“Hallo, Brook. How’s things? I’m doing a job of work not far away, and I thought I’d look in and exchange ‘depressions’.”
Falkland walked into the garden of Brook’s house and found the osteopath sitting in the shadow of the trees at the end. The golden evening light fell full on the richly foliaged trees, elm and sweet chestnut, ilex and oak, their leaves in all their summer fullness making a brave show against a clear-blue sky. Brook motioned his visitor to a deck-chair beside his own.
“How’s things?” he echoed. “Moving a bit, I fancy. Have you seen the highlight from the Mecca of fiction?”
“Meaning the Chief Inspector? Yes, I’ve been inspected. An able chap, I thought, and interesting. I liked him—though I had a feeling he was summing me up in a manner not altogether agreeable. He’s a knack of talking on, and getting one to say rather more than one intended. However, I believe they’ve a maxim concerning cautioning a suspect if they’ve good grounds for suspicion.”
“You’ve got that bit wrong,” said Brook. “An officer is supposed to caution you if he has any intention of arresting you—a very different matter. This chap Macdonald is setting to work in the only reasonable way—by suspecting all and sundry. By force of circumstances you and I are involved as much as anyone else—in Grendon’s death, anyway.”
Falkland produced his cigarette case and lighted up before replying.
“Sounds as though things are getting you down, Brook,” he replied. “It’s a damned odd business. I wake up in a sweat at night over it all, quite unreasonably. Because I once gossiped to old Anderby in a bunker, and listened to Grendon blowing off steam, and made an excuse to go and see Lee Gordon’s garden, and went round asking questions about Nurse Pewsey, and finally nearly got gassed myself in company with Grendon, I work out some devilish chain of circumstantial reasoning which I can’t disprove. Why the hell did I go getting myself mixed up in it and, likewise, what the hell did I tell Lynch about the Pewsey business for? I’d have done better to have kept my mouth shut.”
Brook studied him in his customary brooding manner.
“Something’s happened to rattle you up,” he said. “You weren’t feeling like this last time I saw you.”
“Quite true. Something has happened. I don’t often behave like the poor cat in the adage.”
“ ‘Letting I dare not wait upon I will’,” quoted Brook with his sardonic grin. “So you came to consult me about it—and put the onus on somebody else.”
Falkland laughed. “I felt you were the one person I could consult about it, Brook. You know the facts, and you’re capable of keeping your own counsel. Also, apart from anything else, I trust you.”
“Don’t trust anybody,” retorted Brook. “At least, don’t think I’m asking for confidences. I’m not.”
“If you’d rather I left them unuttered, say so,” retorted Falkland, but Brook answered,
“I’ve the usual share of human curiosity. Man would never have developed into the thinking animal he is if he hadn’t been inquisitive. If you want to talk I’m game to listen, but let’s go indoors first.”
He got up and led the way to the French windows of the room which had been Grendon’s, and pushed them back.
“Good Lord,” said Falkland. “I never knew I possessed nerves before—but I hate the thought of going through that room.”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Brook. “If you start on that tack your nerves will certainly get the better of you. If you jib at going through a room because a man has died in it, there’ll be a good many rooms in a good many houses which will affect the pit of your stomach.”
He stood aside for Falkland to enter, and then drew the folding doors together and bolted them.
“Life is rather a humorous business for me just at present,” he said. “Lynch put on some ex-plough-boy to shadow me, and I asked the Chief Inspector to put an end to the farce by calling the dog off. He’s done so—but I have a feeling that there’s another much more competent exponent of the art somewhere around. Not that I’ve seen him—he’s much too efficient. But he’s there, somewhere.”
They entered the hall and Falkland laughed.
“Look here—talk about me giving way to nerves! What about you?”
Brook stood still in the sunlit entrance hall. He closed his eyes and then stood with one foot lifted clear of the ground, his right arm outstretched at full length. He stood thus for about ten seconds, with never a tremor, his outstretched hand perfectly steady. Then he opened his eyes and turned to Falkland.
“That’s a good test of the steadiness of your nervous system,” he said. “Nerves affect a man’s physique. If you can shut your eyes and yet retain your balance without swaying and without letting your hands quiver, your nerves are in good trim. There’s nothing wrong with mine, and I’m not using my imagination either when I tell you I’m being watched. I’m using the faculties I’ve got which are in better training than yours, my senses—eyes, ears, nose. It depends on your own alertness. I could follow you without your being aware of it, just as I could enter your room at night without waking you. If you followed me, I should know it. If you came into my room at night, I should wake up.”
