The Red Planet Part 39

"By that," she said, "I suppose you mean you can never tell what I'm going to do next."

"You've guessed it, my dear," said I.

"Do you disapprove?"

"I couldn't be so presumptuous."

She bent over me and caught the lapels of my jacket.

"Oh, don't be so dreadfully dignified. I want you to understand.

Everybody is going to pay honour to-morrow to a man who has given everything he could to his country. Don't you think it would be petty of me if I stood out? What have the dead things that have pa.s.sed between us to do with my tribute as an Englishwoman?"

What indeed? I asked her whether she was attending in her private capacity or as one of the representatives of the V.A.D. nurses. I learned for the thousandth time that Betty Connor did not deal in half measures. If she went at all, it was as Betty Connor that she would go.

Her aunts would accompany her. It was part of the munic.i.p.al ordering of things that the Town Clerk should have sent them the special cards of invitation.

"I think it my duty to go," said Betty.

"If you think so, my dear," said I, "then it is your duty. So there's nothing more to be said about it."

Betty kissed the top of my head and went off.

We come now to the morning of the great day. Everything had been finally settled. The Mayor and Aldermen, Lady Fenimore and the Aldermen's wives, the Lord Lieutenant (in unofficial mufti) and Lady Laleham (great though officially obscure lady), the General of the Division quartered in the neighbourhood and officers of his staff, and a few other magnates to meet the three o'clock train by which the Boyces were due to arrive. The station hung with flags and inscriptions. A guard of honour and a band in the station-yard, with a fleet of motor cars in waiting. Troops lining the route from station to Town Hall. More troops in the decorated Market Square, including the G.o.dbury School O.T.C. and the Wellingsford and G.o.dbury Volunteers. I heard that the latter were very anxious to fire off a feu de joie, but were restrained owing to lack of precedent. The local fire-brigade in freshly burnished helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars, and behind them motor omnibuses with the nurses.

Marigold, although his attendance on me precluded him from taking part in the parade of Volunteers, appeared in full grey uniform with all his medals and the black patch of ceremony over his eyeless socket. I must confess to regarding him with some jealousy. I too should have liked to wear my decorations. If a man swears to you that he is free from such little vanities, he is more often than not a mere liar. But a broken-down old soldier, although still drawing pay from the Government, is not allowed to wear uniform (which I think is outrageous), and he can't go and plaster himself with medals when he is wearing on his head a hard felt hat. My envy of the martial looking Marigold is a proof that my mind was not busied with sterner preoccupations. I ate my breakfast with the serene conscience not only of a man who knows he has done his duty, but of an organiser confident in the success of his schemes. The abominable weather of snows and tempests from which we had suffered for weeks had undergone a change.

It was a mild morning brightened by a pale convalescent sort of sun, and there was just a little hope of spring in the air. I felt content with everything and everybody.

About eleven o'clock the buzz of the library telephone disturbed my comfortable perusal of the newspaper. I wheeled towards the instrument.

Sir Anthony was speaking.

"Can you come round at once? Very urgent. The car is on its way to you."

"What's the matter?" I asked.

He could not tell me over the wires. I was to take it that my presence was urgently needed.

"I'll come along at once," said I.

Some hitch doubtless had occurred. Perhaps the War Office (whose ways were ever weird and unaccountable) had forbidden the General to take part in such a village-pump demonstration. Perhaps Lady Laleham had insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed Lord Lieutenant on the fold. Perhaps the hero himself was laid up with measles.

With the lightest heart I drove to Wellings Park. Marigold, straight as a ramrod, sitting in front by the chauffeur. As soon as Pardoe, the butler, had brought out my chair and Marigold had settled me in it, Sir Anthony, very red and fl.u.s.tered, appeared and, shaking me nervously by the hand, said without preliminary greeting:

"Come into the library."

He, I think, had come from the morning room on the right of the hall.

The library was on the left. He flung open the door. I steered myself into the room; and there, standing on the white bearskin hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his six inches of stiff white beard stuck aggressively outward, I saw Daniel Gedge.

While I gaped in astonishment, Sir Anthony shut the door behind him, drew a straight-backed chair from the wall, planted it roughly some distance away from the fire, and, pointing to it, bade Gedge sit down.

