“I'm not grinning.”
“You are grinning.” George threw a bitter note into his declamations. “Of course, you can afford to grin. What was agony to me was hot stuff for you. I expect you've made your reputation over this show. Everything's turned out all right for you—”
Bill took that bitter note. “Rather!” he broke in. “Rather! I pulled it off, didn't I? I found the rotten cat, didn't I? I wasn't made a fool of for two days in a country inn, was I? I've not got the sack all through you, have I?”
George instantly forgot his personal sorrows. “Oh, I say, Bill, you haven't, have you?”
Bill, not expecting the interruption, confessed a little lamely: “No, I haven't. I haven't—as it turns out. But I might have—if it wasn't for—” He paused a moment; sadly said, “Anyway, just as I thought I'd got her, I've lost Margaret again.”
In those fierce days when her Bill was the Daily Special Commissioner, Margaret had confided in Mary the promise Mr. Marrapit had made should Bill find the cat. Now Mary was filled with sympathy. “Oh, Mr. Wyvern!” she cried, “I am sorry! What has happened? How do you know? Do tell us everything of when you went to Herons' Holt last night.”
Bill took a chair. He said gloomily: “There's not much to tell. I felt I couldn't wait at that infernal inn any longer, so I left the detective in charge, went to the inn where we'd found George, didn't see him, and came back to Herons' Holt. I saw old Marrapit for about two minutes in the hall. He foamed at me all about George, foamed out that I was one of George's friends, and foamed me out of the door before I could get in a word. Said I never was to come near the place again. I asked him about Margaret, and he had a kind of fit—a kind of fit.”
George said softly: “I know what you mean, old man.”
“A kind of fit,” Bill gloomily repeated. Then he struck one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. “And hang it!” he cried, “I've won her! According to the bargain old Marrapit made with me, I've won her. If it had not been for me you wouldn't have taken the cat to that hut in the wood, and if you hadn't taken it there Marrapit wouldn't have it now. It's through me he got it, isn't it?”
“Bill,” George told him, “it is. You rotted my show all right. No mistake about that.”