Fool Errant

by Patricia Wentworth

  “In another minute I’d have pitched the book at her head, plans and all,” she said to herself as she jerked out her suitcase and threw the book into the bottom of it.

  Emily would not have approved of the packing that followed; it was rapid and sketchy in the extreme—shoes, frocks, and a damp sponge-bag, all pushed in anyhow. It had the one merit of being swift. In six minutes Loveday was descending the stairs ready for the road. The suitcase was put into the car, an umbrella retrieved from the stand in the hall.

  Hélène came out with a beautiful parting embrace. Loveday was enfolded, kissed on both cheeks, and murmured over.

  “Come back, soon, Chérie,” said Mme. de Lara.

  “Thanks awfully, Ellen,” said Loveday in a clear ringing voice.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  It was nearly half an hour later that Mme. de Lara’s sad-faced foreign butler opened the door of her little room and announced Mr. Ross.

  Mr. Ross came in in a hurry, heard the door close behind him, and beheld Hélène all in misty grey. She was bending over a great bowl of Parma violets; the attitude was one of extreme grace. For a moment she did not move, then turned slowly with half a dozen violets in her hand.

  She said, “So you have come,” and her voice was low and sweet.

  Hugo found himself stammering her name.

  “M-M-Madame de Lara!”

  “Yes—Hugo?”

  Hugo held out her note.

  “You asked me to c-c-come.”

  “Yes—Hugo.”

  It was a boiling fury that was making him stammer. He had been quite cool until he came into the scented room and saw her; then suddenly he was angry with an anger that shook him, all of him—his speech, his thought, his self-control. He looked away from her and saw the flute.

  It was lying on a little polished table guarded by a pair of Chinese dogs, fierce in white china which had withstood the changes and chances of four hundred years. A frail jar full of carnations made a delicately coloured background.

  Hugo saw the flute, and the fury went out of him, leaving him cold and quiet. If she had the papers, she had them. He would soon know. He said,

  “You told me to come for my flute. Why did you take it, Mme. de Lara?”

  She sighed and touched her lips with the violets.

  “Perhaps I wanted to see you—Hugo.” Then after a little pause, “Are you angry?”

  Hugo said “No” quite truthfully. He wasn’t angry any more.

  “I should not like you to be angry with me. People get angry so easily and for such little things. They do not always know how much even a foolish anger may hurt. I—Hugo, I have been hurt so often. I should not like to think that you would ever hurt me.” Her voice dwelt on the “you” with the same sound that it had when she said his name; there was a sort of softening of her whole aspect, as if she grew younger, simpler.

  Hugo walked to the table and picked up the two halves of his flute. Had she taken it for his sake, or for the sake of the plans? Everything turned on that. If the plans were there, if the plans were safe—

  He turned the flute in his hand. The plans were gone.

  He laid the flute back on the table and walked across to where Hélène was standing watching him.

  “I came here because I wanted to ask you a question.”

  “Yes, Hugo.” She spoke like a girl who is shy of her lover.

  “I came to ask you where my papers are.”

  Hélène de Lara gave a cry of surprise.

  “Your papers! Ah now, what do you mean—Hugo?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I—know?”

  “Yes, Mme. de Lara.”

  “But I know nothing. What papers?”

  “Mr. Minstrel’s plans. I was taking them to town. I missed them at The Wheatsheaf. Where are they?”

  A look of horrified distress crossed her face.

  “Hugo—you do not mean it! It is not true!”

  “I missed them at The Wheatsheaf.”

  Mme. de Lara caught him by the arm. The few sweet violets she had been holding fell to the floor.

  “Hugo—my poor boy! If it is true, it is—what is it for you? Oh, it cannot be true!”

  “I missed them at The Wheatsheaf. Where are they?”

  “My poor boy! Hugo, it is dreadful! Those plans—gone! It is ruin—disgrace. Oh, my poor boy!”

  Hugo pulled his arm away.

  “You were at The Wheatsheaf when I got there. I drank coffee with you. I went to sleep. After that the plans were gone.”

