamp?”“I don’t think he needed much persuading,” smiled the vamp. “He felt, you see, that he had a score or two to work off on his own account. He’s rather a dear, when you get to know him.”Dora disregarded the endearing qualities of the Colonel. “Butwhyall this?” she asked plaintively. “That’s what I don’t get.Whyturn round and bite the hand that plotted with you, so to speak?”“But no hand did plot with me, Dawks dear. I didn’t want to plot at all. I ought to have put my foot down much more firmly that evening and forbidden it altogether, instead of allowing myself to be overruled so weakly. My dear, I hardly got a wink of sleep for two nights, thinking what poor Mr. Priestley must be suffering.”Poor Mr. Priestley, who had scarcely suffered at all, introduced a deprecating air into his steady beam, as if to apologise for this waste of sleeplessness.“In fact,” continued Cynthia, “I thought the whole thing very heartless, and as soon as I could see a way of turning the plot against its own makers I naturally took it. I thought my Guy and your Pat needed a lesson.”“But what’s going to happen to them? The Colonel isn’t really going to put them in prison, is he?”“No,” said Cynthia, not without regret. “I tried to persuade him to (it would have beensogood for all of them), but he said that was really going too far. So he’s going to take them up to the middle of Harpenfield Woods and—leave them there!”“You heartless woman!”“Oh, they’ll be all right,” said the heartless woman serenely. “It’s only twelve miles. Of course they won’t be able to get the handcuffs off, because the key’s here. But then, they never arranged for a key for poor Mr. Priestley at all. I expect them home in plenty of time for dinner.”“Well!” said Dora, giggling in spite of all decent feeling at the idea of her brother, her fiancé, and her best friend’s husband walking along the lanes hand in hand. “I don’t think you’ll be very popular for a time, Cyntie dearest. And what about Laura?”“Laura,” said Cynthia, “I’m leaving entirely to Mr. Priestley. As at present arranged, they’re going to be married at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”“What?” shrieked Dora, and then more explanations had to be unfolded. “Oh, well,” Dora said resignedly at the end of them, “I suppose we all deserved it. Is it any use apologising to you, Mr. Priestley, or would you take it as one more insult?”“There’s no need, Miss Howard, I assure you. Pat was quite right: I did want waking up. I realise that now.”“I’m sure you’re very wide-awake at present, certainly,” observed Miss Howard crisply. “And you got me all the way down from town to let me be handcuffed for two minutes, Cinders?”“Oh, no, dear. That’s only part of your punishment. You’ve got the worst bit to come. I’m going to take you down to the Fosters now, to eat as big a slice of humble pie as you can manage. It’s about your visit to Mr. Foster’s tool-shed on Monday. You’ve got to come and tell Mrs. Foster that you’re not her husband’s—— Oh, well,” said Cynthia airily, “I can tell you all that on the way.”“That I’m notwhat?” asked Dora, mystified.“Yes, dear. Soon. But——”“Cyntie, I think you’re the absolutelimit!” said a voice from the door. “I don’t mind telling you I’ve been listening and heard the lot. You really are the outside edge.”“My dear Monica,” Cynthia said in surprise, “why?”“Well,” said her indignant sister, “you know perfectly well the whole thing was Guy and Pat’s fault. Why drag George into it? He had nothing to do with it. He told me he hated the whole thing, and wouldn’t have gone in for it at all if Guy hadn’t made him.”“Oh, did he?” Cynthia said sweetly. “Oh!” She gazed at the flushed face of her sister with a good deal more interest than these simple words appeared to warrant. Perhaps Monica felt this too, for she turned a deeper colour and then marched with dignity from the room.Dora looked at Cynthia and vulgarly winked. “Do you think so?” she asked cryptically.“I’m sure of it,” said Cynthia, with complete conviction.“Good!” said Dora; and to Mr. Priestley’s astonishment they kissed warmly.“Well,” said Cynthia, when this ceremony had been performed, “we’d better be off too. You’ll be going back at once, Mr. Priestley? You’re sure you won’t stop and see the wanderers return?”“I think perhaps not,” Mr. Priestley said with discretion. “I shall leave you to brave that storm, Mrs. Nesbitt. I shall have one of my own to weather at home, remember.”Dora giggled in a way that reminded Mr. Priestley most delectably of Laura. “What are you really going to do with my erring sister, Mr. Priestley? You won’t be too hard on her, will you?”