With the passing of the days, a solid respect for this great woman had begun to burgeon within Jeff. Her dignified husband he regarded as a mere stuffed shirt, hardly worth a passing thought, but Dolly herself inspired him with something akin to awe. How, for instance, she could possibly have come to learn of Shipley Hall's hidden treasure was still an. unsolved enigma to him. It suggested the possession of something almost in the nature of second sight. And in addition to her psychic gifts, it now appeared, she had also this remarkable capacity for direct and rapid action.
True, after swallowing most of his cigarette and looking up with a jerk that nearly dislocated his neck, he had not actually observed her leaning over the banisters, but an ormolu clock, last seen on an antique chest of drawers on a first floor landing, does not descend into the hall of its own volition, and he had no hesitation in assuming that Dolly's was the hand which had started it on its downward course. He might be wronging her, but he did not think-so.
Far too many things, he reminded himself—vases and bricks and watering-cans and things like that—had been falling in his vicinity since the breaking off of diplomatic relations. And there was no question but that the loose stair rod, which he had detected just in time to avoid coming the purler of a lifetime, when about to hurry downstairs to dinner, had been made loose by someone interested in his movements who knew that he would be coming along at that moment.
It seemed to him that, circumstances having brought him up against a woman endowed with the temperamental outlook and able executive abilities of Lady Macbeth, he was faced, unless he cared to go about in a crash helmet, by two alternatives—the first, which he declined to consider, to accept her suggestion of leaving the Hall; the second, to run up to London as soon as possible and take out accident insurance with some good company.
A word to Mrs. Cork to the effect that he had succeeded in securing an excellent set of her butler's fingerprints and proposed to go with them to the Records Office at Scotland Yard, the boys there being always ready to assist a personal friend, and he was on his way to the metropolis with the comfortable feeling that, while this would not actually spike his adversary's guns, it would at least place him in a position to save something out of the wreck, in the event of her target practice improving.
He was now back in the grounds of Shipley Hall, and there, right ahead of him and alone, stood Anne. His spirits, already high, rose higher. That he should have found her like this, first crack out of the box, seemed to him proof that Providence recognised a good man when it saw one, and took care that his merits should not go unrewarded.
During the past week, Jeff had had many pleasant conversations with Anne, and they had confirmed him in his view that the slow, steady attack by means of the honeyed word was the method to pursue. He broke into a run and began speaking honeyed words now, as soon as he was within earshot.
"So there you are!" he said. "I had expected to have to conduct a long and laborious search for you, ending probably in the discovery that you were in Mrs. Cork's study, taking down in your notebook her tedious reflections on elephants."
He drew up beside her, and found that she was looking at him in that curious, intent way which he remembered from their first meeting.
"It's a funny thing," she said. "When you started to run just then, I felt that I was on the verge of a revelation. I thought I was going to remember where I had seen you before."
"You still think you have seen me before?"
"I'm sure I have."
"And my running seemed to provide a clue?"
"Just for a second. But the vision faded."
"I'll run a little more."
"No, don't bother. It's not important."
"But it is. You are being cheated out of what should be one of your most beautiful memories. Seeing me for the first time marks an epoch in most people's lives. They live over the moment again, to cheer themselves up in moods of depression. Are you sure, now that you have had time to think it over, that you were never in Lovely Lucerne?"
"Quite sure. Is it very lovely?"
"Beautiful. Nice and blue, and crowded with fascinating tourists with Baedekers."
"If it's as good as all that, I could hardly have forgotten being there. Especially if I had seen you."
"That's true. Then one can only assume that we must have met in some previous existence."
"Perhaps."
"In which I was perpetually running."
"Yes. It will be a great day for me, when I remember."
"A gala day," said Jeff.
He agreed with his conscience that all this sounded very like buzzing, and did not attempt to deny that when saved from the firing squad in the matter of Myrtle Shoesmith he had vowed never to buzz again, but, as he went, on to point out, it was not really buzzing. The depth of feeling behind the words was the thing to go by. When you really loved a girl with every fibre of your being, it did not matter if superficially you might seem to buzz. Quite simple, when you thought it out, he told his conscience, and his conscience said Quite.
Anne found that her spirits had risen. They always did, she had noticed, when she was with Jeff. She could not recall having met a man with whom she had felt so immediately in sympathy. It was almost, it sometimes seemed to her, as if someone had told him which were her favourite topics, her pet books and everything of that sort. Quite a part of her recent depression, she was honest enough to recognise, had been caused by his sudden disappearance after breakfast.
"What became of you all day?" she asked. "I was afraid you might have decided that the Ugubu diet was too much for you."
"No, no," said Jeff. "As a matter of fact, I am so intensely spiritual that I scarcely know what I'm eating. I had to go to London. I've brought you some chocolates."
"How absolutely noble of you. Strictly forbidden, of course."
"I guessed as much. You must nibble them in the privacy of your bedroom. It will bring back memories of dormitory feeds at Roedean."
"I didn't go to Roedean. I was 'privately educated,' as they say in Who's Who. What took you to London so suddenly?
