A sound like the shot heard round the world rang through the room. It was Sniffy snorting.
‘Apology!’ she cried, having got the snort out of her system. ‘What’s the good of apologies? Harold took the only possible course. He sailed in and laid Roderick out cold, as anyone would have done in his place.’
‘Anyone who had not his cloth to think of.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Uncle Watkyn, a fellow can’t be thinking of cloth all the time. It was an emergency. Roderick was murdering Gussie Fink-Nottle.’
‘And Mr. Pinker stopped him? Great heavens!’
There was a pause while Pop Bassett struggled with his feelings. Then Stiffy, as Stinker had done with Spode, had a shot at the honeyed word. She had spoken of Stinker cooing to Spode like a turtle dove, and if memory served me aright that was just how he had cooed, and it was of a cooing turtle dove that she now reminded me. Like most girls, she can always get a melting note into her voice if she thinks there’s any percentage to be derived from it.
‘It’s not like you, Uncle Watkyn, to go back on your solemn promise.’
I could have corrected her there. I would have thought it was just like him.
‘I can’t believe it’s really you who’s doing this cruel thing to me. It’s so unlike you. You have always been so kind to me. You have made me love and respect you. I have come to look on you as a second father. Don’t louse the whole thing up now.’
A powerful plea, which with any other man would undoubtedly have brought home the bacon. With Pop Bassett it didn’t get to first base. He had been looking like a man with no bowels – of compassion, I mean of course – and he went on looking like one.
‘If by that peculiar expression you intend to imply that you are expecting me to change my mind and give Mr. Pinker this vicarage,
I must disappoint you. I shall do no such thing. I consider that he has shown himself unfit to be a vicar, and I am surprised that after what has occurred he can reconcile it with his conscience to continue his duties as a curate.’
Strong stuff, of course, and it drew from Stinker what may have been a hollow groan or may have been a hiccup. I myself looked coldly at the old egg and I rather think I curled my lip, though I should say it was very doubtful if he noticed my scorn, for his attention was earmarked for Stiffy. She had turned almost as scarlet as Stinker, and I heard a distinct click as her front teeth met. It was through these teeth (clenched) that she spoke. ‘So that’s how you feel about it?’
‘It is.’
‘Your decision is final?’
‘Quite final.’
‘Nothing will move you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I see,’ said Stiffy, having chewed the lower lip for a space in silence. ‘Well, you’ll be sorry.’
‘I disagree with you.’
‘You will. Just wait. Bitter remorse is coming to you, Uncle Watkyn. Never underestimate the power of a woman,’ said Stiffy, and with a choking sob – though there again it may have been a hiccup – she rushed from the room.
She had scarcely left us when Butterfield entered, and Pop Bassett eyed him with the ill-concealed petulance with which men of testy habit eye butlers who butt in at the wrong moment. ‘Yes, Butterfield? What is it, what is it?’
‘Constable Oates desires a word with you, sir.’
‘Who?’
‘Police Constable Oates, sir.’
‘What does he want?’
‘I gather that he has a clue to the identity of the boy who threw a hard-boiled egg at you, sir.’
The words acted on Pop Bassett as I’m told the sound of bugles acts on war-horses, not that I’ve ever seen a war-horse. His whole demeanour changed in a flash. His face lit up, and there came into it the sort of look you see on the faces of bloodhounds when they settle down to the trail. He didn’t actually say ‘Whoopee!’ but that was probably because the expression was not familiar to him. He was out of the room in a matter of seconds, Butterfield lying some lengths behind, and Stinker, who had been replacing a framed photograph which he had knocked off a neighbouring table, addressed me in what you might call a hushed voice.