“It’s all I’ve been able to do to make him hard enough,” smiled Cynthia.They shook hands with Mr. Priestley. Dora, it was evident, bore him no malice. Dora and Laura were very exceptional young women. Mr. Priestley had reached the gate into the road when Cynthia, as if on a sudden impulse, darted after him.“Use that special licence of yours, Mr. Priestley!” she whispered, holding that astonished gentleman by the sleeve. “Don’t enlighten Laura at all—marry her instead! That’s my advice.”Cynthia then darted back again, sailing over her shoulder.“Come round to the garage,” Dora said to her, “and I’ll run us up in George’s car.”Dora was a poor prophet. As they came in sight of the garage it was just possible to see George’s car disappearing neatly through the gateway into the road. At the wheel was Monica. For a pupil who, according to the frequently expressed opinions of both herself and her teacher, required very many more lessons before she could be trusted to take the car out alone, she seemed to be managing the rather difficult exit very capably.“Monica!” called Cynthia.“Monica!” shrieked Dora.Monica did not reply, but the car accelerated with a bound which almost lifted it off the ground.The two looked at each other. “Apparently we have to walk after all,” said Cynthia.“Harpenfield Woods, I suppose,” said Dora sadly.“It’s funny how being in love seems to warp a female’s sense of humour,” Cynthia mused. “I don’t think it does men’s.”They set out towards their goal where a strangely humbled Mr. Foster was anxiously awaiting them.
On Wednesday Cynthia had taken another trip to London. She made no secret of it. She said quite plainly that she wanted to get away from this atmosphere of intrigue and anxiety, and she was therefore going up to see Edith Marryott, whom she hadn’t seen for simplyages. It is to be regretted that Cynthia had no intention whatever of going within two miles of Edith Marryott.
She took Alan with her, gave him ten shillings at Paddington, and told him to meet her there on the 5.49. Alan made a bee-line for the nearest call-box and had the ineffable joy of arranging to take a chorus-girl out to lunch. That the chorus-girl afterwards firmly insisted on paying both for her own lunch and for Alan’s too was a point which need not be laboured in subsequent conversations with Colebrook and Thomson minor.
Alan squandered five and ninepence of his ten shillings afterwards on a seat at the Jollitymatinée, and later waited at the stage-door, thrilled to the soles of his boots. His beaker of heady pleasure was completed after that by being allowed to take his chorus-girl out to teaandpay for it, though the A.B.C. to which she insisted upon going did not seem quite to fit. The lady, however, assured him gravely that when not refreshing themselves with champagne and oysters, chorus-girls invariably go to A.B.C.’s, and it was all quite in order, and he accepted this information from her still excitingly grease-painted lips. Alan had the day of his life, and caught the 7.15 back to Duffley.
Cynthia and Alan were not missed at Duffley. Monica, for instance, was far too busy taking an intelligent interest in the workings of George’s car to miss them. Not in George himself, of course not, though he was interesting on the subject of cars, George was. And actresses. And the relations of a man and a girl these days. “Jolly nice, feeling one can be real pals with a girl nowadays. Rotten it must have been for those old Victorians, eh? What I mean is, a man likes to feel a girl can be a sort ofpal, so to speak. Jolly to go out with and all that. Of course you can’t be pals with all girls, though. Fact is, I’ve never really met another one beside you that I could, Monica. Comic when you come to think of it, in a way, isn’t it? Here we are, just pals, all merry and bright, going out in the old bus and having a good time, and everything’s absolutely ripping. I say, Monica, I’m dashed glad you came down here, you know. I was getting bored stiff with Duffley, and that silly stunt of Guy’s was worse still. I mean to say, what I really wanted, I suppose, was apal.”
And Monica listened very seriously and thought it all extremely original and clever of him. She did not introduce the subject of her soul because, luckily for George, she was not that sort of girl; but she inaugurated some very deep conversation about carburetters and magnetos, which came to much the same thing.
