Renny Whiteoak appeared in the french window.
“Did you want to see me?” he inquired.
“No — no — oh, no — that is —” Eugene Clapperton stood stammering, the colour receding from his face, leaving fine reddish veins exposed on the greyness of the skin. He drew backward a space, as Renny came into the room.
Sidney Swift’s eyes were dancing. He said, “I guess there’s been some sort of mistake. I guess Eugene’s excited.”
Mr. Clapperton, with the desk a bulwark between himself and Renny Whiteoak, said more calmly:
“A thousand dollars has been stolen from this room, sir. Do you expect me to take that lying down? Would you take it lying down?”
“what have I to do with it?”
“I thought perhaps you could help me locate it.”
“why?”
“Well, it was here when you were here and — gone when you were gone.”
Swift was looking warningly at his employer.
Renny Whiteoak exclaimed, “You are accusing me of stealing the money.”
“No — I thought you might have a suggestion to offer.”
“I have. Phone for the police. But let me tell you this — when this affair is cleared up it will be better for you to move away. And another thing — if I were going to make a thief of myself—it would take more than your God-damned thousand dollars to induce me.”
The day was sultry. He was very warm. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. He saw Eugene Clapperton and Sidney Swift staring at something lying on the rug — staring almost with horror. His gaze followed theirs. He saw, lying flat and crisp and terribly visible, as though a spotlight were turned on it, a new twenty-dollar bank note. He stared at it bewildered. He raised his eyes to the faces of his companions, as though seeking enlightenment from them.
“Good acting,” observed Mr. Clapperton. “Very good. Very convincing. You make me almost surprised myself. Very good acting.”
“why —” exclaimed Renny — “the thing was in my pocket!”
“Yes — so it was. So it was. How surprising!”
Renny bent forward and picked up the bank note. He turned it over and examined it. Then again he raised his dark bewildered eyes to Mr. Clapperton’s. “How did it get into my pocket?” he asked.
“Look through your pockets,” suggested Mr. Clapperton, “and perhaps you’ll find the rest of the money.”
“You think I took it!” shouted Renny.
“what else could anybody think?”
“It was put in my pocket to incriminate me.”
“By whom?”
He answered lamely, “I don’t know.” He laid the bank note on Mr. Clapperton’s desk who looked at it icily and then remarked:
“That’s one of them but where are the other forty-nine?”
Sidney Swift had been looking keenly at Renny. Now he asked, “Did you lay your jacket off after you left here, Colonel Whiteoak?”
“No. It has never been off my back.”
Now, however, he took it off, turned the pockets inside out, shook it. With it still in his hand he pulled himself together. “The money must have been put in my pocket to involve me,” he said. “There is no other explanation.”
“Do you believe,” asked Mr. Clapperton, “that that is possible?”
“I don’t see how it could have been. I went straight home from here.”
“what do you expect me to do in such a case?”
“Damned if I know.”
“what would you do if you were in my place?”
“Think the fellow — that is me — crazy.”
“That won’t bring the money back.”
Again Renny mopped his forehead with his handkerchief but now the sweat that sprang on it was cold.
“Colonel Whiteoak,” asked Swift, “have you ever had any lapses of memory?”
“Don’t start any silly talk about lapses of memory,” said Mr. Clapperton. “This either was a theft or it wasn’t.”
“Do I look like a thief?” shouted Renny. “Have my family been thieves? By God, I don’t think you’re used to associating with gentlemen.”
“That’s an outworn word, sir.”
“Not in my family.”
“I’d very much like to repeat my question,” said Swift. “I’d like to know if Colonel Whiteoak has had any previous lapses of memory.”
“Previous,” sneered Mr. Clapperton. “Previous. This is no lapse of memory.”
Renny ignored him. “I had several insignificant lapses of memory,” he said, “after my concussion.”
Then it came to him, with startling clearness, how that very morning he had been thinking very hard of something — he could not remember what — while he was dressing, and had found himself in the dining room without remembering having come down the stairs. The floor of the room where he now faced his accusers rocked with him — the little room where he and Maurice Vaughan had often had such jolly times together.
“I believe,” said Swift, “that this is just another of them.”
His cousin looked at him with hate. “I wish,” he said, “that you’d mind your own business.”
“I thought you’d asked me to help solve this thing.”
“I did. But I didn’t ask you to babble like an idiot.”
Renny put on his jacket. He addressed Eugene Clapperton with dignity. “I want you,” he said, “to engage a detective. Arrest me if you like. In the meantime I’m going home.” He moved, with the purposeful swiftness that characterized him, out through the french window and across the lawn.
His mind was in great confusion. He hardly knew what he was doing. The blond harvest fields that lay about him were so many blurred patches of yellow. His one clear thought was to hasten home. His one clear intention was to tell Alayne what had happened to him. Perhaps she could do something. Perhaps she could tell him whether he had shown any strange symptoms of forgetfulness since his return.
The front door was standing open. He passed through the hall and up the stairs, calling her name as he went. She answered quietly, for she was used to his sudden excitements. He found her in her room with one of Archer’s socks drawn over her hand, her darning needle poised. The look on his face startled her.