This was an easy one. Jeff replied that he had had to attend to a few little matters at the office which required the personal touch. More difficult was the problem, which had been vexing him a good deal since Mrs. Molloy had so frankly revealed the predatory leanings of herself and husband, of whether to confide this new angle of the situation to Anne or preserve a prudent silence.
The question was one which was beginning to assume major proportions. Twice, visiting Lord Uffenham in his pantry in quest of port, he had found him closeted there with Mrs. Molloy: and there seemed to him no doubt, from the way they were getting along together, that if the old buster ever did remember where he had put those diamonds, the first person whom he would take into his confidence would be this golden-haired specialist in oompus-boompus.
Clearly, Lord Uffenham should be warned. But to warn him involved confessing to Anne that he had deceived her, and one never knew how girls were going to take these things. On the whole, he decided that silence was best.
"How did you pass the day?" he asked.
"Not too well."
"Don't tell me that Simone Legree made you work on an afternoon like this?"
"No. We finished before lunch."
"Then what went wrong?"
"Uncle George was a little strong on the wing, and it led to a certain amount of unpleasantness. In fact, I have been through the furnace."
"He had one of his sudden inspirations?"
"He did. He thought he might have put the diamonds inside the stuffed antelope's head in Mrs. Cork's study."
"Surely not?"
"Why? It's just the sort of ingenious place he would have thought of."
"But that sawn-off sample of African wild life wouldn't have been there, when he had the house. I take it that it arrived arm in arm with Mrs. Cork."
"Oh, I see what you mean. No, that isn't one of Mrs.-Cork's victims. It has been there ever s
ince I was a child. My grandfather shot it."
"Was he a hunter, too?"
"A mighty hunter. Very assiduous. No antelope was safe from him."
"What hell life must be for antelopes," said Jeff thoughtfully. " Never a moment to themselves. One can imagine them consoling one another with the reflection that your grandfather, though a powerful pest, couldn't last for ever. And then, just as he hands in his dinner pail, along comes Mrs. Cork."
"Too true."
"It makes you think a bit, doesn't it."
"I think about it all the time."
"It saddens you, I expect?"
"Terribly."
"Me, too. Let's try to forget it. Where are my tablets? I must jot down a memorandum—Search antelope."
"You wouldn't be scared to go into Mrs. Cork's study and rout about inside antelopes?"
"Of course not."
"Don't you Adairs know what fear is?" said Anne.
She was conscious of a sudden return of her dark mood. When she had mode the suggestion to Lionel Green earlier in the cay that he should perform this deed of derring-do, the latter had flatly declined to stir a step in the direction of his aunt's lair. Lionel knew all about the diamonds and was wholeheartedly in favour of their being found, for he shared the common taste of modern young men for marrying a wife with plenty of money, but there were risks which he refused to take, however admirable the end in view. And Anne, courageous herself, was inclined to deprecate pusillanimity in the opposite sex.
For an instant, she had asked herself whether her uncle might not be right about Lionel. And though she had dismissed the speculation instantly as disloyal, the aftereffects lingered.
Jeff's cheerful readiness to undertake the perilous task forced her into an unwilling comparison of the two men, and left her, as has been said, depressed again. It is disturbing for a girl when the wrong man seems to have all the right qualities.
"Well, don't bother," she said. "I've done it."
"You?"
"I did it just before I came out."
Jeff felt entitled to be a little severe, as some knight of old might have been, who, preparing to save a damsel from a dragon, found that she had already knocked it cold with her distaff.
"Come, come,"' he said. "This is all wrong. You really must leave the rough work to me."
"You weren't here."
"But you knew I should be back. When the fields are white with daisies, you must have said to yourself, he will return. I assume, from your sober deportment, that you found nothing?"
"Only a lot of stuffing. And, unfortunately, just as I was peering into the thing, Mrs. Cork came in."
"My God! Had you your story ready?"
" Such as it was. I said I was looking to see if the moths had been at it."
"Weak."
"So I felt."
"I should have done better than that."
"No, you wouldn't."
"Yes, I would."
"Well, what would you have said?" "I should have said—speaking with a light laugh—'Ah, Mrs. Cork’”
"Go on."
"'Ah, Mrs. Cork …' No," said Jeff, on reflection, "I don't know that I should have been so frightfully good, after all. Did she accept your explanation?"
"She appeared to. But I can't help feeling that I must have left her thinking that I had been bitten by Uncle George and infected with his particular form of eccentricity. I wonder she didn't dismiss me on the spot. It can't be pleasant for a woman to feel that her butler and her secretary are both off their heads."
"Scarcely a matter for comment in a place like this, where the whole strength of the company are loopy to the eyebrows. A stranger, straying in while the boys and girls were doing one of those tribal dances, would be on the phone, telling the nearest alienist to drop everything and hurry round, before he had seen the first ten steps. Have you ever noticed that long, thin fellow in the pince-nez with the double-jointed hips?"
"Mr. Shepperson? I dream of him sometimes."
"So do I."
"Mrs. Barlow, too."
"Which is she?"
"The stout woman with the chins."