He led the way to his own study and Falkland followed him—Brook went on: “Not only do I believe I’m being watched. I’m also waiting with some confidence for someone to have a shot at murdering me. It’s an interesting feeling.”
Falkland stood stock still by the door.
“You’re not expecting me to oblige, are you?” he asked abruptly, and Brook laughed.
“No. Not you. At least, I should be very much surprised if it turned out to be you. Pull yourself together, man. What are you frightened of?”
“Good Lord! I believe I was frightened of you for a minute, Brook. You’ve got a nasty knack of developing atmospherics. When I remember the way you pummelled me when you were treating me, I begin to realize you might be a nasty fellow to come up against, even though I weigh three stone more than you do and have twice your physical strength.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. Beef, I grant you, but I could put you down as easily as I could put a child—because I know how. I could do it even as I shook hands with you. Sit down. Would you like a drink? Now you’re no longer my patient and your health’s no affair of mine, I’ll produce the whisky and soda you’re yearning for.”
Falkland broke out laughing, but he mopped his forehead as he sat down.
“You’re the damnedest odd fellow I ever met, Brook. Without offence, I can understand why Lynch put a shadower on to you. You probably frightened him—and he didn’t enjoy the sensation. Look here, won’t you drink too?”
“Not whisky. I’ve too much respect for my own perceptions to blunt them as you do. You smoke, and thereby destroy your sense of smell and taste. You drink alcohol, and dull your powers of observation. Every man to his own pleasures. You don’t miss what you’ve no power to experience—the real scent of mown hay and lime blossom, fresh-cut grass and fallen rose leaves, the soil after rain—you only think you can smell them. You can’t. Now you’ve got some Dutch courage inside you, take heart and say your bit.”
Falkland put down his glass and replied, “Well, it’s easily said. I’ve had an anonymous letter.”
“What about?”
“You can read it—and see what you make of it. It’s a damned queer epistle.”
Falkland produced an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Brook. It was addressed in pencilled block capitals and had been sent by post to Falkland’s office in Chelsea. Drawing out the sheet it contained, Brook read:
“I saw her in my dream, lying in the stream below the weir. Her coat was caught in one of the wooden piles by the bank, and I could see her face with the water washing over it. Her gray hair was loose and floated in the stream, mingling with the water weed. . . . I spoke to her in my dream and asked her how she came to lie in her watery grave, and she answered me.” The careful pencilled capitals broke off here and there was a rough pencil scrawl, as though the lead had nearly scored a hole through the paper, then the lettering continued again. “Who knows why Mrs. Anderby was drowned? Who left her under the weir by the River Pen? You know. You saw her. You left her there.”
“Well, that’s a jolly sort of message,” said Brook. “What are you doing about it? Giving it to the police?”
“I suppose so—and yet, damn it all, Brook, what does it look like? Say if the woman’s body is found under the weir, won’t it look exactly as though I might have written this letter to myself—and then took it to the police to put them off the scent. If that letter prompts the police to search the river banks, and they find the woman’s body there, the authorities won’t forget that I was the one who told them where her body was to be found. The more I think about it, the less I like it. I feel disposed to burn the damned thing and done with it.”
“Better not. It’s evidence—unless you want to destroy evidence.”
“I don’t even know that it is evidence. It may be the vapourings of a disordered mind——”
“—or the workings of a malicious one,” said Brook. “However, I know the thing that’s in your mind. You’re possessed of a wild desire to go and look by the river bank, below the weir on the River Pen. All I can say is—don’t! That would queer your pitch.”
Falkland nodded. “I know it would—and yet there’s a queer, grim fascination about it. When I got this letter this morning, I tried to get Macdonald on the phone, but he was away somewhere. Ever since then I’ve been thinking about it—and the more I think, the less I like it. Why the devil was I singled out for this form of humour? It makes me savage.”
Brook laughed. “Don’t get so agitated. You weren’t singled out. You’re coupled with me. I was also made a present of the same information.”
“You? Good Lord! You mean you have a letter like this one?”
