The House 'Round the Corner Part 19

"He's the postman. We either see him ourselves or leave letters at Thompson's, the grocer's, before four o'clock."

"Then neither letter nor telegram can be dispatched to-night?"

"Yes. If you care to pay mileage to Bellerby, and the message is handed in before eight, Thompson will send a boy with a telegram."

Whittaker glanced at his watch. The hour was half-past six.

"How far is Bellerby?" he said. "Tell me in terms of the clock, not in miles, which, as a method of reckoning in Yorks.h.i.+re, conveys a sense of infinity."

"A boy can bicycle there in half an hour."

"Then, footsore as I am, I shall hie me to Thompson's."

"Why not write your telegram here, and Betty will take it."

"No, thanks. I'll see to it myself. Then, if it doesn't reach Edie to-night, I can place a hand on my heart and vow I did all man could do, and failed."

"You are not forgetting that I have written to her?"

"No. Don't you see? A letter from you complicates matters even more. If she hears from Meg, and not a word is said about Percy, she'll wonder what has become of little me. I suppose Thompson's shop is not 'a nice bit' removed from the village?"

"It is opposite the Fox and Hounds Inn. You can walk there in two minutes."

Armathwaite, who had risen, and was staring through the window during this brief colloquy, was struck by the quietly pertinacious note in Whittaker's voice. Moreover, he was listening carefully, since there was some faint trace of an accent which had a familiar sound in his ears. He waited, until the younger man had gone out and was walking gingerly down the garden path; progress downhill must have been a torture to sore toes, yet Whittaker was strangely determined to send that unnecessary telegram in person--unnecessary, that is, in view of the fact that a message dispatched next morning would have served the same purpose. Why?

Armathwaite found that life bristled with interrogatives just then.

Turning to look at Marguerite, he said:

"Your friend doesn't like me."

She did not attempt to fence with him. Somehow, when her eyes met his, a new strength leaped in her heart.

"Percy flatters himself on the ease with which he follows the line of least resistance, but in reality he is a somewhat shallow and transparent person," she answered.

"There is a transparency of shallowness which occasionally hides a certain depth of mud."

"Oh, he means no harm! His widowed sister, Mrs. Suarez, is a great stickler for the conventions, and she has infected him with her notions.

She is the 'Edie' he speaks of. _My_ chum is a younger sister, Christabel."

"Suarez? An unusual name in England."

"She married a Calcutta merchant. The Whittakers are Anglo-Indians."

Armathwaite smiled. He knew now whence came that slightly sibilant accent. Whittaker was a blonde Eurasian, a species so rare that it was not surprising that even a close observer should have failed to detect the "touch of the tar-brush" at first sight. From that instant Armathwaite regarded him from an entirely new view-point. The Briton who has lived many years in the East holds firmly to the dogmatic principle that in the blend of two races the Eurasian is dowered with the virtues of neither and the vices of both. More than ever did he regret the qualms of the conventional Mrs. Suarez which had brought Percy Whittaker to Elmdale that day.

"I'm sorry he deems it advisable to distrust me," he went on. "How long have you been acquainted with the family?"

"Ever since I went to school with Christabel at Brighton. She often came here during the summer holidays; and I used to visit her at Whitsuntide."

"They are aware of your change of name, of course?"

"Yes. How could it be otherwise?"

"A thoughtless question indeed. The notion was flitting through my mind that no one in Elmdale knew of it, or the fact was bound to have been made public at the inquest. The doctor who gave evidence--was he your regular medical attendant?"

"He was an intimate friend rather than a doctor. He knew dad so well that he would scout the idea of suicide. Perhaps that explains his hesitating statement to the coroner. Oh, Mr. Armathwaite, what does it all mean? Was ever girl plunged into such a sea of trouble? What _am_ I to do?"

"Don't you think you ought to send for your mother?"

"If she were here now she could only say what I am saying--that my father is alive and in the best of health."

"Forgive me if I seem to be cross-examining you, but I am groping blindly towards some theory which shall satisfy two conditions wholly irreconcilable at present. Your mother and you went away from Elmdale, leaving your father here. Do you remember the exact reason given for your departure?"

"One day dad asked me to read some pa.s.sages from a French treatise on Basque songs. It was rather technical stuff, and I stumbled over the translation, so he said I was losing my French, and that mother and I should go to Paris for a few weeks, and do a round of theaters. Of course, I was delighted--what girl wouldn't be? I couldn't pack quickly enough. When Paris emptied, towards the end of June, we went to Quimper, in Brittany. And there was another excuse, too. About that time we received news of the legacy, and dad thought we should get accustomed to the change of name more readily in a foreign country."

"How long did you remain abroad?"

"Nearly three months. But dad joined us within a fortnight of our departure from England. He only remained at home to finish a book and clear up the lawyer's business about the money."

"After your return, what happened?"

"We had a month in London. Then my people took a house in Cornwall, near the village of Warleggan, a place tucked in beneath the moors, just as Elmdale is. Dad explained that he wanted to study the miracle plays at first hand, because the remnants of the language possessed by the old inhabitants were more helpful than grammars and Oxford translations."

"Your mother raised no difficulties about the change of residence?"

"Not the least. In a way, it was rather agreeable, both to mother and me. Here we saw very few people. In Warleggan, where dad's pen-name, now his own legally, gave him some social standing, the county families called. We were richer, too, and could afford to entertain, which we never did while in Elmdale."

Armathwaite pa.s.sed a hand over his mouth and chin in a gesture of sheer bewilderment.

"I still hold strongly to the opinion that you should send for Mrs.

Ogilvey," he said, striving to cloak the motive underlying the suggestion, since he was a.s.sured now that the half-forgotten tragedy of the Grange would speedily burst into a new and sinister prominence in far-off Warleggan. "If she were here she could direct my efforts to choke off inquirers. We may be acting quite mistakenly. She knows everything--I am convinced of that--and her appearance would, in itself, serve to put matters on a more normal basis."

Marguerite sprang to her feet. Her fine eyes blazed with uncontrollable excitement, and her voice held a ring of defiance.

"If my mother ought to come, why not my father?" she cried vehemently.

"I know what you are thinking, but dare not say. You believe my father is a murderer? Is that it? You imagine that a man who would not wilfully harm a fly is capable of committing a dreadful crime and s.h.i.+elding himself under the a.s.sumption that he took his own life?"

"Isn't that rather unjust of you?" said Armathwaite.

"I'm not considering the justice or injustice of my words now. I am defending one whom I love. I----"

She choked, and buried her face in her hands. Bitterly aware that he was only adding to her woes, he nerved himself for the ungracious task.

"You are trying, like myself, to explain a set of extraordinary circ.u.mstances," he said. "Woman-like, you do not scruple to place on my shoulders the burden of your own vague suspicions. I am not so greatly concerned as you seem to imagine because of the possibility that your father may have killed someone. Unhappily, I myself have killed several men, in fair fight, and in the service of my country, but there is no blood-guiltiness on my conscience. Before I venture to describe any man as a murderer, I want to know whom he killed, and why."

He made this amazing statement with the calm air of a sportsman contrasting the "bags" of rival grouse moors. Even in her bitter distress the girl was constrained to gaze at him in wonderment.

"You think that the taking of human life may be justifiable?" she gasped.