"I know the one you mean. What a jewel! What a gem! What a breath of air from the seaside! Yes, there's a lot of elevation and instruction, not to mention pity and terror, to be derived from observing the inmates of this amateur Colney Hatch. My only regret is that the butler does not participate in the rhythmic revels. It would be stimulating to watch him treading the measure. How those large, flat feet would spurn the antic hay!"
"That's right. Make fun of Uncle George's feet."
"Thanks awfully. I'd love to. Let's both make fun of them. The old fathead, subjecting you to a fearful ordeal like that."
"Do you feel you know me well enough to call my uncle an old fathead?"
"I feel as if I had known you all my life. I'm sure you will find, when you look into it, that we have been married for years, without knowing it."
The operative word "married" had a sobering effect on Anne. She had temporarily thrust from her mind Lord Uffenham's statement in the car that this agreeable young man was in love with her, and had given herself up wholeheartedly to the pleasant give and take of this conversation. It was not often nowadays that she was able to enjoy the lighter type of conversational exchange. The male residents of Shipley Hall were solid, earnest men, too conscious of their mission to allow themselves to indulge in badinage. And Lionel, though he looked like a Greek god, had always been a little heavy in hand.
It had been wrong of her, she now saw, to lower quite so completely the barriers between herself and Jeff. It was what censorious critics of an earlier age would have stigmatised as "encouraging" one for whom there was, of course, no hope.
She gave a little shiver.
"Cold?" asked Jeff, as she had expected him to do. "I am, rather."
"Then let us go in. I can talk just as well indoors. Some people say better."
They walked towards the sunken garden. Above the wall which separated it from the lawn there were visible the head and shoulders of Mrs. Molloy. She seemed to be engaged in toying with the tendrils of some trailing shrub which had been planted in a stone vase of antique appearance. And it occurred to Jeff that here was an excellent opportunity of delivering that veiled warning, which in his opinion was so highly necessary.
"There's Mrs. Molloy."
"Yes."
"Don't look now." said Jeff, "but what do you think of her?"
" She seems quite nice."
"She doesn't strike you as sinister?"
"Not a bit. Does she you?"
"Very much so."
"I suppose almost everybody seems sinister to a detective."
"Well, one's trained instinct enables one to probe beneath the surface, of course. There's not much you can hide from the bloodstain and magnifying-glass boys. I have a feeling that these Molloys will bear watching They may be crooks."
"That's what Mr. Trumper thinks."
"Does he, the shrewd little half-portion?"
"He came to me the other day, and asked me to use my influence with Mrs. Cork to prevent her buying oil stock from Mr. Molloy. Unfortunately, I have no influence with Mrs. Cork. But go on. I don't see what harm they can do to us, even if they are as crooked as corkscrews."
"How about those diamonds?"
"What do you mean?"
"Suppose they get after them?"
"But they don't know they exist."
"They may get to know at any moment. Mrs. Molloy often goes and hobnobs with your uncle in his pantry. He might easily let slip something."
"He wouldn't."
"He might."
" Of course, he wouldn't. He's not crazy."
"Who told you that?"
It seemed to Anne that the moment had arrived to crush this young man. She liked him. Indeed, she could not remember ever having liked anyone so much on such short acquaintance. But she felt that he needed the firm, repressive hand. She walked on a few paces, then stoppe
d and, facing him coldly, prepared to speak.
It was at this point in the proceedings that the antique vase, suddenly becoming a thing of movement, fell with a crash on the pavement at her side, and she gave a little scream and postponed her observations.
Jeff was blaming himself bitterly. He should have known better, he was telling himself, than to have come within a hundred yards of Mrs. Molloy and an antique vase, one of the most dangerous combinations in existence, especially when in the company of Anne Benedick. His sentiments towards Anne were now so clearly defined that he would have felt uneasy if he had seen a rose petal fluttering down upon her precious head. Her narrow escape from receiving an antique vase on the back of the neck shook him to his foundations, so that the world seemed to swim about him and he scarcely knew what he was doing.
A cold voice spoke through the mists.
"Would you mind letting me go, please?" He discovered what he was doing. He was clasping Anne protectively to his bosom.
" Oh, sorry," he said, and released her. Anne, who had been white, was pink. "Thank you," she said.
A silence followed. Jeff was feeling oddly breathless. For the first time, he found himself swinging over towards the school of thought represented by Lord Uffenham, wondering whether, after all, there might not be something in the latter's crudely expressed but not unintelligent counsel. There had unquestionably been something about the feel of Anne's slender body in his arms that had seemed to satisfy some deep hunger in his soul.
Mrs. Molloy came hurrying through the door in the wall, concern on every feature of her piquant face.
"Gee!" she cried. "It didn't hit you, did it? I wouldn't have had a thing like that happen for a million dollars."
Nothing could have been more admirably in keeping with the solemnity of the moment than her pretty solicitude, yet Jeff eyed her with something of the repulsion which he would have bestowed upon a cobra di capella, a reptile of which he had never been fond.
"I happened to kind of lean against it, and it suddenly sort of toppled over. Gosh, I am sorry!"
"It's quite all right," said Anne. "It only gave me rather a start."