“what has happened?” she asked. “Is it Archer? Is he hurt?”
“No.” He drew a chair close and sat down by her side. “It’s I who am hurt — damaged. By God, I don’t know what is to become of me!”
“Hurt!” she repeated half angrily, for what she saw in his face looked like temper to her. “You look all right. Where are you hurt?”
“Poor girl,” he said, putting his hand on her knee, “I hate to tell you this.”
Suddenly she was frightened. She sprang up. “Tell me. What is wrong?”
“Clapperton says I stole a thousand dollars from him and I’m inclined to think I did. I’ve no recollection of it. But you’ve remarked how forgetful I am. I’d a couple of lapses of memory after my concussion. Whether he is going to have me arrested, I don’t know.”
“Do explain this more clearly,” she said, trying to swallow, for her mouth felt dry as paper. “Begin at the beginning and tell it clearly.”
“Sit down,” he said, and drew her to the side of the bed. They sat down together. He drew the child’s sock from her hand then held her hand to his lips.
“Oh, Alayne,” he exclaimed, “this is such an idiotic thing but it’s frightening too. I could almost laugh at it but it’s deadly serious.”
“Will you tell me what it is? what do you suppose my feelings are while you keep me in suspense?”
“I went to have a reasonable talk with Clapperton. About the village, you know. But you can’t talk reasonably with that man. We were soon having words and I thought it better to leave before I was driven to lay hands on him. I hadn’t been long at home when he rang me up to say that a pile of bank notes amounting to a thousand dollars was missing. It had been lying on his desk whi
le we talked. He’d drawn my attention to it. Over the phone he all but openly accused me of stealing the money. He —”
“How dare he?” she interrupted, swept by anger, “The fool! How dare he?”
“Just listen, darling.” He held her hand tightly as though he were a drowning man. “Just listen to what happened next. The car was standing in the drive. I jumped into it and was facing him in no time. Lord, it was funny for a moment! He was just saying he’d like to knock my ugly red head against the wall when I walked in. He changed his tune, I can tell you. That Swift fellow was there and I must say he behaved more decently than Clapperton. As we talked I got pretty warm. I pulled out my handkerchief to mop my face and what do you suppose came out of my pocket with it?”
She just stared.
“A clean, crisp, twenty-dollar bill, obviously one of those that had been lying on his desk. It fell to the floor and we all stood glaring down at it.”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “not out of your pocket!”
“Oh, yes — right out of my pocket. Just like a conjuring trick.”
“Then someone put it there,” she cried fiercely.
“That’s what I said, at the first. But there was no chance of that. The jacket was never off my back. No one had been near me.”
“what happened then?”
“Clapperton was tickled pink. You can imagine my feelings. Then Swift asked me if I’d had any lapses of memory. Clapperton said, ‘Don’t start any silly talk about loss of memory — this was either a theft or it wasn’t!’”
“A theft!” cried Alayne. “what a horrible man!”
“Yes. But there I stood, looking like a thief if ever a man did.”
“what happened then?”
“I told him to put the police on the case — then I came home.”
Her eyes searched his face. A sickening fear entered her mind but she asked calmly enough, “Renny, when you look back to your first interview with him this morning, is your mind quite clear as to all that has happened since? Have you any feeling of haziness anywhere? Just go back over every moment.”
He knitted his brow. “Yes. It’s all perfectly clear.”
“why did he accuse you? Had you been alone in the room with the money?”
“Yes. He’d left in a huff. I believe he thought I was going to hit him but I’d no such intention.”
“Oh, that temper of yours!”
“I’d no thought of hitting him.”
“But you were angry?”
“Yes. He’d been throwing in my teeth how little a thousand dollars meant to him and how much to me.”
“I have begged you to stay away from him.”
“I know you have.”
“If you were angry, Renny, your mind was not quite clear.”
“My mind is never clearer than when my temper is up.”
“Darling, think back carefully. Have you ever had any sense of confusion in your mind since coming home?”
He made a gesture of irritation. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I’ve had a lot to think of. I’ve been worried about money.”
“There was that cheque you forgot this morning. You’ve been very forgetful about household accounts but that’s nothing new, goodness knows.”
He sat in the silence of chagrin for a space, then he exclaimed, “Alayne, after I had dressed this morning, I found myself in the dining room. I had no recollection of coming down the stairs.”
“That is nothing!” she exclaimed, though her heart began to thud painfully.
“It might be nothing if this hadn’t happened. But now — it’s very significant.” He tapped his head where the concussion had been. “I’m damaged here. By God, I’d as soon be a thief, as bound for an institution for the —”
She would not let him say the word. She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. He pressed her to him almost fiercely but his voice was tender. “Sweet girl,” he said. “You won’t let me go nutty, will you?”
She laughed, while her tears wet his face.
“No one is more sane than you,” she said. “I won’t hear you say such things.”
He put her from him and stood up. “I must tell the uncles,” he said.
She was aghast. “Oh, no, I don’t think they should be told.”