  His very bright blue eyes were fixed on her face. They read agitation, pity, sweet concern.

  “Oh, my poor boy! Then it was my fault. What can I do? You looked so tired. And how was I to know?” Her hands were clasped at her breast, her eyes were full of tears. “How was I to know? You were so tired—I had not the heart to wake you. And I was not out of the room for more than three or four minutes. If the plans were taken, it must have been then, when I was out of the room.”

  Hugo smiled. She found an irony that startled her in his eyes.

  She said “Oh!” and as the little sound left her lips, the door opened.

  “Mr. Minstrel—Mr. Hacker,” said the butler in his sad monotone.

  The two men came in, and Hacker banged the door.

  Hugo had turned. He saw Minstrel grimly furious, Hacker, the bully confessed, with an air of triumph, as who should say, “The rat’s in the trap. Now for some sport!”

  Minstrel opened his overcoat with twitching fingers, glared through a silent minute. Then with an abrupt and nervous gesture,

  “Well, Ross—well?”

  That he was in the wrong, and badly in the wrong, Hugo knew well enough. He had left Leonard to tell the tale he should have told himself. But there had been just the one faint chance of finding the flute unrifled. On that frail chance he had risked everything and lost. He looked steadily back at Minstrel and spoke quietly.

  “Leonard has told you.”

  Ambrose Minstrel came out with a word which is not usually heard in drawing-rooms.

  “Leonard!” he said. “Leonard has told me! Why is it left to Leonard to tell me, whilst you skulk here behind a woman? You’ve your lying story, no doubt, but you haven’t the guts to stand up to me with it, you miserable, white-livered thief!”

  “Ambrose!” said Hélène de Lara in a shuddering voice.

  Hacker said “Sir—sir!” and put a hand on Minstrel’s arm.

  Minstrel turned on him snarling.

  “Are you in with him? Are you going to take his part? If you are, I’ll have no mercy on you—I warn you of that, Hacker. He’ll rot in prison, and you can rot with him.”

  “I don’t take his part—I don’t take anyone’s part—I want to get at the facts. You ought to hear what he’s got to say.”

  “Ambrose!” said Hélène again.

  “The plans are gone,” said Ambrose Minstrel. His voice was like a cold east wind; the fury in it had frozen to a cutting edge. “My plans are gone.”

  He stared with his bloodshot eyes at Hugo.

  “What have you got to say for yourself? My plans are gone.”

  “They were stolen,” said Hugo.

  He said this because he had to say something. He had to take his cue and play the part for which he had been cast. The play was set.

  “Yes—stolen,” said Minstrel with an oath. “Stolen by you and sold by you. D’you think you can humbug us? D’you think you can get away with it, you rabbit?” He laughed harshly and pushed Hacker forward. “Come on, Hacker! Tell him what you told me! Give him powder and shot and see how he stands up to it! How many shots does it take to kill a rabbit—or to make it squeal? Get on to him, Hacker, get on to him! And you, Hélène, come over here! Come along over here and see how he takes it! Now, Hacker! Now, Mr. Secretary rabbit!”

  Hacker came forward. His air was sober, but his voice had the bully’s note.

  “You’d better make a clean breast of it,” he
said.

  “It would be v-very convenient for you, Hacker—wouldn’t it?”

  Hugo had a fancy to re-write his part. He saw Hacker stare.

  “Are you going to pretend you don’t know? You’re caught out. As it happens, I’d business at the post office, and the girl asked me about the telegram you sent—something about having over-charged you. Well, I thought it a very funny telegram, and I thought it my duty to take a copy of it for Mr. Minstrel.”

  “What telegram do you mean?”

  “Are you going to pretend you don’t know? It won’t do, Ross. You wired to a fellow called Miller to meet you at five-thirty. As you didn’t specify any place, it’s obvious that this had already been arranged between you. You did meet Miller at The Wheatsheaf, on the London road about five miles this side of Frayling. You met him there, and you gave him the plans. You needn’t trouble to lie, because Leonard’s evidence can’t be explained away.”