Unlike London, Thursday morning at Duffley was peacefulness itself. Then, on Thursday afternoon, came the Chief Constable, bringing with him a tall stranger. The stranger was dressed in a suit notable more for its wearing qualities than its cut, and he had large boots and a disconcertingly piercing eye. In a voice of undeniable authority he requested the presence of Guy and Mr. Doyle in the library. Polite but mystified, they humoured him.
Then the Colonel spoke. He said: “Gentlemen, this is Superintendent Peters, of Scotland Yard. He wants to ask you a few questions.”
Guy and Mr. Doyle did not exchange glances, because neither dared look at the other; but something like the same thought was in both their minds. The thought might be represented in general terms as a large question-mark, and, more particularly, by: “Good Lord! Is this going to prove the cream of the whole jest, or—is it not?”
For at least ten minutes the newcomer took no notice at all of the two, while the Colonel explained in minute detail exactly what had happened in the room, the position of the body, and all other necessary details. Guy and Mr. Doyle found this a trifle disconcerting. From being keyed up suddenly to the topmost pitch of their powers they found themselves beginning, through sheer inaction, to waver on their top note.
When the Colonel, in his description of events, reached the Constable’s entry upon the scene and his handling of the apparent culprits, the Superintendent cut him short with some abruptness.
“Yes, yes,” he said, with a touch of impatience. “We needn’t go into that, Colonel.”
The Colonel’s surprise was obvious. “But Graves is the only witness we have for those two,” he said.
“And a perfectly unimportant witness,” snapped the other, in the best detective-story manner. “Except as witnesses themselves, these two have no bearing on the business. Their story was perfectly true; like your man, they came on the scene immediately after the shot had been fired. If the constable had had the intelligence of a louse he’d have realised that and not frightened them off as he did. We’ve traced ’em all right now, but it wasn’t any too easy.”
“Good gracious! This puts rather a different complexion on things. Who are they, then?”
“The man’s name is Priestley.” If Guy and Mr. Doyle started violently, apparently the Superintendent did not notice. “Priestley. He’s got a flat in Half Moon Street. Well-to-do bachelor, with quiet tastes. Last man in the world to do anything of this sort, we’ve satisfied ourselves on that point all right. The girl’s his cousin. As a matter of fact he employs her, out of charity, no doubt, as his secretary. Perfectly respectable, both of them.”
This time Guy and Mr. Doyle did exchange glances. It was beyond the powers of human self-restraint not to do so. Each read in the other’s eye bewilderment charged with faint alarm. “What in the deuce is happening?” eye asked eye, and received no answer.
“You haven’t found the Crown Prince’s body yet, I suppose?” the Colonel ventured, as the Superintendent gazed moodily out through the French windows towards the river.
“We have, though,” the man from Scotland Yard replied grimly. “Just as we expected, on a boat passing Greenwich.”
“Bound for Bosnogovina?”
“Exactly. We thought they’d want to show it to the people, to prove he really was dead; and that’s just what happened.”
“Ah!”
Again Guy and Mr. Doyle exchanged glances. This time the glances said to each other: “Havetheygone mad, or havewe?”
There was a very intense silence.
Suddenly the Superintendent wheeled round and fixed Guy with his disconcerting pale blue eyes. “You two gentlemen stay here, please.” He walked abruptly out into the garden, followed by the Colonel.
“I don’t think,” observed Mr. Doyle with some care, “that I quite like that gentleman, Nesbitt. I don’t like any of him much, but least of all his eyes.”
Guy smiled, a little unsecurely. “Was I totally mistaken, Doyle, ordidhe murmur something to our friend about a dead Crown Prince’s body being recovered off Greenwichen routefor Bosnogosomethingorother? I think I must have been totally mistaken.”
“If you were, then I was too. I don’t think we can both have been, you know.”
“Then what,” said Guy, “in the name of all that’s unholy was he talking about?”
“There you’ve chased me up a gum-tree,” admitted Mr. Doyle.
They looked out of the window to where the Superintendent was intently examining the mass of footprints.
“It’s pusillanimous, no doubt,” said Mr. Doyle, “but do you know the effect that man has on me? He makes me almost wish we hadn’t made those beautiful footprints. He doesn’t look to me the sort of person to take a harmless joke at all well.”
