“But how does all that apply?” I asked, dry-mouthed.
“Mr. Hawk upset the professor just as those Maltese were upset. There’s a patent way of doing it. Furthermore, by judicious questioning, I found that Hawk was once in the Navy, and stationed at Malta. /Now/, who’s going to drag in Sherlock Holmes?”
“You don’t really think–?” I said, feeling like a criminal in the dock when the case is going against him.
“I think friend Hawk has been re-enacting the joys of his vanished youth, so to speak.”
“He ought to be prosecuted,” said Phyllis, blazing with indignation.
Alas, poor Hawk!
“Nobody’s safe with a man of that sort, hiring out a boat.” Oh, miserable Hawk!
“But why on earth should he play a trick like that on Professor Derrick, Chase?”
“Pure animal spirits, probably. Or he may, as I say, be a minion.”
I was hot all over.
“I shall tell father that,” said Phyllis in her most decided voice, “and see what he says. I don’t wonder at the man taking to drink after doing such a thing.”
“I–I think you’re making a mistake,” I said.
“I never make mistakes,” Mr. Chase replied. “I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible. I propose to keep a reflective eye upon the jovial Hawk.”
He helped himself to another section of the chocolate cake.
“Haven’t you finished /yet/, Tom?” inquired Phyllis. “I’m sure Mr. Garnet’s getting tired of sitting talking here,” she said.
I shot out a polite negative. Mr. Chase explained with his mouth full that he had by no means finished. Chocolate cake, it appeared, was the dream of his life. When at sea he was accustomed to lie awake o’ nights thinking of it.
“You don’t seem to realise,” he said, “that I have just come from a cruise on a torpedo-boat. There was such a sea on as a rule that cooking operations were entirely suspended, and we lived on ham and sardines–without bread.”
“How horrible!”
“On the other hand,” added Mr. Chase philosophically, “it didn’t matter much, because we were all ill most of the time.”
“Don’t be nasty, Tom.”
“I was merely defending myself. I hope Mr. Hawk will be able to do as well when his turn comes. My aim, my dear Phyllis, is to show you in a series of impressionist pictures the sort of thing I have to go through when I’m not here. Then perhaps you won’t rend me so savagely over a matter of five minutes’ lateness for breakfast.”
“Five minutes! It was three-quarters of an hour, and everything was simply frozen.”
“Quite right too in weather like this. You’re a slave to convention, Phyllis. You think breakfast ought to be hot, so you always have it hot. On occasion I prefer mine cold. Mine is the truer wisdom. You can give the cook my compliments, Phyllis, and tell her–gently, for I don’t wish the glad news to overwhelm her–that I enjoyed that cake. Say that I shall be glad to hear from her again. Care for a game of tennis, Garnet?”
“What a pity Norah isn’t here,” said Phyllis. “We could have had a four.”
“But she is a present wasting her sweetness on the desert air of Yeovil. You had better sit down and watch us, Phyllis. Tennis in this sort of weather is no job for the delicately-nurtured feminine. I will explain the finer points of my play as we go on. Look out particularly for the Tilden Back-Handed Slosh. A winner every time.”
We proceeded to the tennis court. I played with the sun in my eyes. I might, if I chose, emphasise that fact, and attribute my subsequent rout to it, adding, by way of solidifying the excuse, that I was playing in a strange court with a borrowed racquet, and that my mind was preoccupied–firstly, with /l’affaire/ Hawk, secondly, and chiefly, with the gloomy thought that Phyllis and my opponent seemed to be on friendly terms with each other. Their manner at tea had been almost that of an engaged couple. There was a thorough understanding between them. I will not, however, take refuge behind excuses. I admit, without qualifying the statement, that Mr. Chase was too good for me. I had always been under the impression that lieutenants in the Royal Navy were not brilliant at tennis. I had met them at various houses, but they had never shone conspicuously. They had played an earnest, unobtrusive game, and generally seemed glad when it was over. Mr. Chase was not of this sort. His service was bottled lightning. His returns behaved like jumping crackers. He won the first game in precisely six strokes. He served. Only once did I take the service with the full face of the racquet, and then I seemed to be stopping a bullet. I returned it into the net. The last of the series struck the wooden edge of my racquet, and soared over the back net into the shrubbery, after the manner of a snick to long slip off a fast bowler.