“No. My enlightenment was brought about in a still more macabre fashion. It was whispered to me—over the telephone.”
“Good God! By whom—a man or a woman?”
“I don’t know. The voice was a husky whisper, audible enough—but it might have been either a man’s voice or a woman’s. I couldn’t tell. When I lifted the receiver I heard a voice gasping, ‘Mr. Brook, Mr. Brook, is that you?’ When I had given my identity the voice went on, ‘She’s still there, under the weir above Oasthampstead. I saw her in my dream. She’s still there.’ I thought some lunatic was talking to me and I asked, ‘Who is there? Who’s speaking?’ and the voice replied ‘Mrs. Anderby. You know. She’s there.’ Then they rang off.”
Falkland’s laugh was one of relief this time.
“It’s some lunatic or exhibitionist, Brook. This gives it away completely. I’ve often heard that in every murder case the police get lashings of messages making the wildest accusations, in addition to the inevitable fake confessions. Do you know, I believe I can spot the author of this. My cousin, Elsa Barry, went to see Mrs. Anderby at her boarding house, and Elsa tells me that there is a queer old girl living there who is a spiritualist and thinks she gets spirit messages. I bet she’s at the back of all this—and if she knows that Mrs. Anderby is dead, well, it’ll be up to Macdonald to find out just how she knows.”
“I wonder,” said Brook. “Where was your letter posted?”
“In Oasthampstead. You can see the cancellation stamp. Where did your call come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know? Do you mean to say you didn’t ask?”
“This is an automatic exchange. The call would be registered all right, but if it were a local call—and I’d say it was—the number of the person called isn’t registered. I doubt if the fact of my phone having been connected with another local one could ever be proved.”
“But, good Lord, Brook! If you’d only acted quickly the police might have got their hands on the person who phoned!”
“Did you act quickly? Haven’t you been walking about with that letter in your pocket all day?—and you haven’t even been accused of murder. I have. What proof had I got that that message was ever spoken to me? No, thank you. I was being invite to get myself further involved in the mess. I think not. I left it alone.”
At that moment an electric bell shrilled its summons somewhere at the back of the house and Falkland jumped as though he had been stung. Brook laughed.
“Your nerves are in a fine old twitter!” he mocked. “You can’t even hear the front-door bell without jumping. It’s a damned good thing you’re not a front-rank suspect. Anyone would think you were expecting to be arrested any moment, the way you’re behaving!”
He got up and went to the door, and Falkland said,
“Shall I come too?”
“Lord, no. Why should you? I’m capable of answering my own door bell, thanks.”
Falkland sat down again. Describing the incident later, he said that Brook had a queer effect on him. Something about the tenseness of the osteopath’s attitude, and his remarks that he himself was expecting attack had made Falkland himself susceptible to a nervous irritation which was not generally characteristic of him. He said that he felt that the whole atmosphere of the house was sinister—possibly because he was still vividly remembering the circumstances of Grendon’s death in the room nearby.
When the door opened again Brook held it wide, saying,
“Here he is if you want to see him.”
Falkland turned to the door and gave an exclamation of surprise. Lee Gordon was standing there, looking pink and embarrassed but as cherubic as ever.
“I must apologize for this intrusion,” he said. “I feel badly over interrupting you two gentlemen, but the fact was, sir,” (turning to Falkland) “I saw your auto standing outside, and I couldn’t resist the impulse to come and have a word with you. I waited outside for awhile, thinking you might emerge, and then I took the liberty of ringing to inquire.”
“Just to make sure you were still alive and hadn’t had an accident with the gas supply,” said Brook, sounding more sardonic than usual.
“Now I think that’s a very unkind thing to say, sir,” protested Lee Gordon, but he looked so embarrassed and the pink in his cheeks deepened so noticeably that Falkland suddenly realized that Brook’s suggestion might actually have had a place in the rotund little man’s mind.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake let’s get our minds away from murders and corpses,” broke out Falkland. “Never again will I say that criminology interests me. Damn it, I shall never enjoy a detective story again. The real stuff’s too disturbing.”
“I’m with you there, sir,” said Lee Gordon dejectedly. “I’ve been so upset that I can’t even enjoy my food. A most distressing experience.”
“It looks as though you’re not the only one who’s got the hump, Falkland,” said Brook. “Mr. Lee Gordon’s all in a twitter too. You’d better ask him if he has been receiving spirit messages too.”
