‘A hundred pounds.’
‘Is that all?’ said Barney, relieved. In the income tax bracket to which she belonged a hundred pounds or its equivalent in dollars was something which fell into the category of small change. She suggested the easy way out of his difficulties. ‘Let me be your banker.’
Crispin shook his head.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t touch you.’
‘Oh, come on.
‘It’s wonderful of you to offer it, Barney, but no.
‘You would lend it to me if you had it and I needed it.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘It just is.’
Barney gave up the struggle.
‘Oh, well,’ she said resignedly, ‘if the Scropes have their code, that’s that. I wish my Uncle Sam was as pernickety about accepting money from me as you are. I’ve been supporting him for years. Who do you owe this hundred to?’
‘The repairs people.’
‘Oh, Chippendale’s buddies. But didn’t you tell me your brother Bill had given you the money to pay them?’
It was not easy for Crispin to confess his folly, but it was unavoidable.
‘I lost a hundred of it on a horse.’
‘But I thought you never played the races.’
‘I haven’t done for ages, but you know how it is when you get a really big tip.’
‘I gave you one, on Brotherly Love, and you wouldn’t take it.’
Crispin choked.
‘I did take it,’ he mumbled, and Barney stared, bewildered.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ she said. ‘My head’s feeling as if it had a hive of bees inside it. Are you telling me you changed your mind and took my advice?’
‘Yes.’
‘And had a hundred on Brotherly Love?’
‘Yes, with Slingsby’s. I’ve still got an account there.’
‘Then what in the name of goodness is all the song and dance about? You’ve made over twelve hundred pounds.’
It seemed to Crispin that the hive of bees to which she had objected had transferred itself to his head. It was full of their buzzing. Her words came to him dimly.
‘Brotherly Love started at a hundred to eight.’
‘But…’
‘But… But.., you told me it came in second.’
‘And so it did. Don’t you ever read the papers?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you ought to. It came in second, half a length behind Muscatel, and there was an objection. Boring or bumping or something. The big brass went into a huddle, examined the evidence, found that Muscatel had bored or bumped or whatever it was, slapped its jockey’s wrist and told him to be more careful in future and gave the race to Brotherly Love. You’ll be getting Slingsby’s cheque tomorrow or the day after, I guess. Depends on when settling day is. Here, hold up.’
Crispin had not actually fainted, but he had come near enough to it to arouse Barney’s motherly concern. She led him to a rustic bench beside the drive. There she adopted what was apparently her policy for dealing with all human ills, massaging the neck. She did it as thoroughly and as competently as at their first meeting, and after experiencing for awhile that old familiar illusion of having been caught in some sort of powerful machinery Crispin sat up, announcing that he was all right now.
Barney contested this statement.
‘You think you are,’ she said, ‘but you never will be till you’ve got a wife to look after you and see that you don’t get into trouble. I spoke to you about this the other day, if you remember. You’ll agree that if there’s trouble around, you’re sure to get into it?’
Crispin found it impossible to deny this. From early manhood he and trouble had been inseparable companions.
‘So you need a wife.’
‘I do.’
‘Try me,’ said Barney.
2
The glow which had been warming Barney before Crispin’s arrival became intensified on his departure. On her advice he had gone to his study to write a cheque for the repair people, and she had remained on the rustic bench, going over in her mind each little detail of that tender scene.
Seated thus, she had a good view of the main gate, and through it now entered her brother Homer, accompanied by a girl. This, she realized, must be the Miss Vera Upshaw whom Crispin had told her he was expecting. Trains from London stopped on request at Mellingham Halt half a mile from the village, and Homer had presumably gone to meet her there.
Her interest was immediately excited. If Homer went to meet girls arriving by train, it meant something. She had always looked on him as the least active girl-meeter of her acquaintance. The eye she bent on Vera as the two drew near was a speculative eye, and what she saw convinced her of the significance of Homer’s deviation from the normal. This was not just a girl, but one of such surpassing beauty that one blinked on beholding her; the sort of girl who makes strong men catch their breath and straighten their ties; a girl Sheiks of Araby would dash into tents after like seals in pursuit of slices of fish; the last kind of girl, in short, she decided instantly, whom her poor misguided brother ought to have got mixed up with. She managed to respond with her usual heartiness as Homer made the introductions, but she remained uneasy. She had no illusions regarding his physical attractiveness, and in Vera she saw — quite correctly — a girl who was planning to marry him for his money.
Rather a sombre girl, this Miss Upshaw, she thought. She gave the impression of smiling with difficulty, possibly for fear of getting wrinkles.
But it was not this that was causing Vera’s moodiness. Once again she was brooding on the apparent impossibility of extracting words of love from Homer. On the walk to the Hall from Mellingham Halt he had spoken quite freely on a number of subjects. He had called her attention to the fineness of the evening, he had spoken of the P.E.N. festivities at Brussels, and he had left her in no doubt that what he was sharing his bedroom with was a mouse, harping on this latter topic at some length: but on wedding bells and bishops and assistant clergy he had not touched, and she had almost made up her mind that he never would.
