it. You've exorcised the brute's sulky term
per, though. Funny, I feel as though I'd come out of a dark cloud into the sun."
"So you have. There was a cloud over the
sun when we left the Manor, and now it's
passed over."
"So it has, literally as well as figuratively.
Well, well, the world's a good place, after
all."
"Of course it is."
"Miss Humbleby, may I be impertinent?"
"I'm sure you couldn't be."
"Oh, don't be too sure of that. I wanted
to say that I think Doctor Thomas is a very
lucky man." Rose blushed and smiled. "So
it is true. You and he are engaged?"
Rose nodded. "Only, just now we're not
announcing it officially. You see. Daddy was
against it, and it seems—well, unkind to—to
blazon it abroad the moment he's dead."
"Your father disapproved?"
Rose bent her head slowly and reluctantly.
"Yes, I'm afraid what it really amounted to
was that Daddy didn't—well, didn't really
like Geoffrey."
"They were antagonistic to each other?"
"It seemed like that sometimes. Of course,
Daddy was rather a prejudiced old dear."
"And I suppose he was very fond of you
and didn't like the thought of losing you?"
Rose assented, but still with a shade of reservation
in her manner. "It went deeper than
that?" asked Luke. "He definitely didn't
want Thomas as a husband for you?"
"No. You see. Daddy and Geoffrey are so
very unlike and in some ways they clashed.
Geoffrey was really very patient and good
about it, but knowing Daddy didn't like him
made him even more reserved and shy in his
manner, so that Daddy really never got to
know him any better."
"Prejudices are very hard to combat," said
Luke.
"It was so completely unreasonable!"
"Your father didn't advance any reasons?"
"Oh, no. He couldn't! Naturally, I mean, there wasn't anything he could say against
Geoffrey except that he didn't like him."
"/ do not love thee. Doctor Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell"
"Exactly."
"No tangible thing to get hold of? I mean,
your Geoffrey doesn't drink or back horses?"
"Oh, no. I don't believe Geoffrey even
knows what won the Derby."
"That's funny," said Luke. "You know, I
could swear I saw your Doctor Thomas at
Epsom on Derby Day."
For a moment he was anxious lest he might
already have mentioned that he only arrived
in England on that day. But Rose responded
at once, quite unsuspiciously.
"You thought you saw Geoffrey at the
Derby? Oh, no. He couldn't get away, for
one thing. He was over at Ashewold nearly
all that day at a difficult confinement case."
"What a memory you've got!"
Rose laughed. "I remember that because
he told me they called the baby Jujube as a
nickname!" Luke nodded abstractedly.
"Anyway," said Rose, "Geoffrey never goes
to race meetings. He'd be bored to death."
She added, in a different tone, "Won't you
come in? I think Mother would like to see
you."
"If you're sure of that?"
Rose led the way into a room where twilight
hung rather sadly. A woman was sitting
in an armchair in a curiously huddled-up
position. "Mother, this is Mr. Fitzwilliam."
Mrs. Humbleby gave a start and shook
hands. Rose went quietly out of the room.
"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Fitzwilliam.
Some friends of yours knew my husband
many years ago, so Rose tells me."
"Yes, Mrs. Humbleby." He rather hated
repeating the lie to the widowed woman, but
there was no way out of it.
Mrs. Humbleby said, "I wish you could
have met him. He was a fine man and a
great doctor. He cured many people who
had been given up as hopeless, just by the
strength of his personality."
Luke said gently, "I've heard a lot about
him since I've been here. I know how much
people thought of him."
He could not see Mrs. Humbleby's face
very distinctly. Her voice was rather monotonous, but its very lack of feeling seemed to
emphasize the fact that actually feeling was
in her, strenuously held back. She said, rather unexpectedly, "The world is a very wicked
place, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Do you know that?"
Luke was a little surprised. "Yes, perhaps
that may be."
She insisted, "No, but you do know it?
It's important, that. There's a lot of wickedness
about. One must be prepared--to fight
it! John was. He knew. He was on the side
of the right!"
Luke said gently, "I sure he was."
"He knew the wickedness there was in
this place," said Mrs. Humbleby.
"He knew--" She burst suddenly into
tears.
Luke murmured, "I'm so sorry," and
stopped.
She controlled herself as suddenly as she
had lost control. "You must forgive me,"
she said. She held out her hand and he took
it. "Do come and see us while you are here,"
she said. "It would be so good for Rose. She
likes you so much."
"I like her. I think your daughter is the
nicest girl I've met for a long time, Mrs.
