‘It’s a long story,’ said Mr Pickering.
‘We have the night before us,’ said Lady Wetherby.
‘You remember The Man–the fellow I found looking in at the window, The Man who said he knew Claire?’
‘You’ve got that man on the brain, Dudley. What’s he been doing to you now?’
‘I tracked him here.’
‘Tracked him? Where from?’
‘From that bee-farm place where he’s living. He and that girl you spoke of went into these woods. I thought they were making for the house, but they went into the shack.’
‘What did they do then?’ asked Lady Wetherby
‘They came out again.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s what I was trying to find out.’
Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation.
‘By Jove!’ There was apprehension in his voice, but mingled with it a certain pleased surprise. ‘Perhaps they were after my picture. I’ll light the lamp. Good Lord, picture thieves–Romneys –missing Gainsboroughs–‘ His voice trailed off as he found the lamp and lit it. Relief and disappointment were nicely blended in his next words: ‘No, it’s still there.’
The soft light of the lamp filled the studio.
‘Well, that’s a comfort,’ said Lady Wetherby, sauntering in. ‘We couldn’t afford to lose–Oh!’
Lord Wetherby spun round as her scream burst upon his already tortured nerve centres. Lady Wetherby was kneeling on the floor. Claire hurried in.
‘What is it, Polly?’
Lady Wetherby rose to her feet, and pointed. Her face had lost its look of patient amusement. It was hard and set. She eyed Mr Pickering in a menacing way.
‘Look!’
Claire followed her finger.
‘Good gracious! It’s Eustace!’
‘Shot!’
She was looking intently at Mr Pickering. ‘Well, Dudley,’ she said, coldly, ‘what about it?’
Mr Pickering found that they were all looking at him–Lady Wetherby with glittering eyes, Claire with cool scorn, Lord Wetherby with a horror which he seemed to have achieved with something of an effort.
‘Well!’ said Claire.
‘What about it, Dudley?’ said Lady Wetherby.
‘I must say, Pickering,’ said Lord Wetherby, ‘much as I disliked the animal, it’s a bit thick!’
Mr Pickering recoiled from their accusing gaze.
‘Good heavens! Do you think I did it?’
In the midst of his anguish there flashed across his mind the recollection of having seen just this sort of situation in a moving picture, and of having thought it far-fetched.
Lady Wetherby’s good-tempered mouth, far from good-tempered now, curled in a devastating sneer. She was looking at him as Claire, in the old days when they had toured England together in road companies, had sometimes seen her look at recalcitrant landladies. The landladies, without exception, had wilted beneath that gaze, and Mr Pickering wilted now.
‘But–but–but–‘ was all he could contrive to say.
‘Why should we think you did it?’ said Lady Wetherby, bitterly. ‘You had a grudge against the poor brute for biting you. We find you hiding here with a pistol and a story about burglars which an infant couldn’t swallow. I suppose you thought that, if you planted the poor creature’s body here, it would be up to Algie to get rid of it, and that if he were found with it I should think that it was he who had killed the animal.’
The look of horror which Lord Wetherby had managed to assume became genuine at these words. The gratitude which he had been feeling towards Mr Pickering for having removed one of the chief trials of his existence vanished.
‘Great Scot!’ he cried. ‘So that was the game, was it?’
Mr Pickering struggled for speech. This was a nightmare.
‘But I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! I tell you I hadn’t the remotest notion the creature was there.’
‘Oh, come, Pickering!’ said Lord Wetherby. ‘Come, come, come!’
Mr Pickering found that his accusers were ebbing away. Lady Wetherby had gone. Claire had gone. Only Lord Wetherby remained, looking at him like a pained groom. He dashed from the place and followed his hostess, speaking incoherently of burglars, outhouses, and misunderstandings. He even mentioned Chingachgook. But Lady Wetherby would not listen. Nobody would listen.
He found Lord Wetherby at his side, evidently prepared to go deeper into the subject. Lord Wetherby was looking now like a groom whose favourite horse has kicked him in the stomach.