Lee Gordon mopped his bald head with a fine, gaudy bandanna. “I’ll trouble you to say that bit again, sir,” he demanded of Brook, his nose twitching agitatedly.
“I said ‘spirit messages’,” replied Brook deliberately, and Lee Gordon sighed.
“I’ve never taken any stock in spooks up to date,” he said. “Reckoned they were dyspepsia—but something’s been happening. Oh, yes, something odd’s been happening, undoubtedly. I’m not so sure of myself as I was. I tell you this. I’m afraid to lift my own telephone receiver. Maybe it’s baloney, maybe it’s nervous dyspepsia, and I’m imagining things, but I tell you I’m not happy in my mind.”
Brook chuckled, and Falkland felt suddenly exasperated with him. Lee Gordon said with some dignity,
“This isn’t a joke, sir. It’s a very real and disturbing experience I’ve had.”
Brook nodded. “I know it is—rattled you up properly, didn’t it? What did the whisperer say to you—or are you keeping the message private?”
“The whisperer?” Lee Gordon looked more disturbed than ever, then tilted his head back indignantly. “If it’s you that’s been pulling a joke on me, sir, I’d tell you that the joke’s in mighty poor taste.”
Falkland interrupted here. “For goodness’ sake, let’s get down to brass tacks and stop talking in riddles. Mr. Lee Gordon, have you had a phone message telling you of Mrs. Anderby’s death?”
The little man’s eyes became protuberant as he turned to Falkland, and he looked so startled that he resembled a frightened frog as he blew out his cheeks and stared with bulging eyes.
“A message? I’d say I have had a message—from Mrs. Anderby herself. Yes, sir. She spoke to me on the phone—and I shan’t forget it in a hurry.”
“Thoughtful of her to speak herself,” said Brook. “Did she tell you about the river, or liken herself to Ophelia?”
Falkland cut in again.
“Cheer up, Lee Gordon! We’ve all been having these messages. It’s a frame-up, or else we’ve got a lunatic being humorous at our expense.”
Lee Gordon’s rosy face puckered up like a child’s.
“A lunatic?” he queried. “How do you figure that out? I tell you a voice whispered to me over the phone. ‘I’m Emma Anderby,’ it said, and I’d have you know it gave me the blue willies, something in that voice did. I asked her where she was speaking from and she said, ‘The other side. Search for me by the river below the weir. You know. I left my body there . . . .’ ” His voice broke off and he mopped his forehead again. “See here, Doctor Brook, I don’t cadge other men’s drinks most days, but if that’s whisky I won’t say no. The thought of that voice gets me just here.” He placed his hand in the region of the pit of his stomach, and suddenly Falkland felt disposed to laugh, seeing the ridiculous side of the situation.
“Help yourself,” said Brook scornfully, waving his hand towards the whisky, and Falkland broke out:
“Look here, say if Lee Gordon’s right and it was Mrs. Anderby herself who sent these messages? Perhaps she thinks she can influence opinion all round and make people imagine she’s dead, when she’s really very much alive.”
Brook turned to Lee Gordon. “Did she oblige with any other information—saying that it was you who put her in the river for instance?”
Lee Gordon nodded above his whisky. “You’ve got it in one, Doc. That’s just what she did say. Of all the durned indullicate remarks . . . Me, put her there indeed!”
Falkland really laughed at last, the combination of Lee Gordon’s cherubic face, his woebegone voice, and the manner in which he clasped his glass of whisky and soda were so comic that the architect forgot his own apprehensions of a few minutes ago and fairly shouted with laughter. Brook, however, seemed to have got over his own inclination to chuckle. He sat brooding, his dark eyes staring out unseeingly at the garden. Falkland pulled himself together, ignored Lee Gordon’s look of rebuke and turned to Brook.
“What’s your opinion, Brook? Do you think it’s likely that Mrs. Anderby’s doing the spirit-message business herself?”
Brook frowned. “If she is, the end of it may not be as funny as you seem to think. Since she’s so insistent on the fact that there’s a corpse below the weir I think it’s quite probable that there is one—but if Mrs. Anderby sent those messages the corpse won’t be hers.”
“Great snakes and scorpions! Are you opining there’s another corpse in this act?” demanded Lee Gordon, and Brook nodded.
