The Postmaster's Daughter Part 7

"Now that you have established your ident.i.ty, Mr. Ingerman, perhaps you will tell me why you are here," he said.

"I have come to Steynholme to inquire into my wife's death."

"A most laudable purpose. I was given to understand, however, that at one time you took little interest in her living. I have not seen Mrs.

Ingerman for three years--until last night, that is--so there is a chance, of course, that husband and wife may have adjusted their differences. Is that so?"

"Until last night!" repeated Ingerman, almost in a startled tone. "You admit that?"

Grant turned and pointed.

"I saw, or fancied I saw, her face at that window," he said. "She looked in on me about ten minutes to eleven. I was hard at work, but the vision, as it seemed then, was so weird and unexpected, that I went straight out and searched for her. Perhaps 'searched' is not quite the right word. To be exact, I opened the French window, stood there, and listened. Then I persuaded myself that I was imagining a vain thing, and came in."

"What was she doing here?"

"I don't know."

"She arrived in Steynholme on Sunday evening, I am told."

"I heard that, too."

"You imply that you did not meet her?"

"No need to imply anything, Mr. Ingerman. I did not meet her. Beyond the fanciful notion that I had seen her ghost last night, the first I knew of her presence in the village was when I recognized her dead body this morning."

"Strange as it may sound, I am inclined to believe you."

Grant said nothing. He wanted to get up and pitch Ingerman into the road.

"But who else will take that charitable view?" purred the other, in that suave voice which so ill accorded with his thin lips and slightly hooked nose.

"I really don't care," was the weary answer.

"Not at the moment, perhaps. You have had a trying day, no doubt. My visit at its close cannot be helpful. But--"

"I am feeling rather tired mentally," interrupted Grant, "so you will oblige me by not raising too many points at once. Why should you imagine that conversation with you in particular should add to my supposed distress?"

"Doesn't it?"

"No."

"Why, then, may I ask, do you so obviously resent my questions? Who has so much right to put them as I?"

Grant found that he must bestir himself. Thus far, the honors lay with this rather sinister-looking yet quiet-mannered visitor.

"I am sorry if anything I have said lends color to that belief," he answered. "Candidly, I began by a.s.suming that you forfeited any legal right years ago to interfere in behalf of Miss Melhuish, living or dead.

Let us, at least, be candid with each other. Miss Melhuish herself told me that you and she had separated by mutual consent."

"Allow me to emulate your candor. The actual fact is that you weaned my wife's affections from me."

"That is a downright lie," said Grant coolly.

Ingerman's peculiar temperament permitted him to treat this grave insult far more lightly than Grant's harmless, if irritating, reference to the police.

"Let us see just what 'a lie' signifies," he said, almost judicially. "If a lady deserts her husband, and there is good reason to suspect that she is, in popular phrase, 'carrying on' with another man, how can the husband be lying if he charges that man with being the cause of the domestic upheaval?"

"In this instance a hypothetical case is not called for. Three years ago, Mr. Ingerman, you had parted from your wife. Your name was never mentioned. Apparently, none in my circle had even heard of you. Miss Melhuish had won repute as a celebrated actress. I met her, in a sense, professionally. We became friends. I fancied I was in love with her. I proposed marriage. Then, and not until then, did the ghost of Mr."--Grant bent forward, and consulted the card--"Mr. Isidor G. Ingerman intrude."

"So marriage was out of the question?"

"If you expect an answer--yes."

Ingerman rested the handle of his stick against his lips.

"That isn't how the situation was represented to me at the time," he said thoughtfully.

Grant was still sore with the recollection of the way in which the superintendent of police had forced him to confess the pitiful scheme whereby a woman in love had sought to gain her ends. He refused to sully her memory a second time that day, even to gain the upper hand in this troublesome controversy.

"I neither know nor care what representations may have been made to you,"

he retorted. "I merely tell you the literal truth."

"Possibly. Possibly. It was not I who used the word 'lie,' remember. But if you are ungracious enough to refuse to withdraw the offensive phrase, let it pa.s.s. We are not in France. This deadly business will be fought out in the law courts. I am here to-night of my own initiative. I thought it only fair and reasonable that you and I should meet before we are brought face to face at a coroner's inquest, and, it may be, in an a.s.size Court.... No, no, Mr. Grant. Pray do not put the worst construction on my words. _Someone_ murdered my wife. If the police show intelligence and reasonable skill, _someone_ will be tried for the crime. You and I will certainly be witnesses. That is what I meant to convey. The doubt in my mind was this--whether to be actively hostile or pa.s.sively friendly to the man who, next to me, was interested in the poor woman now lying dead in a wretched stable of this village."

The almost diabolical cleverness of this long speech, delivered without heat and with singularly adroit stress on various pa.s.sages, was revealed by its effect on Grant. He was at once infuriated and puzzled. Ingerman was playing him as a fisherman humors a well-hooked salmon. The simile actually occurred to him, and he resolved to precipitate matters by coming straightway to the landing-net.

"Is your friendship purchasable?" he inquired, making the rush without further preamble.

"My wife was, I was led to believe," came the calm retort.

Grant threw scruples to the wind now. Adelaide Mulhuish was being defamed, not by him, but by her husband.

"We are at cross purposes," he said, weighing each word. "Your wife, who knew your character fairly well, I am convinced, thought that you were open to receive a cash consideration for your connivance in a divorce."

"She had told me plainly that she would never live with me again. I was too fair-minded a man to place obstacles in the way when she wished to regain her freedom."

"So it was true, then. What was the price? One thousand--two? I am not a millionaire."

"Nor am I. As a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, it was a serious matter for me when my wife's earnings ceased to come into the common stock."

"My first, if rather vague, estimate of you was the correct one. You are a good bit of a scoundrel, and, if I guess rightly, a would-be blackmailer."

"You are talking at random, Mr. Grant. The levying of blackmail connotes that the person bled desires that some discreditable, or dangerous, fact should be concealed."

"Such is not my position."

"I--I wonder."

"I can relieve you of any oppressive doubt. I informed the police some few hours ago that you have appeared already in a similar role."