After a few minutes the Superintendent rose and engaged the Colonel in talk. The next thing was that both walked briskly to the gate that led into George’s garden and passed out of sight.
George was at home that afternoon. Cynthia had insisted upon Monica going out to pay a couple of calls with her; she had had to insist very hard, but she had carried her point. George, drawing the line quite properly at calls, was at home.
“There’s two gentlemen to see you, sir,” said George’s elderly daily maid. (She had rabbit teeth, very little hair, puce elbows, and a very large before-and-after effect; when entering a doorway she contrived both to precede and to follow herself. She was not even a maid; she was a cook, and her name was Mrs. Bagsworthy. We shall never meet her again.)
The two gentlemen followed her announcement. They did not insist upon the ceremony of awaiting George’s permission to enter. They had no intention of consulting George’s wishes on the matter.
As before, the Colonel introduced his companion, who at once fixed George with his steely eye. George began to wish that some one was there to hold his hand.
“Where were you last Saturday evening, Mr. Howard?” demanded the Superintendent, immediately after his introduction, not even pausing to make the usual inquiries as to George’s health.
“Over at the N—— here!” said George.
The Superintendent did not say: “You lie!” but George did not quite know why not. He might just as well have done.
Instead he said: “Do you know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered at some place on the Thames between here and Oxford on Saturday night, and his body embarked on a large motor-boat out of which it was recovered this morning off Greenwich?”
“Great Scott, no!” said George, with perfect truth.
“You did not know that he was murdered in the next house, while you say you were sitting in here? You heard nothing—no shot, no cry, no shouting or confusion?”
“No,” dithered George. “I—no, I—that is, no.”
The Superintendent bored a neat hole in George’s forehead with his gimlet eyes. “Isn’t that very strange, Mr. Howard? Isn’t it exceedinglystrangethat you heard nothing?”
“Er—yes—I suppose it is. Er—frightfully strange. Must be, mustn’t it? Er—how extraordinary!”
The Superintendent continued to bore holes in George in silence. George wished he wouldn’t.
“I have a warrant to search this house, Mr. Howard,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you wish to see it?”
“Good Lord, no,” said George, apparently much shocked at the suggestion. Fancy asking him if he wanted toseea warrant to search his house! How frightfully indelicate!
“Very well. Kindly go over to the library of the house next door, and wait there till I come.”
“I say, you know,” George protested feebly in spite of his alarm. There was good sterling stuff in George. “I say, you know, what’s all this about? Searching my house and—and ordering me about and—and——” His words faded away under the menacing light in the Superintendent’s eyes.
“I think you will find it better to do as I suggest, Mr. Howard,” said the Superintendent, oh, so gently.
George did it.
Guy and Mr. Doyle received him with effusive jocularity, in which, nevertheless, a somewhat forced note was detectable. On hearing his account of the interview, the jocularity disappeared altogether.
“But this is absurd!” Guy said blankly. “This fellow seems not only to be taking our silly story as solemn truth, but to be dovetailing it in with something that really has happened.”
“But my dear chap,” expostulated Mr. Doyle, “we can’t take itseriously.”
“You’ll take that superintendent chap seriously when he gets on your tail, Pat,” observed George with feeling.
There was an uneasy pause. “Bosnogo—whatdid he say?” remarked Guy. “Has anybody ever heard of the place?”
“I say,” said Doyle, “I wonder what it really is all about?”
They went on wondering. Upon their speculations entered Dora.
“Hallo!” said Dora without joy. “Hallo, youarehere, are you? Good. I was afraid you’d all have been carried off to jail.”
“Jail?” echoed the others, jumping nimbly.
“What have you come down for, Dora?” asked Mr. Doyle.
“Because I was brought,” said Dora shortly. “I’m under arrest, or something ridiculous. For being an accessory to the murder of the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina, or some extraordinary tale. Have you any idea what’s happening, anybody? This really is rather gorgeous, isn’t it?” She laughed without exuberant mirth.
“Frightfully,” agreed Mr. Doyle gloomily.
“I’m afraid,” said Guy, “very much afraid, that we shall have to tell them the truth. It’s a pity, but there it is. Unless, of course, you’d like to carry the thing on to the end and sample the skilly, would you? I’ve always wondered what skilly was really like.”
