HIS smile of apology for his sudden intrusion was, however, tolerably natural and convincing, he flattered himself.
‘Some people in your hall … Do you mind if I let them get out?’
Melhuish laid the lens on his writing-table with a somewhat ostentatious carelessness.
‘Those two girls? Rather overpowering young women? You hadn’t met them before, I suppose. I dread them. The general’s a cheery old fellow. An indifferent general, I understand. But that’s a normal condition of British generals, apparently.’
He went to the door to look towards the hall.
‘All clear now, Colonel, I think.’
‘Good. Sorry to have disturbed you again.’
‘Not in the least. I was merely having a look at that scratch on poor Barrington’s hand. One has to be careful, naturally.’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘It’s merely a superficial scratch. No significance whatever.’
‘I see. Well, I think I’m safe now, doctor. Ah, there is Mrs Melhuish …’
She had come down the stairs and was standing in the hall looking towards them, her golden head agleam beneath a cluster of lights. Hurriedly Gore detached himself from Melhuish, aware that the latter was following him slowly, but hoping for time to say just the one word for which he knew she was waiting. As he reached her, however, the door of the waiting-room opened, and a weather-beaten, bearded little man, with a pair of blazing blue eyes, emerged puffily. Mrs Melhuish bowed.
‘How do you do, Admiral?’
‘That’s what I’ve come here to find out, Mrs Melhuish—if I can do it before midnight. How long more does that husband of yours mean to keep me shut up in this chamber of horrors, I should like to know? …’
Gore’s chance was gone. He swore softly as the hall door closed behind him. From the post office in the Mall, however, he rang up Linwood 7420, and heard instantly, to his relief, her voice say: ‘Yes? Who is speaking, please?’
‘Gore.’
‘I knew you would ring up. Well?’
‘Nothing, except a newspaper-cutting. I have that. When can I see you? What time do you start for Surrey tomorrow?’
‘My train is at twelve-thirty. I shall be here all the morning.’
He reflected that Melhuish would be out of the way then, going his rounds.
‘Very well, I’ll go round at half-past ten. By the way, is anyone likely to be listening in?’
‘No. Not here.’
‘Good. What clothes was Barrington wearing when you saw him last?’
The question plainly puzzled her … or alarmed her … for there was a silence before she repeated the words.
‘Clothes?’
‘Yes. Evening clothes?’
‘No. A dark suit—dark brown, I think—and a tweed overcoat. Why?’
‘I’ll explain when I see you. He had those … papers … with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Loose—or in some sort of package?’
‘In a large envelope.’
‘Oh! Then there were not a great number of … papers?’
‘There were originally. But these are the ones he kept.’
‘And he had them with him last night. You actually saw them?’
‘Yes. He always took care to let me see them. He used to read me extracts from them sometimes. Not last night … but … usually.’
‘But you’re quite sure that what you saw were the papers—or some of them—those we want?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘I see. Well, I can’t explain very well until I see you; but I’m afraid, Pickles, it’s going to be awkward.’
‘They must be somewhere in his house—in some desk or drawer or something. I’ve thought of that. If they are, I’m done for. If Ethel finds them—Someone coming—Sidney.’
The receiver at the other end was replaced hurriedly. He waited until the exchange cut off. It was useless to wait longer, since he had not told her that he was speaking from the post office in the Mall. In any case there was nothing more that could be prudently said over the phone.
Barrington had changed into that brown suit, then, in the interval between their parting in Aberdeen Place a little before twelve and his return there some time round one o’clock. At what hour exactly had he returned there? Why the deuce hadn’t he found that out from her?