True, they had yet to sample the shady nooks and secluded walks of which her mother had spoken, but she had begun to doubt if even these would be shady and secluded enough to produce results.
With Barney fearing the worst, Vera perplexed and baffled and Homer virtually a total loss, conversation could not proceed other than fitfully. When after the third silence Vera said she supposed she ought to be going in and introducing herself to Mr Scrope, the suggestion was welcomed.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Barney.
‘I, too,’ said Homer. ‘I have already spoken to him briefly about my mouse, but I should be glad to go into it in more depth.’
‘There is a mouse in Mr Pyle’s bedroom,’ Vera explained, speaking with the weariness of a girl who has heard all she requires about mice.
There may be more than one,’ said Homer.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ said Barney. ‘Crips denies his guests nothing. All right, let’s go. He’s in his study.’
‘I am not altogether satisfied,’ said Homer, as they moved off, ‘that it is not a rat.’
3
Crispin’s study, in which so many generations of Scropes had written so many letters to The Times, was on the ground floor, a dark and depressing room rendered even darker and more depressing at the moment of Chippendale’s entry by the presence of Constable Simms, who, sitting with folded arms in a chair by the desk, somehow contrived to give it the atmosphere of a magistrate’s court. A sensitive man, finding himself there, would have felt that he would be lucky if he got away with a mere fine.
Chippendale, who was not sensitive, entered with a jaunty and elastic step. He was about to face serious charges, but the only thing that bothered him on such occasions was the question of whether they could be made to stick, and he knew that those confronting him now could not. To say t
hat his conscience was clear would be inaccurate, for he did not have a conscience, but he had what was much better, an alibi which no prosecuting counsel could break.
‘You wished to see me, sir,’ he said, substituting, as was his laudable custom when company was present, the more formal style of address for his usual chum or mate. ‘Good evening, Mr Simms,’ he added courteously. ‘You’ve dried yourself, I see. The last time I saw you, you were all wet. Did you fall into the lake or something?’
His attitude could not have been more sympathetic, but all it drew from the officer was a tightening of the lips and a hardening of eyes which even before he had spoken had been eyes of stone. It was left to Crispin to explain the situation.
‘Simms fell into the brook,’ he said, and Chippendale clicked his tongue, amazed and concerned.
‘Touch of what’s known as vertigo?’ he hazarded.
‘He says somebody pushed him.’
‘Pushed him?’ Chippendale’ echoed, frankly bewildered. ‘What, pushed him? Who would have done a thing like that?’
‘He accuses you.’
‘And you’ll get a stiff sentence,’ said the constable, speaking with relish. ‘Six months, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Chippendale’s manner took on a strange dignity. He drew himself to his full height, which even when full was not much, and stared defiantly. He did not actually say ‘There is no terror, cocky, in your threats, for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by-me like the idle wind which I respect not’, but he made it evident that that was what he was thinking.
‘I’m as innocent as the driven snow,’ he said.
‘Ho!’
‘And I can prove it.’
‘Ho!’
‘When did this outrage occur?’
‘As if you didn’t know.’
The desk was handy for being struck with a clenched fist. Chippendale struck it.
‘Answer my question!’
‘Please answer his question, Simms.’
‘About har past five,’ said the constable gruffly.
Chippendale would have struck the desk again, but he had hurt his hand the first time. He confined himself to a withering look.
‘At half past five,’ he said, ‘I was in the library in conference with Mr Scrope and his nephew Mr West. I could call on Mr West to vouch for the truth of my statement, but it won’t be necessary. Mr Scrope can do all the vouching that’s required. That’s so, isn’t it, Mr Scrope?’
‘Perfectly correct,’ said Crispin. ‘At half past five, Simms, Chippendale was with me and my nephew in the library.’
Constable Simms was plainly disconcerted, but England’s police do not give in easily.
‘Might have been earlier than har past.’
Chippendale repeated the withering look.
‘How much earlier?’
‘Quarter of an hour, maybe.’
‘So you say now that the outrage may have taken place at a quarter past five?’
‘About then.’
‘At a quarter past five,’ said Crispin, ‘Chippendale was already in the library.’
It was evidence against which the stoutest-hearted could not contend. Constable Simms said ‘HO,’ rose from his chair and made for the door.
‘So now,’ said Chippendale, ‘you know the meaning of the words “innocent as the driven snow”, and I think you would be well advised, cocky, not to go about making these wild accusations without a lot of evidence. Or tittle. Otherwise you’ll be getting yourself into serious trouble. I may or may not see my solicitor about this, but if I don’t, it’ll only be because I’ve got a tender heart. The idea of thinking I’d do a thing like bunging you into a brook. Ask me, it was one of the church lads. Don’t you agree, Mr Scrope?’
Crispin said that it was certainly a tenable theory.
‘If you will go sitting beside brooks in a locality congested with church lads, in my opinion you’re just asking for it. One of them was bound to get ideas into his head. And you wouldn’t have heard him creeping up behind you, because he wouldn’t let a twig snap beneath his feet, like that fellow Chingachgook we were talking about the other day, Mr Scrope. So if I were you, I’d make searching —’
He would have added the word ‘enquiries’, but the door had closed behind the constable. He turned to Crispin.
