It appeared that this was not a well-chosen observation. “Trust old Guy?” repeated Cynthia with energy. “Yes, I’ll trust old Guy to get himself, and all the rest of us as well, into the most appalling mess. They’ll think of something, will they? Heaven forbid! They’ve thought of quite enough already. Anything else will be just about the last straw. What you were doing to encourage them, George, I can’t think. You ought to have had more sense. Why didn’t you stop them?”
George might so easily have retorted: “Why didn’t you?” But George was a perfect little gentleman. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said vaguely, apparently accepting the implication that he could have stopped them had he wished, an implication that was in no way at all based on fact. “Rather—er—rather a rag, you know.”
“A fine rag!” said Cynthia with much scorn. “Prison will be a rag, too, as Guy seems to think, won’t it? And there’s that poor Mr. Priestley, or whatever his name is, trembling in his shoes somewhere at this very minute under the impression that he’s committed a murder. I suppose that’s a fine rag, too?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” George murmured uneasily. “Pat Doyle said he wanted waking up.”
“And will it be a fine rag if he commits suicide, too?” inquired Cynthia with awful sarcasm.
“Oh, come!” implored George, much startled. “I say, you don’t think he’d be likely to do that, Cynthia?”
“I can imagine nothing more probable,” Cynthia retorted, and for the moment really believed she was speaking the truth. “What would you do if you thought you’d murdered somebody? The horror, the shame, the awful remorse…. Naturally suicide would be the first thing to occur to you. It all depends on Mr. Priestley’s strength of will whether he gives way to it or not. Of course I knew that was the danger all along.”
Once again George proved his perfect gentility. Not for once did he dream of saying: “In that case, my dear Cynthia, why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you say so before it was too late?” He just remarked, in very blank tones, “Good Lord!” It was easy to see that George had not known that that was the danger all along.
“Somebody ought to tell him,” Cynthia affirmed. “This thing’s gone quite far enough. You must tell him, George.”
“But I don’t know where he is.”