Gedge obeyed. Sir Anthony took the hearthrug position, his hands behind his back, his legs apart.

"This man," said he, "has come to me with a ridiculous, beastly story.

At first I was undecided whether I should listen to him or kick him out. I thought it wiser to listen to him in the presence of a reputable witness. That's why I've sent for you, Duncan. Now you just begin all over again, my man," said he, turning to Gedge, "and remember that anything you say here will be used against you at your trial."

Gedge laughed--I must admit, with some justification.

"You forget, Sir Anthony, I'm not a criminal and you're not a policeman."

"I'm the Mayor to this town, sir," cried Sir Anthony. "I'm also a Justice of the Peace."

"And I'm a law-abiding citizen," retorted Gedge.

"You're an infernal socialistic pro-German," exclaimed Sir Anthony.

"Prove it. I only ask you to prove it. No matter what my private opinions may be, you just try to bring me up under the Defence of the Realm Act, and you'll find you can't touch me."

I held out a hand. "Forgive me for interrupting," said I, "but what is all this discussion about?"

Gedge crossed one leg over the other and drew his beard through his fingers. Sir Anthony was about to burst into speech, but I checked him with a gesture and turned to Gedge.

"It has nothing to do with political opinions," said he. "It has to do with the death, nearly two years ago, of Miss Althea Fenimore, Sir Anthony's only daughter."

Sir Anthony, his face congested, glared at him malevolently. I started, with a gasp of surprise, and stared at the man who, caressing his beard, looked from one to the other of us with an air of satisfaction.

"Get on," said Sir Anthony.

"You are going to give a civic reception to-day to Colonel Boyce, V.C., aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," snapped Sir Anthony.

"Do you think you ought to do it when I tell you that Colonel Boyce, V.C., murdered Miss Althea Fenimore on the night of the 25th June, two years ago?"

"Yes," said Sir Anthony. "And do you know why? Because I know you to be a liar and a scoundrel."

I can never describe the awful horror that numbed me to the heart. For a few moments my body seemed as lifeless as my legs. The charge, astounding almost to grotesqueness in the eyes of Sir Anthony, and rousing him to mere wrath, deprived me of the power of speech. For I knew, in that dreadful instant, that the man's words contained some elements of truth.

All the pieces of the puzzle that had worried me at odd times for months fitted themselves together in a vivid flash. Boyce and Althea! I had never dreamed of a.s.sociating their names. That a.s.sociation was the key of the puzzle. Out of the darkness disturbing things shone clear.

Boyce's abrupt retirement from Wellingsford before the war; his cancellation by default of his engagement; his morbid desire, a year ago, to keep secret his presence in his own house; Gedge's veiled threat to me in the street to use a way "that'll knock all you great people of Wellingsford off your high horses;" his extraordinary interview with Boyce; his generally expressed hatred of Boyce. Was this too the secret which he let out in his cups to Randall Holmes and which drove the young man from his society? And Betty? Boyce was a devil. She wished he were dead. And her words: "You have behaved worse to others.

I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing your face here." How much did Betty know? There was the lost week--in Carlisle?--in poor Althea's life. And then there were Boyce's half confessions, the glimpses he had afforded me into the tormented soul. To me he had condemned himself out of his own mouth.

I repeat that, sitting there paralysed by the sudden shock of it, I knew--not that the man was speaking the literal truth--G.o.d forbid!--but that Boyce was, in some degree, responsible for Althea's death.

"Calling me names won't alter the facts, Sir Anthony," said Gedge, with a touch of insolence. "I was there at the time. I saw it."

"If that's true," Sir Anthony retorted, "you're an accessory after the fact, and in greater danger of being hanged than ever." He turned to me in his abrupt way. "Now that we've heard this blackguard, shall we hand him over to the police?"

Being directly addressed, I recovered my nerve.

"Before doing that," said I, "perhaps it would be best for us to hear what kind of a story he has to tell us. We should also like to know his motives in not denouncing the supposed murderer at once, and in keeping his knowledge hidden all this time."

"With regard to the last part of your remarks, I dare say you would,"