“If you mean, go to prison,” Dora said with energy, “most certainly not, even to help your experiments, Guy. I’m sorry, but I’ve got a complex about prisons. I don’t like them.”
George looked relieved. He had a complex about prisons too. Perhaps it ran in the family.
“Come, Dora,” observed Mr. Doyle, jesting manfully, “you——”
“I say,” said George. “Look out. Here they come.”
The Superintendent and Colonel Ratcliffe were crossing the lawn. In one hand the former held a pair of boots.
“By Jove,” said Guy softly, “I wonder ifthisis why old Foster was arrested so mysteriously. I suppose we ought to have had Foster rather on our consciences, but as I’ve always said, to be arrested was just the very thing that Foster needed.”
Amid a respectful silence the Superintendent walked up to George. “Do you admit that these are your boots?” he asked curtly.
George looked at the boots. Undoubtedly they were his. On the other hand, was he to admit the fact? He glanced at the others, but their blank faces gave him no help. “Yes,” he said. “At least—well—yes, I—I think so.”
“Ah!” said the Superintendent.
Guy came forward with an easy smile. “I’m afraid, Superintendent,” he said smoothly, “that we’ve got a confession to make. I can’t imagine what’s been happening elsewhere, but apparently we planned rather better than we knew. The most amazing coincidence——”
“Have you anything you wish to say?” cut in the Superintendent in properly incisive tones.
“I have,” said Guy, unperturbed. “The whole thing was a joke. This is the truth.” He went on to give a detailed account of it.
At first the faces of his fellow-conspirators showed a certain relief. Though none of them would have admitted it, except George, they were all getting tired of the jest; it had been pleasant while it lasted, but life would become more simple without it. As Guy proceeded, however, relief gave place to growing uneasiness. The Superintendent was perhaps not a tactful man, and the complete incredulity with which he listened to Guy’s words was only too visible on his countenance.
“And is that all you’ve got to say, Mr. Nesbitt?” he asked, when Guy, a little haltingly as he saw the very poor impression he was making, had brought his story to an end.
“That’s all, yes. I’m sorry.”
The Superintendent seemed sorry too—sorry that any one should really think it any use to waste his time with such a hotch-potch of nonsense. He rubbed his chin and looked at Guy more in pity than in anger. The others hung on his words.
“Then according to you, Mr. Nesbitt, you don’t know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered here on Saturday night? You thought it was just a bit of play-acting, did you? You mixed up the parties that did it with your own friends?”
“But hewasn’tmurdered here! I’ve just explained.”
“This is incredible, Superintendent,” exclaimed Mr. Doyle. “You surely aren’t seriously imagining that——”
“That will do,” snapped the Superintendent, without any pretence of courtesy. “Any observations you wish to make can be put to the magistrates to-morrow morning.”
“Magistrates!” gasped four unhappy mouths.
“You don’t mean,” cried Dora, “that—that——”
The Superintendent eyed her grimly. “May I remind you, Miss Howard, that you are already under arrest?” he observed. “You will undergo a formal identification by a Mr. Foster, whom we have been compelled to keep in detention for his own safety, as soon as we get to the police-station; and——”
“Foster?” squeaked Mr. Doyle. “His own safety? What on earth are you talking about now?”
The Superintendent was very patient. “No doubt it had never occurred to you that, apart from the constable, who only saw the Crown Prince’s dead body, and two other persons who had nothing to do with the murder, Mr. Foster is our only witness, did it?”
Guy also was very patient. “My dear good man,” he said very patiently, “haven’t I already told you thatthisis our Crown Prince, very much alive and no doubt longing to be kicking?”
George smiled deprecatingly. He hadn’t the least idea what was happening, but he did realise that Guy’s tone was not calculated to soothe the Superintendent. “That’s right,” he mumbled. “Really quite true, you know. I’m not dead—not a bit of it.”
The Superintendent looked unimpressed.
“Might I ask, then, what you intend to do with us?” Guy inquired in silky tones.
“Certainly, Mr. Nesbitt,” replied the Superintendent briskly. “Take you with me.” He looked round the room with his penetrating blue eyes, and added in an official voice: “Guy Nesbitt, Patrick Doyle, George Howard, I arrest you on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina in this room on the night of the 10th instant, either as principals or as accessories before and after the fact, and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you at your trial.”