  Hugo looked at Minstrel.

  “Are you going to say you didn’t dictate that telegram to me?”

  Minstrel swore again.

  “You young pup! Is that your line? If it is, you’d better drop it.” He laughed his rasping laugh. “So I told you to wire to Miller, did I? Perhaps I told you to sell the plans!” He laughed again. “Tell that to a jury and see if they’ll believe you! Go on, Hacker!”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve come across this fellow Miller. He came nosing round here a few months back, and we sent him off with a flea in his ear. He’s some sort of a Bolshevist agent and a thorough bad lot. When I went to your rooms in town and found Miller there, I thought it my duty to inform Mr. Minstrel. But he wouldn’t listen to me—he said he knew when he could trust a man, and he damned me into heaps for interfering.”

  “That’s true—I did.” Minstrel was scowling, his hand at his beard. “I don’t often say I’m sorry about anything, but I was a damned fool not to kick you out then and there. I was a fool, and I’ve got to pay for it.”

  “I don’t think it would really have suited you to kick me out then, sir,” said Hugo.

  He had the satisfaction of seeing Minstrel explode.

  “What d’you mean by that? What the blank, blank, blank d’you mean by that?”

  “Something that may interest the jury,” said Hugo.

  He felt Hélène’s hand on his arm.

  “Don’t—don’t! Why will you irritate him? You are making it all so much worse. Ambrose—he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Minstrel glared at her.

  “Go on, Hacker,” he said. “So I sent the telegram! Let’s see if he’ll say I wrote the letter you’ve got in your pocket.”

  “You’d better chuck it, Ross,” said James Hacker. “The game’s up. When Leonard came in with his story, we searched your room. This letter was found there.”

  He took out of his pocket a folded sheet, opened it, held it out.

  “It’s from a man called Rice, offering you five thousand pounds for the plans.”

  “I don’t think he mentions plans,” said Hugo. “The jury won’t like it if you exaggerate, you know, Hacker. Did you find that letter to-night? Do you know, I thought you’d had it longer than that. And when did you add the noughts to Rice’s fifty?”

  Hacker was betrayed into bluster.

  “Here—none of that! That won’t go down.”

  “I’ll keep it for the jury,” said Hugo.

  Minstrel caught Hacker by the arm.

  “That’s enough,” he said—“that’s enough and to spare. Let him talk to the police if he wants to talk—I’ve heard enough. Hélène, may we use your telephone? … Ring up Ledlington, Hacker—tell them what’s happened and ask them to send someone along with a warrant. No, I’d better speak myself—I’ll have to make the charge. And meanwhile—Here, Hélène, those shutters of yours lock, don’t they? … I thought so. Lock ’em, Hacker, and then we can leave Mr. Ross to devise a few more ingenious fairy tales—he’ll need ’em.” He spoke with extraordinary energy and bitterness. His “Mr. Ross” cut more effectively than any term of abuse.

  The fury had passed from his aspect; he was the wronged man, efficient in his appeal to the law. With a look of contempt he turned on his heel and opened the door for Hélène to pass out.

  Hacker had drawn the white painted shutters across the garden door. He locked them now and came back with the key in his hand, speaking to Hélène.

  “The other windows—what about them? Are the shutters locked?”

  Hugo heard Hélène catch her breath.

  “Always—at sundown,” she said.

  Then the three of them went out. The door closed, a key turned. Hugo was alone.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  He stood and looked at the door for a little while. He had plenty to think about. He wanted to sort his thinking and get it clear. Now that the thing had come, he felt quite quiet and cool. Nothing really mattered except the plans. Had they got them, or had they not got them? And then … when he said “they,” which of them did he mean? There was Hélène de Lara—and there were Minstrel and Hacker. Hélène had had the flute—and the plans were in the flute—and the plans were gone. Hélène therefore had had the plans. But had she handed them on to Minstrel and Hacker, or had she got them still? Was she, in fact, playing Minstrel’s game, or was she playing a game of her own—a game in which she beckoned Hugo as a partner? She had looked at him as she went from the room—a quick backward look unseen by the others; her eyes had said something—had promised and implored. Was it just play acting—an effective exit? Or was he in fact being beckoned to take a hand in Mme. de Lara’s game? He didn’t know.