Wait, though—she had told him the hour. She had said that Barrington had gone away about half-past one. Half-past one— If she was correct in that belief, then he had simply worked himself into a damn silly fuss over nothing. In that case the glass of the watch couldn’t have been broken by a fall at twenty-three minutes past one … last night. That idea was all moonshine. Barrington had had a fall at twenty-three minutes past one that afternoon, that was all there was to be said. How or where—that didn’t matter to her. Had had a fall, muddied his clothes, damaged his watch, and—it must be so—scraped his hand. Had had, possibly, a severe fall, and had been too badly knocked about by it to bother about his clothes. Had had, possibly, a fall severe enough to hasten his death …
His relief was so intense that he uttered aloud a little laugh that moved an observant newsboy to disrespectful parody. Amused, Gore stopped to buy a paper from the lad, whose demeanour changed instantly to the most respectful politeness at the prospect of business. As his hand went into his trousers-pocket in search of a coin, it came in contact with the envelope which he had transferred to it hurriedly in the consulting-room, and he took it out to place it in a pocket of greater safety. He remembered then the hastily-seen words written in the margin of the newspaper-cutting, and when he had secured his paper and paid the boy, moved a few steps forward to the nearest street-lamp to read them.
‘Tonight. One.’
He had gone to her, then, at one. That fitted in with Arndale’s having seen his car near the house shortly after one. Had he stayed a whole half-hour? Run the risk of discovery for a whole half-hour? Or had he gone away, after all, say, a minute or two before twenty-three minutes past? Gore’s brief-lived cheerfulness subsided into uneasy doubt. He went on his way across Linwood Gardens to Hatfield Place wrapped in such dejected absorption that it was not until he reached the steps of Number 27 that he realised that one of his hands still held, in addition to his evening paper, a handful of loose coppers and silver and the envelope containing the newspaper-cutting.
For if there was one thing of which he was certain with regard to this most infernal mess in which Pickles had involved herself, it was that her husband had, for his own reasons, deliberately lied to him when he had said that the scratch on Barrington’s hand possessed no significance. Of that Gore had no doubt whatever. If ever a man’s eyes had said, ‘I am lying, and you know I am lying, and I know that you know it,’ Melhuish’s eyes had said so then. Why had he lied? What reason could induce any medical man in his senses to do such a thing wilfully—to burke wilfully the real cause of a man’s death—to risk wilfully exposure, the loss of his reputation, of his professional honour, of his profession itself—if not a criminal prosecution and its penalty? Common sense answered inevitably: to save himself or someone else from a worse danger? And from that it was but a single step to the unavoidable conclusion. Rightly or wrongly, Melhuish suspected that his wife’s hand had been responsible for that scratch.
Well … if he knew enough about her relations with Barrington to suspect that, it hardly seemed worth while to bother about a few letters, did it? In any case, it seemed to Gore, Pickles was—to use her own dialect—pretty well done for. ‘Damn it all,’ he reminded himself sharply, ‘it’s quite possible that she may be arrested within the next twenty-four hours for the fellow’s murder, if what I think and what I believe Melhuish thinks, is true. Do you realise that? Arrested for murder—lugged off by the arm by some big lout of a policeman—snapped away from all her life that has been like a flower snapped off its stem—done for—fini— Arndale saw Barrington’s car there last night and recognised it. How many other people saw it there and recognised it? For that matter how many other people know all about her affair with Barrington from beginning to end? Once let someone get wondering about that scratch on his hand and whoosh—the whole pack’ll be after her …’
But, then, where the devil had he been all that time, Barrington? Where the devil had he been hidden from the time he had died until the time when those two girls had found him sitting there in his car in the darkness, dead? Who had brought him back to Aberdeen Place that afternoon? Certainly neither Melhuish nor Pickles; that was sure. Who then? Some other silly ass like himself whom she had persuaded to help her out of the mess?
The idea at first seemed ludicrous—grotesque. And yet as he knocked at the door of Number 27, it became abruptly the most probable and likely idea in the world. For he recalled just at that moment that just at that critical hour of the preceding night just such another silly ass had been in Aberdeen Place—close enough to the hall door of Number 33 to see Barrington’s car waiting near it.
He turned and stared through narrowed eyes at the lights that twinkled beyond the trees of Linwood Gardens. For the first time the unbelievable thrust certainty in his face.
Cecil Arndale … By God. So she had done it.