Humbleby."
"She's very good to me."
"Doctor Thomas is a very lucky man."
"Yes." Mrs. Humbleby dropped his hand.
Her voice had gone flat again. "I don't know.
It's all so difficult."
Luke left her standing in the half gloom, her fingers nervously twisting and untwisting
themselves. As he walked home, his mind
went over various aspects of the conversation.
Doctor Thomas had been absent from
Wychwood for a good part of Derby Day.
He had been absent in a car. Wychwood was
thirty-five miles from London. Supposedly
he had been attending a confinement case.
Was there more than his word? The point, he supposed, could be verified. His mind
went on to Mrs. Humbleby. What had she
meant by her insistence on that phrase:
"There's a lot of wickedness about." Was
she just nervous and overwrought by the
shock of her husband's death? Or was there
something more to it than that? Did she, perhaps, know something? Something that
Dr. Humbleby had known before he died?
"I've got to go on with this," said Luke to
himself. "I've got to go on."
«T?
Resolutely, he averted his mind from the
passage of arms that had taken place between
him and Bridget.
Thirteen
on the following morning, Luke came to a
decision. He had, he felt, proceeded as far as
he could with indirect inquiries. It was inevitable
that sooner or later he would be forced
into the open. He felt that the time had
come to drop
the book-writing camouflage
and reveal that he had come to Wychwood
with a definite aim in view. In pursuance of
this plan of campaign, he decided to call
upon Honoria Waynflete. He believed that
she had told him what she knew. He wanted
to induce her to tell him what she might
have guessed. He had a shrewd idea that
Miss Waynflete's guesses might be fairly near
the truth.
Miss Waynflete received him in a matterof-fact
manner, showing no surprise at his
call. As she sat down near him, her prim
hands folded and her intelligent eyes--so like
an amiable goat's--fixed on his face, he
found little difficulty in coming to the object
of his visit. He said, "I dare say you have
guessed. Miss Waynflete, that the reason of
my coming here is not merely to write a
book on local customs?" Miss Waynflete inclined
her head and continued to listen.
"I am down here to inquire into the circumstances
of the death of that poor girl, Amy Gibbs."
Miss Waynflete said, "You mean you have
been sent down by the police?"
"Oh, no, Fm not a plain-clothes dick."
He added, with a slightly humorous inflection, "I'm afraid I'm that well-known character
in fiction, the private investigator."
"I see. Then it was Bridget Conway who
brought you down here?" Luke hesitated a
moment. Then he decided to let it go at
that. Without going into the whole Fullerton
story, it was difficult to account for his presence.
Miss Waynflete was continuing, a note of
gentle admiration in her voice: "Bridget is so
practical, so efficient! I'm afraid if it had
been left to me, I should have distrusted my
own judgment. I mean that if you are not
absolutely sure of a thing, it is so difficult to
commit yourself to a definite course of
action."
"But you are sure, aren't you?"
Miss Waynflete said gravely, "No, indeed, Mr. Fitzwilliam. It is not a thing one can be
sure about. I mean, it might all be imagination.
Living alone, with no one to consult or
to talk to, one might easily become melodramatic, and imagine things which had no
foundation in fact."
Luke assented readily to this statement, recognizing its inherent truth, but he added
gently, "But you are sure in your own mind?"
Even here Miss Waynflete showed a little
reluctance. "We are not talking at cross purposes, I hope?" she demurred.
Luke smiled. "You would like me to put
it in plain words? Very well. You do think
that Amy Gibbs was murdered?"
Honoria Waynflete flinched a little at the
crudity of the language. She said, "I don't
feel at all happy about her death. Not at all
happy. The whole thing is profoundly unsatisfactory, in my opinion."
Luke said patiently, "But you don't think
her death was a natural one?"
"No."
"You don't believe it was an accident?"
"It seems to me most improbable. There
are so many--"
Luke cut her short. "You don't think it
was suicide?"
"Emphatically not."
"Then," said Luke gently, "you do think
that it was murder?"
Miss Waynflete hesitated, gulped, and
bravely took the plunge. "Yes," she said, "I
do!"
"Good. Now we can get on with things."
"But I have really no evidence on which
to base that belief," Miss Waynflete explained
anxiously. "It is entirely an idea."
"Quite so. This is a private conversation.
We are merely speaking about what we think
and suspect. We suspect Amy Gibbs was
murdered. Who do we think murdered her?"
Miss Waynflete shook her head. She was
looking very troubled. Luke said, watching
her, "Who had reason to murder her?"
