Chapter Twenty-Eight

John Smith

The Pen is Mightier— arrived in Silverstream. It seemed that practically everybody had ordered copies in advance. By twelve o’clock Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was on the telephone summoning her forces.

“Of course it’s Barbara Buncle,” she said to Mr. Bulmer. “Who would have thought that frumpy little object would have the audacity to write such wicked books? You’ve read the new one, I suppose; it’s worse.”

“I’ve glanced through it—just glanced through it casually,” replied Mr. Bulmer, who had had his nose glued to the pages of The Pen is Mightier— ever since it had arrived. “The novel is not worth reading.”

“Of course not,” agreed Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. “I just glanced through it too, just to see whether I could find any clue to John Smith’s identity, and it’s perfectly plain now.”

Mr. Bulmer agreed.

“I’ll call for you in the Daimler in about ten minutes,” added Mrs. Featherstone Hogg. “We can’t do anything to her, I suppose, but we can go down to Tanglewood Cottage and have it out with her.”

Mr. Bulmer agreed with alacrity.

Mrs. Featherstone Hogg rang up Vivian Greensleeves and arranged to pick her up on the way; the Weatherheads were invited but refused; Mrs. Carter agreed to meet the others at the gate, so too, the Snowdons.

Mrs. Featherstone Hogg could not think of anyone else to ask; she did not want people like Mrs. Dick and Mrs. Goldsmith; they only complicated matters. She had made the mistake of asking too many people to her drawing-room meeting and she was determined not to repeat it. Of course it was a great pity that Ellen King was not here—

Mrs. Carter was coming out of her gate as the Daimler drove up to Tanglewood Cottage and disgorged its occupants.

“Isn’t it awful?” cried Mrs. Carter, hastening toward the others. “Isn’t it perfectly awful to think I’ve been living next door to him—to her—to John Smith I mean—all this time? I never was so mistaken in anyone; it just shows how deep she is.”

“I always considered Barbara Buncle half idiotic,” agreed Mrs. Featherstone Hogg.

“The books in no way disprove your opinion,” gasped Miss Snowdon, who had just arrived upon the scene, very breathless, with her father and sister in tow.

“That’s what I think,” agreed Mr. Bulmer. “They’re idiotic books.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Vivian Greensleeves (who had been looking about her while the others talked). “Look at that. What does that mean?” She pointed to a large white board fixed securely in a tree near the gate. They all looked at it and saw that it bore in new black lettering the announcement:

TANGLEWOOD COTTAGE

this desirable residence for sale

Three Bedrooms, Two Reception, Bathroom, H&C

(Apply Mrs. Abbott, c/o Abbott & Spicer, Brummel Street, London, EC4)

“She’s going away,” Mr. Snowdon suggested.

“Can you wonder?” cried Mrs. Carter. “What sort of a life would she have in Silverstream after this?”

“I wonder who Mrs. Abbott is,” said Vivian.

Mrs. Featherstone Hogg was shaking the gate fiercely. “It seems to be locked; she’s frightened out of her wits, I suppose.”

“Quite likely,” agreed Miss Snowdon.

They all gazed up the drive. Vivian pointed out that there were the wheel marks of a large car in the soft ground. They were quite recent wheel marks.

“Who can have driven in?” Mrs. Carter wondered.

“She’s probably bought a car,” said Mr. Bulmer.

“Barbara Buncle!” cried Mrs. Carter incredulously. “The woman is as poor as a church mouse.”

“Is she?” said Mr. Bulmer sarcastically. “Is she really? She must have made hundreds out of her first novel, and even more out of the new one.”

“Hundreds out of that rubbish?” cried Mrs. Featherstone Hogg.

“Yes, hundreds. It’s just those trashy novels that make money, nowadays,” said Mr. Bulmer bitterly. (His bitterness was caused by the fact that Henry the Fourth was now completed and was going the rounds of all the Publishing Houses in London, and returning every few weeks, to its author, with the sure instinct of a homing pigeon.)

“Well, it’s no use standing here all day,” said Vivian Greensleeves, crossly.

They agreed that it was not. Mrs. Featherstone Hogg shook the gate again, but with no result.

“We could go in through my garden,” suggested Mrs. Carter. “There’s that gap in the fence—Sally uses it. I shall have it blocked up immediately, of course.”

It was an excellent idea, and the whole party turned to follow her.

At this moment another car drove up and was seen to be the doctor’s Alvis. Sarah had also procured a copy of The Pen is Mightier— and had spent the morning reading it and discovering its authorship. She had given the doctor no peace until he had agreed to bring her down to Tanglewood Cottage in the car.

“They’ll kill her,” she told him, with exaggerated concern.

Dr. John didn’t think that they would actually kill Miss Buncle, but he agreed that it might be as well to go down and see what was happening.

“Hullo!” said Sarah, stepping out of the car, “everybody seems to be calling on John Smith this morning.”

“Did you ever know such a wicked deception?” cried Mrs. Carter.

“Who would ever have thought it was Barbara Buncle?” cried Miss Isabella Snowdon.

“Barbara told me about it months ago,” replied Sarah nonchalantly.

“She told you she was John Smith?”

“Yes, months ago.” (But of course I didn’t believe her, added Sarah to herself.)

The whole party stood and gazed at Sarah in amazement. They had so much to say that they couldn’t find words to say anything at all.

“Well, never mind that now,” said Mrs. Carter. “Come along—this way—through my garden.”

They followed Mrs. Carter through her gate, and down the somewhat muddy path that led to the gap in the fence. Dr. Walker and Sarah came last, by themselves. They were not strictly of the party; they were merely here to see that nothing happened—

“What are you going to say, Agatha?” inquired Mrs. Carter, rather breathlessly, of Mrs. Featherstone Hogg.

“Words will be given me,” replied that lady, confidently, as she squeezed through the fence in the wake of the fat Miss Snowdon.

They approached the house through the shrubbery where Barbara had had her “feu de joie.” The trees were budding now, and there were some early daffodils among the long grass; but the party had no eyes for the beauties of spring; they were one and all engaged in framing cutting sentences to hurl at John Smith. They couldn’t do anything, of course, but they could say a good deal.

They approached the house in silence and stood in a little group upon the lawn. They stared at the house, and the house stared back at them with closely shuttered windows. It wore the unmistakable, forlorn look of a deserted nest.

Barbara Buncle had gone.