Miss Arnott's Marriage Part 33

"Are you sure I shock you?"

"What the devil do you mean by that? Look here, Gilbert, if you've come here to make yourself disagreeable you'll have to excuse me if I go to bed."

"My dear chap, why this sudden explosion! So far from wishing to make myself disagreeable my desire is all the other way; but you haven't yet let me explain to you the nature of the quandary I am in."

"I know Jim Baker better than you do. I've thrashed him within an inch of his life before to-day, and, by George! if what you say is true, I'd like to do it again. If you've come to retail any c.o.c.k and bull stories emanating from that source I don't want to listen to them--that's plain."

"Perfectly plain. I've come to retail c.o.c.k and bull stories emanating from no source. If you'll grant me thirty seconds I'll tell you what the trouble is. The trouble is that I've been retained by Miss Arnott to defend Jim Baker."

"The deuce!"

"Yes, as you observe, it is the deuce. She has behaved--in a pecuniary sense--very handsomely, and is apparently prepared--in that sense--to continue to behave very handsomely."

"Then where's the trouble if you're well paid for the work you're asked to do?"

"Supposing, for the sake of argument, that Miss Arnott is guilty, and that Jim Baker knows it, that, from one point of view, would be a sufficient reason why she should spend money like water in his defence, and I should be placed in a very awkward situation."

"Are you taking it for granted that what that blackguard says--"

"Baker has said nothing."

"That what he hints is true? Do you know Miss Arnott?"

"I don't; do you?"

"Of course, she's my neighbour."

"But you're some distance apart."

"Nothing as we count it in the country."

"Is she an old woman?"

"Old! She's a girl!"

"A girl? Oh! now I perceive that we are getting upon delicate ground."

"Gilbert, may I ask you to be extremely careful what you allow yourself to say."

"I will be--extremely careful. May I take it that you are of opinion that there is no foundation for what Jim Baker believes?"

"What on earth have I to do with what Jim Baker believes or with what he chooses to make you think he believes?"

"Precisely; I am not connecting you with his belief in any way whatever. What I am asking is, are you of opinion that he has no ground for his belief?"

"How should I know what ground he has or thinks he has? That fellow's mind--what he has of it--is like a rabbit warren, all twists and turns."

The speaker had risen from his chair. Possibly with some intention of showing that he did not find the theme a pleasant one, he had taken down a billiard cue. The lawyer watched him as he prepared to make a shot.

"Morice, do you know to what conclusion you are driving me?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. Come and have a game."

"Thank you, I don't mind. But first, I should like to tell you what that conclusion is. You are forcing me to think that Jim Baker's belief is yours."

Mr Morice did not make his shot. Instead, he stood up straight, gripping his cue almost as if he meant to use it as a weapon.

"Gilbert!"

"It's no use glaring at me like that. I'm impervious to threats. I've been the object of too many. Let me tell you something else. A faint suspicion, which I had before I came here, has become almost a certainty. I believe that Baker saw what that young woman did and I believe you saw her also."

"You hound! d.a.m.n you! I'd like to throw you out of the house!"

"Oh no, you wouldn't; that's only a momentary impulse. An instant's reflection will show you that this is a position in which the one thing wanted is common sense, and you've got plenty of common sense if you choose to give it a chance. Don't you see that we shall, all of us--Miss Arnott, Jim Baker, you and me--find ourselves in a very uncomfortable situation, if we don't arrive at some common understanding. If Jim Baker saw that girl committing murder, and if you saw her--"

"You have not the faintest right to make such a monstrous insinuation."

"I have invited contradiction and none has come."

"I do contradict you--utterly."

"What, exactly, do you contradict?"

"Everything you have said."

"To descend from the general to the particular. Do you say that you did not see what that girl did?"

"I decline to be cross-examined. I'm your host, sir, I'm not in the witness-box."

"No, but at a word from me you very soon will be. That's the point you keep on missing."

"Gilbert, I'll wring your neck!"

"Not you, if only because you know that it would make bad worse. It's no good your throwing things at me. I'm as fairly in a cleft stick as you are. If I throw up Jim Baker's case, Miss Arnott, who has sent me a cheque for 500, will naturally want to know why. What shall I tell her? I shall have to tell her something. If, on the other hand, I stick to Baker, my first and only duty will be towards him. I shall have to remember that his life is at stake, and leave no stone unturned to save it. But, being employed by Miss Arnott, I don't want to take advantage of that employment and of her money to charge her with the crime, nor do I want to have to put you into the witness-box to prove it. What I want to know is which course am I to follow? And to get that knowledge I've come to you. Now, you've got the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l."

Mr Morice, perhaps unconsciously, was still gripping the billiard cue as if it were a bludgeon. Plainly, he was ill at ease.

"I wish you'd been kept out of the affair. I'd have kept you out if I'd had a chance. I should have known you'd make yourself a nuisance."

"Having a clear perception of the lines on which I should be likely to make myself a nuisance, I see. Shall I tell you what I do wish? I'm inclined to wish that I'd been retained by Miss Arnott on her own account."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You will make me dot my i's. However, I'll dot them if you like. Here are two men who know the truth. Isn't it probable that there are other persons who suspect it? So far the affair's been bungled. Baker himself put the police on the wrong scent. They've followed it blindly. But when the right man's put on the job I'm prepared to wager that he'll find the whole air is full of the lady's name. Then she'll want a.s.sistance."

Hugh Morice returned the cue to its place with almost ostentatious precision, keeping his back towards his guest as he did so. Then, turning, he took up his stand before the fireplace. His manner had all at once become almost unnaturally calm.

"There are two or three points, Mr Gilbert, on which I should like to arrive at that understanding which you pretend to desiderate. When you suggest, as you do, that I have any guilty knowledge of the crime with which Jim Baker stands charged, you not only suggest what is wholly false, but you do so without the slightest shadow of an excuse, under circ.u.mstances which make your conduct peculiarly monstrous. I have no such knowledge. It, therefore, necessarily follows that I know nothing of Miss Arnott's alleged complicity in the matter. More, I believe from my heart that she had no more to do with it than you had; she is certainly as innocent as you are. You yourself admit that Baker has said nothing. I fancy you may have jumped at an erroneous conclusion; your fault is over-cleverness. I know him to be a thorough-paced coward and rascal. If he ever does say outright, anything of the nature you have hinted at, there will be no difficulty whatever in proving him to be a liar. Now, sir, have I given you all the information which you require?"