“They’d be sure to find out. This affair will be common property or I don’t know Clapperton. I’ll tell you what. I’ll phone Meg and Piers and ask them to lunch. We’ll talk it over together.”
Again she protested but he was not to be dissuaded. She heard him go downstairs with energy. She heard his voice raised over the telephone, as he summoned the family to conclave. He was excited. He could scarcely bear to wait for their coming. He walked nervously from room to room, listening for the first sound of a car.
XVIII
CONCLAVE
FOR THE SAKE of Ernest’s digestion, Alayne had persuaded Renny not to disclose his reason for summoning the family till after lunch. But the tone in which he had invited Meg and Piers was enough to make them feel considerable concern. Piers had communicated this to Pheasant and her little face was anxious as she cast inquiring looks at the head of the table. Nicholas and Ernest were conscious of a disturbance in the atmosphere but their minds were chiefly occupied by the fact that the food was not nearly so good as usual. The soup was thin and flavourless, the cold lamb was tough. The salad cream was curdled. The blueberry tart was burnt. Certainly it was one of Mrs. Wragge’s “off days,” when it seemed as though a desire to spite the family possessed her. Finch was wrapped in thought concerning a concert tour which was being arranged for him and from which he shrank. He would have to work very hard in preparation for it, and he did not feel in himself the energy or power for hard work. The children had, at Alayne’s suggestion, carried a picnic lunch to the woods. Both she and Renny ate little. Piers came to the conclusion that they had had a quarrel yet, when they spoke to each other, there was tenderness in their voices. No, it could not be a quarrel. Perhaps there was bad news of Wakefield.
After lunch they moved into the library and Renny himself carried in a tray on which were a decanter of Scotch, a siphon of soda, and a bottle of homemade grape wine.
“You’ll need something,” he said, “to buck you up — when you hear what I have to tell you.”
“what’s wrong?” exclaimed Nicholas, trying to start up from the chair into which he had heavily dropped, and failing. “Is it Wake?”
“Don’t tell me the boy is killed!” Ernest pressed his hand to his heart, the colour fleeing from his face, his eyes suddenly large and very blue.
“No. Wakefield’s all right. It’s I who had better have been killed.”
“Renny, what are you saying?” cried Meg.
Alayne stood with her back against the folding doors that had been closed so that Rags, clearing the table, could not overhear. Renny was being cruel, she thought, deliberately dramatizing a situation that, God knew, needed no dramatizing. But they could stand it. It was their way not to spare each other. Such blows on the spirit as this last remark, only seemed to quicken every instinct of family preservation. Alayne felt deeply distressed but, at the same time, strangely interested in observing how this scene progressed in a foregone pattern.
“I am saying,” he went on, putting his hand to his head, “that I’m damaged here. My memory is playing me tricks.”
“what tricks?” demanded Piers, staring at him.
“I’ll tell you. I called at Vaughanlands this morning to talk to Clapperton about his building scheme. We had words and he left the room. Then I left. When he came back into the room he discovered that a thousand dollars, in new twenty-dollar bills, was missing from his desk. He rang me up and accused me of taking it.”
“what’s that?” said Nicholas. “Tell it again. I don’t understand.”
Renny repeated what had happened.
“I always said,” declared Nicholas, “that he is a horrid fellow.”
“You must bring an
action for libel against him,” said Ernest.
Meg cried, “And he’s been so nice! whatever has come over him?”
“Wait till you hear the rest,” said Renny. “I went straight back to Vaughanlands. This time Clapperton’s secretary was with him. We exchanged some heated remarks. I took my handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my forehead. I was blazing hot. A twenty-dollar bill came with the handkerchief and fell onto the floor. Incriminating evidence, eh?”
“Renny,” put in Finch hoarsely, “you’re not going to tell us that you’d taken the money without knowing what you did!”
“Just that.”
“But you couldn’t!” cried Meg. “Not you!”
“why not I?”
“You’ve always had such a clear head.”
“I suffered a bad concussion in France.”
“But you’ve quite recovered.”
“Physically, yes. But I had a couple of short lapses of memory when I was in hospital.”
“How bad were they?” asked Piers sharply.
“They were supposed to be very slight. Nothing to worry about. But, by Judas, I’ve plenty to worry about now!”
“Renny, Renny,” complained Nicholas. “Come and sit beside me and tell me this over again. You all talk so fast I can’t follow you.”
Renny went and sat close beside him. He said, “It appears, Uncle Nick, that I took the thousand dollars from Eugene Clapperton without knowing I was doing it — in a state of amnesia, you know. I can’t remember what I did with it but evidently I left twenty dollars in my pocket with my handkerchief.”
Nicholas’ deep-set eyes were sombre. “This is a bad affair,” he said. “Your memory gone — well, well!”
Ernest said, “I find my own memory quite unreliable. I remember things that happened fifty years ago better than things that happened last year.”
“I’ve shown signs lately of something wrong,” said Renny. “This morning I couldn’t remember coming downstairs. I was dressing. Then I found myself at the breakfast table — a blank in between.”
“That’s nothing,” cried Finch. “I’ve often done that sort of thing.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 419