“But good Heavens,” spluttered Mr. Doyle, “we’re not—not Bosnogovinians, or whatever the place is.”
“No? But you speak the language, don’t you? You must remember that we have our evidence. And the constable has already identified you, without your knowledge, as the persons who removed the Crown Prince’s body from this room.”
“But, my dear good man, we’veexplainedthat. Don’t you see what a colossal idiot you’re making of yourself?”
“That’s my affair,” retorted the Superintendent, unmoved. “By the way, don’t attempt any funny business, any of you. The Colonel and I are both armed.” He took a whistle from his pocket and blew it shrilly. Two large men at once entered the French windows from the garden and stood as if on guard just inside. Another, whom Dora recognised as the man who had brought her down, came in from the passage outside.
This latter was not an imposing figure, even for a policeman in plain clothes. He was short and rather round, he wore a neatly trimmed black beard cut in a point and a pair of enormous horn-rimmed spectacles.
The same thought seemed to have occurred to Guy, for he nudged Mr. Doyle, and remarked: “Cheer up, Pat, you’ll get a lot of copy out of this. Look at that fellow, for instance. Did you ever hear of any one like it outside a detective story? I never dreamed these chaps existed in real life.”
It was a pity that the attention of Guy and Mr. Doyle was thus engaged, because even the Superintendent’s lips twitched spasmodically as his underling entered the room. The next minute, however, his face was as stern as before as he threw this newcomer a brief nod and remarked: “Carry on, Bateman.”
Bateman carried on. From the pocket of his large overcoat he produced, with a slightly apologetic air, two pairs of handcuffs, one link of each he proceeded to lock round either of Guy’s wrists. Unfortunately Guy was so busy looking mockingly contemptuous that he quite failed to notice the unusual clumsiness with which the operation was being performed. In the same way neither did Mr. Doyle nor George when they in turn were tethered each to one of Guy’s wrists. None of the three offered any physical resistance, because they were not going to spoil a good case by losing their heads; but Mr. Doyle suddenly found his tongue, and with it several pithy things which he wished to say to this dunderheaded Superintendent. He said them.
“The detective stories always make the chap from Scotland Yard a perfect fool,” concluded Mr. Doyle bitterly, “and my God! I’m not surprised.”
“Shut up, Pat,” said Dora crossly. “He’ll find out all in good time the fool he’s making of himself. What’s worrying me is that apparently I’ve got to miss the show to-night. I shall be getting the sack soon if this goes on.”
“The sack, Dora?” said a pleasant voice from the door. “Well, my dear, what are you doing—goodgracious!” Cynthia stared at the linked trio in amazement. “Whatishappening?”
“This is Superintendent Peters of Scotland Yard,” said her husband pleasantly. “He’s labouring under a slight delusion, we think.”
“He’s the biggest idiot Scotland Yard ever turned out,” Mr. Doyle put it less tactfully.
George grinned ruefully and did not put it at all. A cautious man, George.
“Is this Mrs. Nesbitt, Colonel?” asked the Superintendent.
The Colonel nodded.
“Cynthia Nesbitt,” the Superintendent said snappily, “I arrest you …” He continued the speech as before, and again nodded to the horn-rimmed Bateman.
That representative of the law drew yet another pair of handcuffs from his pocket, small ladies’ this time, and in deathly silence proceeded to yoke Cynthia and Dora together—Cynthia apparently too dumbfounded to resist, Dora submitting with outward disdain and inward turbulence.
“Is that really necessary, Superintendent?” Guy asked in a voice of ice.
The Superintendent did not even trouble to reply.
“My God,” Mr. Doyle boiled over on seeing his lady thus ignominiously treated, “I’ll get you turned out of the force, you miserable bungler, if there’s any power left inThe Courier’s elbow at all.”
“But Guy!” said Cynthia, breathing a little quickly. “This is simply farcical.”
“That’s just what we’ve been pointing out to the idiot, my dear.”
“Colonel!” appealed Cynthia.
The Colonel shook his head. “Matter’s out of my hands, I’m afraid, Mrs. Nesbitt,” he replied gruffly.
