‘Calm down!’
‘I am perfectly calm. But–‘
‘You’ve been seeing too many crook plays, Dudley. A man isn’t necessarily a burglar because he wears a decent suit of clothes.’
‘Why was he lurking in the grounds that night?’
‘You’re just imagining that it was the same man.’
‘I am absolutely positive it was the same man.’
‘Well, we can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Here comes Claire. Claire, old girl,’ she said, as the door opened, ‘do you know a man named–Darn it! I never got his name, but he’s–‘
Claire stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other.
‘What’s the matter, Dudley?’ she said.
‘Dudley’s gone clean up in the air,’ explained Lady Wetherby, tolerantly. ‘A friend of yours called to tell me he had seen Eustace–‘
‘So that was his excuse, was it?’ said Dudley Pickering. ‘Did he say where Eustace was?’
‘No; he said he had seen him; that was all’
‘An obviously trumped-up story. He had heard of Eustace’s escape and he knew that any story connected with him would be a passport into the house.’
Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
‘You haven’t told us yet if you know the man. He was a big, tall, broad gazook,’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘Very English’
‘He faked the English,’ said Dudley Pickering. ‘That man was no more an Englishman than I am.’
‘Be patient with him, Claire,’ urged Lady Wetherby. ‘He’s been going to the movies too much, and thinks every man who has had his trousers pressed is a social gangster. This man was the most English thing I’ve ever seen–talked like this.’
She gave a passable reproduction of Bill’s speech. Claire started.
‘I don’t know him!’ she cried.
Her mind was in a whirl of agitation. Why had Bill come to the house? What had he said? Had he told Dudley anything?
‘I don’t recognize the description,’ she said, quickly. ‘I don’t know anything about him.’
‘There!’ said Dudley Pickering, triumphantly.
‘It’s queer,’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘You’re sure you don’t know him, Claire?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘He said he was living at a place near here, called Flack’s.’
‘I know the place,’ said Dudley Pickering. ‘A sinister, tumbledown sort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living.’
‘I thought it was a bee-farm,’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘One of the tradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girl bicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me she was named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack’s.’
‘A blind!’ said Mr Pickering, stoutly. ‘The girl’s the man’s accomplice. It’s quite easy to see the way they work. The girl comes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That’s to lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goes about cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can’t get away from the fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglaries down here, and nobody has found out who did them.’
Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘having got us scared stiff, what are you going to do about it?’
‘I am going,’ he said, with determination, ‘to take steps.’
He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs.
‘Bless him!’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘I’d no idea your Dudley had so much imagination, Claire. He’s a perfect bomb-shell.’
Claire laughed shakily.
‘It is odd, though,’ said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, ‘that this man should have said that he knew you, when you don’t–‘
Claire turned impulsively.
‘Polly, I want to tell you something. Promise you won’t tell Dudley. I wasn’t telling the truth just now. I do know this man. I was engaged to him once.’
‘What!’
‘For goodness’ sake don’t tell Dudley!’
‘But–‘
‘It’s all over now; but I used to be engaged to him.’
‘Not when I was in England?’
‘No, after that.’
‘Then he didn’t know you are engaged to Dudley now?’
‘N-no. I–I haven’t seen him for a long time.’
Lady Wetherby looked remorseful.
‘Poor man! I must have given him a jolt! But why didn’t you tell me about him before?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Oh, well, I’m not inquisitive. There’s no rubber in my composition. It’s your affair.’