We found my car outside the gardens of Pevensey Crescent and Devisher inside it. He knew the truth and, at the same time, his own danger. He wanted no trouble any more. He had already endured his life-time’s share and, knowing as much as he did, he applied with some confidence for the opportunity of an easy life in some quiet corner of the world. This took place over a whisky-and-soda in my parlour.
“What about Cairo?” I asked a little too promptly to please Preedy.
“All that has got to stop,” he said. “I am going up to the Caledonian Market myself to see about it.”
“But there are cargoes arranged and some on the way.”
“They will be the last,” said Preedy, and he looked at Devisher. “Well, for the moment, Cairo. Then what about Ceylon, where every prospect pleases? They tell me that as you approach that island a delightful aroma of spices floats out to you across the sea.”
“Either place will be A.1. for me,” Devisher agreed with relief.
It was arranged there and then. I was not expected at the office the next morning. I was to start in my car with Devisher at half-past eight. There would be traffic already on the roads and I must never exceed the speed limit or in any way attract attention. I was to drive to Southampton through Camberley and Hartley Row. At Basingstoke and Winchester I was to buy some ready-made clothes, shirts, flannels, under clothes and shoes. Devisher would have his new passport. Since I was well-known to the dock officials, there would be no trouble at the gates. I was to make him out a ticket in the Southampton office of the Line and see him off with the ship. I had the resident staff part of the Line under my control and could arrange by a telegram for his arrival at Port Said to be expected. Then Preedy took him away for the night.
Preedy was equally confident that I should have no trouble with Olivia. She wouldn’t move, for her dead husband’s sake. But, although I had not argued, I had not agreed. The amitié amoureuse, which was all I was going to allow her with Daniel, would in time wear off. And then? I could not but remember the bitterness of her last words. They had frightened Preedy.
I had, however, already taken Horbury’s keys from his pocket and I meant to use them that night. I remembered that whenever Horbury had risen from his chair, he had kept a solid hand upon his blotting-book, and that when he had written in it the name of the ship Sheriff, he had lifted the stiff cover only just enough to use a corner of the blotting-paper. That precious letter to Septimus was between the covers of buhl and mother-of-pearl. Horbury had brought it to White Barn, had meant to hand it over, but I suppose lost his confidence in us at the last minute. I meant to get it before the police did. I don’t think that Preedy had noticed me lifting Horbury’s keys. He had been too busy polishing away fingerprints and I hadn’t consulted him. This, the last achievement of the night, I proposed to carry out alone.
Instead of backing the car into the little garage at the side of my house, I drove it away to Battersea. I would keep within the speed-limit all the way to Southampton, but there was no reason why I should follow that good advice to-night. Night, I say, but it was half-past two in the morning when I left the car under the trees at the side of the road. A risk? Yes, but I had to take it. The choice lay between driving into the courtyard and very likely arousing Olivia’s attention, or leaving the car beyond the reach of her ears. The chances of a policeman discovering it were about fifty-fifty.
There was no one whom I could see or hear. The moon was still bright and the world asleep. I crept up to the house and let myself in with Horbury’s key, taking the bunch with me as soon as the hall door was open. I fixed up the latch so that I could get away quickly if it became necessary and I stood still for a few moments in the black hall, listening, until the silence itself began to roar in my ears I moved like a ghost to the garden-room door and noiselessly turn the handle with my fingers wrapped in my handkerchief The lights were burning. Horbury was sprawled across his table; but there was a change in the room since last I had seen it—a change which caught me by the heart and stopped the blood in my veins. The blotting-book was on its edges on the floor now instead of lying flat under the weight of Horbury’s body.
As soon as I recovered my breath, I crossed the room on tiptoe and stooped over it. It stood half-open, the back uppermost. There was no letter under it, none between the leaves. No danger from the woman upstairs! Oh, wasn’t there? She had come back to this room when she was alone. She had pushed the blotting-book from under Horbury’s body. I could hear the buttons of his waistcoat scratching across the metal cover. She had taken the letter to Septimus out of it and then she had toppled it on to the edge of the congealing blood on the floor. What a damnable woman! I was wondering what I should do when the telephone rang on the long table against the wall. It wasn’t possible! I stood up stiff as a tombstone. No, it wasn’t possible! Who should be ringing up White Barn at half-past three in the morning? The Love-Nest? No! But there the bell was, one, two, pause, one, two, pause. It had got to be stopped. It wasn’t until I lifted the receiver from its cradle that I realised that I had acknowledged the call. Someone was in the house then, more, was in the room where a man had committed suicide three to four hours before and where he still lay sprawled across the table. I heard a voice calling Horbury. It seemed to come out of my hand. I looked down and saw that my hand was bare. I was not going to answer the call—not I! The noise of ringing had ceased—that was one good thing. I took my handkerchief from my breast-pocket with my left hand and carefully wiped the handle between the ear and the mouthpiece. Then I replaced it on its cradle. The sound: was not renewed at all events. The caller had ceased to call.
I rubbed the sweat off my forehead. I was streaming with it. I was thinking that, whatever happened, never in all my life could I be so startled again. And the next moment the thought was disproved. The last horror of that night capped all. Somewhere, above my head, a key was turned in a lock and someone fell. I didn’t stay after that. I tossed Horbury’s ring of keys on to the table by the instrument. Then I fled. Oh, yes, even in my panic, I pulled to the door of the garden-room and opened the front-door of the house with my handkerchief about my hand. I did it without reflecting, for I was incapable of reflection. I ran down the lane. It was still deserted. To put the proper finish on the night, I should have found that some thief had run away with my car. But, beyond expectation, it was there where I had left it. I drove back to London. My word, the lighted streets! I eased the car very gently into its garage and went to bed.
Mistakes, of course, were made. Preedy made one on this night. He cleaned the garden-room of fingerprints so thoroughly that the absence of them be suspicious. I don’t see how that could have been helped, however, and I don’t count that as his mistake. Where he really went wrong was in the matter of a bottle of Pommery ’06. He opened it in the pantry without leaving marks on it, but, having filled two glasses, he stoppered the bottle again and put it back amongst the others. There is not very much to be said for Daniel Horbury, but he never opened a bottle of Pommery ’06 without making sure that the very last drop was going to be squeezed out of it.
I, however, erred more completely. I should never have taken Horbury’s keys from his pocket and returned to White Barn. I should never have taken up the telephone receiver from its cradle. I should have slipped Daniel’s ring of keys once more upon his spring lock. But all these errors are nothing compared with the folly I was guilty of in letting myself go when old Sept broke down over the captivity of the young Dauphin! It is said that I sighed! I let out a great big ‘O’ of delight. For the first time I had found a weak spot in the chain-mail of the old boy’s authority. My hide-out became a prison. The Barnishes wouldn’t be sorry to have Captain Septimus under their charge for a little. Captain Septimus had sacked Fred Barnish at five minutes’ notice. A few weeks of Arkwright’s Farm for Septimus and I saw myself Chairman and Managing Director of the Dagger Line. And then all’s spoilt because a copper walks into the farm because he suspects that Barnish is keeping a dog without having a dog licence! Well, I ask you!
However, even so, I might perhaps have got through but for the idiot Ricardo and the preposterous Nosey Parker from Paris.
“Without Mr. Ricardo,” he cried, “where should I be? Like the good George, I ask you. I should still be driving over the Bridge of Battersea amongst the seagulls. As for mistakes, it is possible that once or twice in my life I make one,” he said dreamily. “I do not know.”