‘We didn’t half put it across that copper, didn’t we, mate? What you’d call a famous victory, like in the poem. Ever read that poem? I learned it in Sunday school. Kid finds a skull and takes it to her grandfather, and he tells her about the battle they had in those parts, out in Belgium somewhere it was. I’ve forgotten most of it, but I remember it ended up “Things like that, you know, must be at every famous victory.”‘
‘And one of the things that are going to be at this famous victory,’ said Crispin with satisfaction, ‘is that I shall be seeing the last of you, Chippendale.’
‘I don’t get you, chum.’
‘I am sending your employers a cheque for what I owe them.’
‘You’re paying them off?’
‘I am.’
‘Cor stone the crows, I never thought you’d make it. What did you do? Rob a bank?’
‘I won twelve hundred pounds on a horse.’
‘Cor chase —’ Chippendale began, but before he could issue instructions concerning his aunt Fanny and gum trees he was interrupted by the entry of Barney, Homer and Vera.
Barney opened the conversation.
‘Hullo there, Crips. Not busy, are you?’
‘No longer, madam,’ Chippendale informed her in his genial way. The police have left.’
‘Police? Has the joint been raided?’
‘Ha ha, madam. No, merely a private personal matter. Somebody pushed Constable Simms into the brook.’
‘You astound me. Well, he had a fine day for it. This is Miss Upshaw, Crips.’
‘Pleased to meet you, miss,’ said Chippendale. ‘Well, if there’s nothing further, Mr Scrope, I’ll be getting along. Mr West —’Mr West?’ said Vera. ‘My nephew Gerald,’ said Crispin. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Quite well. Is he staying here?’
‘Yes.’
‘How delightful.’
‘Nice fellow, Jerry West,’ said Barney, and Chippendale was swift to endorse this opinion.
‘The whitest man I know,’ he said. ‘He’s just given me a substantial sum to drink his health.’
‘Why did he do that?’
‘Exuberance, madam. Gaiety of spirit. He’s come into money. Something to do with the termination of some trust he was connected with. I didn’t follow all the details, but the salient fact emerged that he is now in the chips. And good luck to him, say I. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.’
It was possibly the fear that, once embarked on this eulogy, the speaker might continue it indefinitely that led Crispin at this point to change the subject by asking Vera if he could show her her room.
‘I wonder,’ she said when she had seen the room and expressed her approval of it, ‘if I could use the telephone. I ought to let my mother know I have arrived.’
‘There is a telephone in the library.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Vera. ‘Mother,’ she said some minutes later, for the Mellingham post office always took its time with calls to London.
The lovely voice of Dame Flora Faye floated over the wire. ‘Hullo, my chick. So you’ve got there. Been down any of the shady walks yet?’
‘No. And nothing will happen when I do. Homer’s hopeless.’
‘What was that you said? Homer hopeless?’
‘Absolutely hopeless. We’re never going to get anywhere.’
‘Have patience, my child.’
‘I’ve had all the patience I’m capable of. I tell you, he’s hopeless, and I’m not going to waste any more time over him.’
‘Then what do you plan to do?’
‘I’m going to marry Gerald.’
‘The pavement artist! You can’t be serious.
’
‘Yes, I am. He’s staying here. I’ve always been quite fond of Gerald, and he’s got his money now. He’s rich.’
‘Not as rich as Homer.’
‘And not as spectacled as Homer. And not as fat as Homer. And not a bore like Homer. Gerald’s all right. He only wants moulding. Are you there, Mother?’
She asked the question because there had been a prolonged silence at the other end of the wire. Dame Flora had either swooned or was wrestling with her feelings. The latter, it appeared, for she now found speech.
‘But has it slipped your mind, honeybunch, that you broke the engagement?’
‘I didn’t. You did. You misunderstood something I said and went and acted impulsively.’
‘On my own? Without your authority?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You’re going to tell him that?’
‘As soon as I meet him.’
‘It doesn’t strike you as a little hard to believe?’
‘Not a bit. And anyway when I fling myself into his arms and kiss him…’
‘Is that what you have in mind?’
‘That’s what.’
‘Well, lots of luck, my dream girl. You have Mother’s best wishes.’
‘Thank you, Mother.’
‘But don’t think that I approve. I disapprove heartily. I don’t like that ginger-headed pipsqueak.’
‘That’s all right, Mother dear. You don’t have to.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1
In the study Chippendale was showing unmistakeable signs of wishing to be elsewhere. He fidgeted. He licked his lips and stood now on one leg, now on the other. Sherlock Holmes, had he been present, would have deduced that, with ten pounds in his pocket and definite instructions from Jerry West to spend it in revelry, he was thinking of the Goose and Gander and the wines and spirits which its landlord Mr Hibbs was licensed to sell, and as usual he would have been right.
But though athirst, he did not forget his manners. It was with his customary courtesy that he addressed Barney.
‘Would there be anything further, madam?’
‘Nothing that occurs to me at the moment. Got a date?’