“I told you so, Guy!” Cynthia cried. “I told you it would end like this.”
“Make a note of that admission, Bateman,” the Superintendent remarked with satisfaction. “Robinson, march ’em off. Bateman, you’ll take the women in the other car to Abingchester. Right!”
The two watchers by the door approached. They were burly men, both, and they had the advantage of having their wrists free.
“Now then, step lively,” said one.
“Come along, you,” said the other. “Jump to it.”
“But hang it all, Superintendent,” said Guy, “you must let us pack a bag first. Colonel, this is——”
“Step lively, you,” said the first watcher, and pushed.
“Jump to it,” urged the second, and pulled.
The five passed out of the room; the Superintendent and the Colonel followed them. In the road was a large car. It was a very large car, and the seven just managed to get in. They drove off.
Five hundred yards farther on they passed Monica and Alan, who had been sent into the village on a quite unnecessary errand.
“Hi, George!” cried Monica. “Where are you off to? I thought you were going to——”
But George, grinning feebly, had been swept past.
“Can’t you let old George alone forfiveminutes?” asked Alan disgustedly, and went on to be very brotherly indeed.
From a window of the house Detective Bateman watched the result of Alan’s brotherliness with an interested eye before hurrying back to the library.
“They’ve gone,” he said. “And I think your brother and sister are coming back. I’m sure it’s your brother and sister,” he added with a smile.
“Oh,” said Cynthia. “Well, we’d better get this absurd thing off then.” She extended a slender wrist, and Detective Bateman did something with a key. The wrist was freed. “I think,” Cynthia smiled, “that Dora really ought to keep hers on a lot longer. However, perhaps we mustn’t be too harsh with her.”
“What on earth——?” cried Dora, finding her voice with an effort as the detective bent over her wrist in turn.
“Yes, dear,” said Cynthia sweetly. “Quite. By the way, I don’t think you’ve ever met Mr. Priestley, have you? Take that dreadful beard off, Mr. Priestley, and be introduced properly.”
For a couple of moments there was silence; then babel, produced largely by Dora, ensued.
“Cynthia, you loathsome person,” observed Miss Howard, some two minutes later, “just be quiet a minute and let me get this straight. You say the Superintendent really isn’t a superintendent at all, but a friend of Mr. Priestley’s?”
“Quite correct,” beamed that gentleman. “His name is Adams. We were at school together.”
Dora digested this. “And the other two are friends too?”
“All friends of mine,” agreed Mr. Priestley, without a single sign of compunction.
“And you persuaded the Colonel into the business, you vamp?”
“I don’t think he needed much persuading,” smiled the vamp. “He felt, you see, that he had a score or two to work off on his own account. He’s rather a dear, when you get to know him.”
Dora disregarded the endearing qualities of the Colonel. “Butwhyall this?” she asked plaintively. “That’s what I don’t get.Whyturn round and bite the hand that plotted with you, so to speak?”
“But no hand did plot with me, Dawks dear. I didn’t want to plot at all. I ought to have put my foot down much more firmly that evening and forbidden it altogether, instead of allowing myself to be overruled so weakly. My dear, I hardly got a wink of sleep for two nights, thinking what poor Mr. Priestley must be suffering.”
Poor Mr. Priestley, who had scarcely suffered at all, introduced a deprecating air into his steady beam, as if to apologise for this waste of sleeplessness.
“In fact,” continued Cynthia, “I thought the whole thing very heartless, and as soon as I could see a way of turning the plot against its own makers I naturally took it. I thought my Guy and your Pat needed a lesson.”
“But what’s going to happen to them? The Colonel isn’t really going to put them in prison, is he?”
“No,” said Cynthia, not without regret. “I tried to persuade him to (it would have beensogood for all of them), but he said that was really going too far. So he’s going to take them up to the middle of Harpenfield Woods and—leave them there!”
“You heartless woman!”
“Oh, they’ll be all right,” said the heartless woman serenely. “It’s only twelve miles. Of course they won’t be able to get the handcuffs off, because the key’s here. But then, they never arranged for a key for poor Mr. Priestley at all. I expect them home in plenty of time for dinner.”