  After a minute he turned from the door and began to walk slowly up and down. It was when he turned for the third time that he saw the brooch. He was looking down, and as he moved, a point of light flashed at him from the floor with just the tiny rainbow flash that you get from a point of dew.

  The brooch lay under the table where the Ming dogs grinned fiercely over his flute. He stooped and picked it up, a basket of silver tracery heaped with tiny jewelled flowers—Loveday’s brooch.

  Hugo stood with the brooch in his hand. He had seen it on the front of Loveday’s pink dress yesterday evening; he knew it at once—a silver basket heaped with little pink roses and green jewelled leaves. It brought back the picture of Loveday standing here, under the lamp. That is what he thought of first—just Loveday, and how she had taken his breath away because it was the first time he had seen her properly.

  He wondered how she had dropped the brooch, and whether she had gone back to Ledlington. He hoped she had gone back, because he didn’t like her being in the sort of house where Miller and Hacker could come and go as they chose. He hoped she had gone back to safe, dull Emily Brown.

  He turned the brooch over to look at the catch. The catch was all right, but the pin was so much bent that it fixed his attention. What on earth had she done with the pin to bend it like that? She couldn’t have worn the brooch in that condition—the pin was all wrenched to one side and wouldn’t meet the catch. What had she been doing to wrench it like that? And why had it dropped just here by the table where his flute was lying?

  He looked from the table to the brooch, and back again to the table. Then he bent forward and picked up a tiny shred of paper from the carpet just at his feet. It was a scrap of tracing paper. He stared at the bit of paper, and then at the two halves of his flute. The brooch—the flute—the scrap of paper—Loveday. He had wedged the plans pretty hard into the flute. Someone must have had a job to get them out. They might have been prized out with a longish pin; but the pin would get badly bent, and the paper might be torn. An empty flute, a bent pin, a torn scrap of paper, and—Loveday. Hugo very nearly shouted her name aloud, because all at once he was joyfully, unreasoningly sure that it was Loveday who had taken the plans.

  He put her brooch in his pocket and examined the table closely. There were one or two more shreds of paper. He picked up the flute and hel
d the open ends to the light. And the open ends were scratched—they were most blessedly and indubitably scratched.

  The relief was so immense that it set Hugo’s spirits bubbling crazily. He flung the flute back on the table, caught up one of Mme. de Lara’s violet cushions, whirled round the room with it in an abandoned dance, and finally kicked it from the hearth to the window. He wanted to laugh, and he wanted to shout. Nothing mattered if it was Loveday who had the plans.

  But he must get away from here and go to her. The plans must be safe in the hands of Mr. Green of the Air Ministry before Miller discovered that he had been done. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he was to get away; but neither had he the faintest doubt that he would be able to do so. He thought the adventure was going extremely well, and the only thing that bothered him was that he couldn’t hug Loveday and tell her how clever she was.

  A soft, undefined sound made him turn towards the hearth. On either side of the white marble mantelpiece there were hangings of old Spanish embroidery; they covered the wall with straight, pale folds, and showed tints of lemon, straw, dead rose, and ashen blue, wonderfully worked by the patient fingers of half-cloistered ladies.

  The sound came again. The right-hand curtain moved, slid back, and discovered a door which Mme. de Lara was closing behind her. In a flash Hugo thought of the evening before, when he and Loveday had been left alone together, and he wondered whether it was Hacker or Hélène de Lara who had stood watching and listening behind those hangings there.

  Hélène let the curtains fall and came forward with a finger at her lips. With her other hand she caught at his sleeve.

  “Ssh!” And then, “Oh, Hugo!”

  “What is it?”

  “I want to help you—Hugo.”

  She breathed quickly, and she was pale; the hand on his arm trembled.

  “How can you?”