“Quite likely. Either those messages were sent by somebody who knows that Mrs. Anderby is dead and her body’s in the river below the weir, or else she sent the messages herself because she’s provided another corpse—probably unrecognizable—to play the part of her own.”
Falkland nodded. “That makes sense to me, Brook. You’ve probably hit the nail on the head. Lord, what a mess-up!”
He turned to Lee Gordon.
“Let’s get all this straight. Where were you when you got your phone message, and when did it come through?”
“I was in my suite in the Savoy Chambers in town. I went up a couple of days ago. I told you I was through with this property down here. Couldn’t fancy it any longer, nohow. I went up to town, where I kept a little pied-à-terre for when I want to stay in the metropolis. Just a bedroom and sitting room, service provided. I was in bed, fast asleep, when the phone rang. I just grabbed the receiver and said ‘Lee Gordon speaking’—and then she gave voice. Spoilt my breakfast.”
“What time was it exactly?”
“Nine o’clock to the tick this morning.”
“What time was your call, Brook?”
“Eight o’clock this morning.”
“And I got my letter at 8.30, posted in Oasthampstead last night. Nicely synchronized. Did you think of asking exchange where your call came from, Lee Gordon?”
“I sure did. Oasthampstead 97. That’s a public call box on the outskirts of the town, nearest to Penharden. I’ve been to see it to make sure.”
“And Brook’s was a local call, put through an hour earlier. Well, if Mrs. Anderby’s had the nerve to stay in the locality and put telephone calls through she’s got nerve enough for anything.”
“Seems she’s never lacked sand. To walk into old man Grendon’s room and turn the gas on now—wasn’t what you’d call ladylike,” said Lee Gordon indignantly, and Falkland choked down another fit of laughter.
“What does all this amount to?” he went on, controlling his voice firmly. “There’s a crumb of comfort in it for Lee Gordon and me, because we can prove we were in London and therefore unable to put through calls from Oasthampstead. Well, one thing’s quite plain. We’ve got to hand all this over to the Chief Inspector and let him see what he makes of it.”
“You won’t have long to wait,” said Brook, his voice with its cutting incisive quality curiously impressive. “He’s outside. Probably talking to the bloke I haven’t caught sight of.”
“Good Lord! You can’t see the road from here,” protested Falkland, but Brook answered,
“He sounded his horn as he came round the corner. It’s rather a curious note—I must ask him if he’s aware of its peculiarities, but he probably is. He’s pulled up his car just behind Lee Gordon’s. With Falkland’s car there, too, it must look as though I’m having a party.”
Falkland chuckled, but also looked a little perturbed.
“I rather wish it hadn’t happened just this way,” he said. “It will look rather as though the three of us had met deliberately for a counsel of war, to make up our minds exactly what to say.”
“As an interpretation, not far removed from fact, is it?”, inquired Brook in his sardonic way, but Lee Gordon sat up and swelled out his chest like a pouter pigeon.
“I don’t just care for the way you put it, Dr. Brook. Sounds phoney to me. I’m not aware that I’ve done anything of a hole-and-corner nature, and I’ve no reason to think that anyone need regard me with suspicion. I’m accustomed to having my word accepted, sir, and I’m not afraid of policemen in any country in this world. No, sir. I’ve no reason to be apprehensive about any construction that’s put on my actions.”
“Now isn’t that nice for you?” said Brook. “I’d be obliged if you wouldn’t address me as ‘doctor,’ all the same. It’s a title to which I don’t hold the deeds in this country and I could be prosecuted for using it. The medical faculty in England has its own rulings.”
“Now I call that just too bad,” said Lee Gordon. “In the States, osteopathy is recognized as a legitimate branch of remedials. . . . Ah. That will be the Chief Inspector.”
Brook got up as the bell rang again outside, and Falkland had a moment of nervous exasperation. It was true enough that this conference of the three of them looked “phoney,” to use Lee Gordon’s expression. The architect could have kicked himself for a fool: he ought to have gone direct to the police with his anonymous letter and he knew it. He was in no doubts about the impression that the present meeting would make on the Chief Inspector.