Miss Waynflete said slowly, "She had had
a quarrel, I believe, with her young man at
the garage, Jim Harvey--a most steady, superior
young man. I know one reads in the
papers of young men attacking their sweethearts, and dreadful things like that, but I
really can't believe that Jim would do such a
thing." Luke nodded. Miss Waynflete went
on. "Besides, I can't believe that he would
do it that way. Climb up to her window and
substitute a bottle of poison for the other one
with the cough mixture. I mean, that doesn't
seem--"
Luke came to the rescue as she hesitated.
"It's not the act of an angry lover? I agree!
In my opinion, we can wash Jim Harvey
right out. Amy was killed--we're agreeing
she was killed--by someone who wanted to
get her out of the way and who planned the
crime carefully, so that it should appear to
be an accident. Now, have you any idea--
any hunch--shall we put it like that?--who
that person could be?"
Miss Waynflete said, "No--really--no, I
haven't the least idea!"
"Sure?"
"N-no; no indeed."
Luke looked at her thoughtfully. The denial,
he felt, had not rung quite true. He
went on, "You know of no motive?"
"No motive whatever." That was more
emphatic.
"Had she been in many places in
Wychwood?"
"She was with the Hortons for a year
before going to Lord Easterfleld."
Luke summed up rapidly, "It's like this, then: Somebody wanted that girl out of the
way. From the given facts, we assume that,
first, it was a man, and a man of moderately
old-fashioned outlook--as shown by the hatpaint
been a reasonably athletic man, since it is
clear he must have climbed up over the outhouse
to the girl's window. You agree on
those points?"
"Absolutely," said Miss Waynflete.
"Do you mind if I go round and have a
try myself?"
"Not at all. I think that is a very good
idea."
She led him out by a side door and round
to the back yard. Luke managed to reach the
outhouse roof without much trouble. From
there he could easily raise the sash of the
girl's window and with a slight effort hoist
himself into the room. A few minutes later
he rejoined Miss Waynflete on the path below, wiping his hands on his handkerchief.
"Actually it's easier than it looks," he said.
"You want a certain amount of muscle, that's
all. There were no signs on the sill or
outside?"
Miss Waynflete shook her head. "I don't
think so. Of course, the constable climbed
up this way."
"So that if there were any traces, they
would be taken to be his. How the police
force assists the criminal! Well, that's that!"
Miss Waynflete led the way back to the
house.
"Was Amy Gibbs a heavy sleeper?" he
asked.
Miss Waynflete replied acidly
, "It was
extremely difficult to get her up in the
morning. Sometimes I would knock again
and again, and call out to her before she
answered. But then, you know, Mr. Fitzwilliam, there's a saying there are 'none so
deaf as those who will not hear." "
"That's true," acknowledged Luke. "Well,
now, Miss Waynflete, we come to the question
of motive. Starting with the most obvious
one, do you think there was anything
between that fellow Ellsworthy and the girl?"
He added hastily, "This is just your opinion
I'm asking. Only that."
"If it's a matter of opinion, I would say
yes."
Luke nodded. "In your opinion, would
the girl Amy have stuck at a spot of blackman?"
"Again
as a matter of opinion, I should
say that that was quite possible."
"Do you happen to know if she had much
money in her possession at the time of her
death?"
Miss Waynflete reflected. "I don't think
so. If she had had any unusual amount, I
think I should have heard about it."
"And she hadn't launched into any unusual
extravagance before she died?"
"I don't think so."
"That rather militates against the blackmail
theory. The victim usually pays once
before he decides to proceed to extremes.
There's another theory. The girl might know
something."
"What kind of thing?"
"She might have knowledge that was dangerous
to someone here in Wychwood. We'll
take a strictly hypothetical case. She'd been
in service in a good many houses here. Supposing
she came to know of something that
would damage, say, someone like Mr. Abbot
professionally."
"Mr. Abbot?"
Luke said quickly, "Or possibly some negligence
or unprofessional conduct on the part
of Doctor Thomas."
Miss Waynflete began, "But surely--" and
then stopped.
Luke went on, "Amy Gibbs was house
maud, you said, in the Hortons' house at the time when Mrs. Horton died."
There was a moment's pause, then Miss
Wsaynflete said, "Will you tell me, Mr.
Fitzwilliam, why you bring the Hortons into thus ? Mrs. Horton died over a year ago."
"Yes, and the girl Amy was there at the
tinoe."
"I see. What have the Hortons to do with
it?"
"I don't know. I just wondered. Mrs.
Horton died of acute gastritis, didn't she?"