“Well!” said Dora, giggling in spite of all decent feeling at the idea of her brother, her fiancé, and her best friend’s husband walking along the lanes hand in hand. “I don’t think you’ll be very popular for a time, Cyntie dearest. And what about Laura?”
“Laura,” said Cynthia, “I’m leaving entirely to Mr. Priestley. As at present arranged, they’re going to be married at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“What?” shrieked Dora, and then more explanations had to be unfolded. “Oh, well,” Dora said resignedly at the end of them, “I suppose we all deserved it. Is it any use apologising to you, Mr. Priestley, or would you take it as one more insult?”
“There’s no need, Miss Howard, I assure you. Pat was quite right: I did want waking up. I realise that now.”
“I’m sure you’re very wide-awake at present, certainly,” observed Miss Howard crisply. “And you got me all the way down from town to let me be handcuffed for two minutes, Cinders?”
“Oh, no, dear. That’s only part of your punishment. You’ve got the worst bit to come. I’m going to take you down to the Fosters now, to eat as big a slice of humble pie as you can manage. It’s about your visit to Mr. Foster’s tool-shed on Monday. You’ve got to come and tell Mrs. Foster that you’re not her husband’s—— Oh, well,” said Cynthia airily, “I can tell you all that on the way.”
“That I’m notwhat?” asked Dora, mystified.
“Yes, dear. Soon. But——”
“Cyntie, I think you’re the absolutelimit!” said a voice from the door. “I don’t mind telling you I’ve been listening and heard the lot. You really are the outside edge.”
“My dear Monica,” Cynthia said in surprise, “why?”
“Well,” said her indignant sister, “you know perfectly well the whole thing was Guy and Pat’s fault. Why drag George into it? He had nothing to do with it. He told me he hated the whole thing, and wouldn’t have gone in for it at all if Guy hadn’t made him.”
“Oh, did he?” Cynthia said sweetly. “Oh!” She gazed at the flushed face of her sister with a good deal more interest than these simple words appeared to warrant. Perhaps Monica felt this too, for she turned a deeper colour and then marched with dignity from the room.
Dora looked at Cynthia and vulgarly winked. “Do you think so?” she asked cryptically.
“I’m sure of it,” said Cynthia, with complete conviction.
“Good!” said Dora; and to Mr. Priestley’s astonishment they kissed warmly.
“Well,” said Cynthia, when this ceremony had been performed, “we’d better be off too. You’ll be going back at once, Mr. Priestley? You’re sure you won’t stop and see the wanderers return?”
“I think perhaps not,” Mr. Priestley said with discretion. “I shall leave you to brave that storm, Mrs. Nesbitt. I shall have one of my own to weather at home, remember.”
Dora giggled in a way that reminded Mr. Priestley most delectably of Laura. “What are you really going to do with my erring sister, Mr. Priestley? You won’t be too hard on her, will you?”
“It’s all I’ve been able to do to make him hard enough,” smiled Cynthia.
They shook hands with Mr. Priestley. Dora, it was evident, bore him no malice. Dora and Laura were very exceptional young women. Mr. Priestley had reached the gate into the road when Cynthia, as if on a sudden impulse, darted after him.
“Use that special licence of yours, Mr. Priestley!” she whispered, holding that astonished gentleman by the sleeve. “Don’t enlighten Laura at all—marry her instead! That’s my advice.”
Cynthia then darted back again, sailing over her shoulder.
“Come round to the garage,” Dora said to her, “and I’ll run us up in George’s car.”
Dora was a poor prophet. As they came in sight of the garage it was just possible to see George’s car disappearing neatly through the gateway into the road. At the wheel was Monica. For a pupil who, according to the frequently expressed opinions of both herself and her teacher, required very many more lessons before she could be trusted to take the car out alone, she seemed to be managing the rather difficult exit very capably.
“Monica!” called Cynthia.
“Monica!” shrieked Dora.
Monica did not reply, but the car accelerated with a bound which almost lifted it off the ground.
The two looked at each other. “Apparently we have to walk after all,” said Cynthia.
“Harpenfield Woods, I suppose,” said Dora sadly.
“It’s funny how being in love seems to warp a female’s sense of humour,” Cynthia mused. “I don’t think it does men’s.”
They set out towards their goal where a strangely humbled Mr. Foster was anxiously awaiting them.