Macdonald, when he appeared at the door, greeted the men imperturbably. He had seen the two cars outside the house and he knew to whom they belonged. Brook had made no comment when he opened the front door beyond a civil “Good evening. Will you come in?” and Macdonald could not help being a little amused at the manner in which he had tumbled into this counsel of three. Brook looked his usual sardonic self; Falkland spoke a little more heartily than was his wont, and Lee Gordon looked pink and pompous. Macdonald had seen the little man before, after his first interview with Brook, and guessed rightly that the added conscious look of dignity on the pink face was the result of embarrassment.
“You’ve come just at the right moment, Chief Inspector,” said Falkland. “I tried to phone you this morning, but you were out. However, you can now kill three birds with one stone and hear all our songs of woe.”
“Excellent,” replied Macdonald, and seated himself in the seat indicated by Brook. “If you’ve anything to tell me, I shall be only too glad to hear it.”
“See here, Mr. Inspector,” put in Lee Gordon’s voice “I should hate you to get away with a wrong impression. This wasn’t a prearranged meeting. I just happened to be passing and, seeing Mr. Falkland’s car outside the door, I took the liberty of ringing Dr. Brook’s bell. I should say Mr. Brook’s bell,” he added carefully. (“Damn the man! What does he want to butt in for like that. Makes it look worse than ever, going and excusing himself like a zaney,” said Falkland furiously to himself.)
“Quite,” said Macdonald. “I’m rather in the same position myself. I saw the two cars and thought it might be an opportunity for further discussion with you all.”
Falkland caught the expression on Brook’s face—as near a smile of genuine amusement as the osteopath ever achieved. Falkland drew an envelope from his pocket and passed it to Macdonald.
“I received that this morning. It explains itself,” he said curtly.
Macdonald took the envelope and read the letter enclosed.
“I see. Very interesting. Have you had any other communications of this nature?”
“None,” replied Falkland.
“Would you tell me to whom you have shown it?” inquired Macdonald, and Falkland replied,
“To Brook and Lee Gordon here. As they have both received similar intimations we have found it interesting to compare notes.”
Macdonald turned to Brook with raised eyebrows, and the latter replied to the tacit question with a clear, terse statement concerning his telephone call, what was said, and the time at which it occurred.
“You did not report this to the police?” inquired Macdonald, and Brook shook his head.
“No, I did not,” he replied.
Falkland expected the inevitable, “Why not?” but it did not come. Macdonald turned to Lee Gordon, and the little man plunged into his tale with more verbosity and also more incoherence than the others. A few questions helped to clarify his statement, and then Macdonald said,
“You say that Mrs. Anderby herself spoke to you. Did you recognize her voice?”
“I couldn’t swear to that, but I had a very strong feeling it was her voice,” said Lee Gordon unhappily. “I’ve told you—she whispered the whole time but the accent was hers—that sort of refined, finicky manner of speaking. What you call ‘naice’,” mimicked the perturbed speaker.
Macdonald turned to Falkland.
“You remember Mrs. Anderby’s voice?” he asked, and Falkland said,
“No,” speaking rather too quickly, because he had to correct himself and add lamely, “I did hear her talk to my aunt when she was Nurse Pewsey—but I don’t really remember her voice.”
Macdonald turned to Brook.
“Did you know her voice?”
“She once spoke to me over the telephone,” said Brook, “when informing me that her husband did not wish to continue his treatment with me. I agree with Mr. Lee Gordon that her accent was of the type one might describe as refined.”
“Was it a similar type of voice which whispered to you over the phone this morning?”
“I can’t tell you. The voice seemed quite characterless. It didn’t remind me of any voice known to me.”
Macdonald closed his notebook. “Thank you all very much for your assistance,” he said evenly. “I shall have to investigate some of the points you have mentioned so I won’t keep you any longer now.”
“Say, Chief!” Lee Gordon’s face was puckered up like that of an infant about to cry. “Won’t you tell us what you’ve made of things up to date? Is that dame alive and playing tricks—or is she below the weir at Oasthampstead—because if she is, it’s me for a mental home.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you the answer to either question at the moment,” returned Macdonald, as he got up.
It was Brook who made the final comment after Macdonald had said a formal good evening.
“Thank you for removing the oaf from my door, Chief Inspector. I find his successor a more competent exponent of your craft.”
“I’m so glad you’re pleased,” replied Macdonald—and at that moment there was not much to choose between the ironic expressions on the faces of the two men.