Let us draw a veil.
It was on Thursday morning that Mr. Priestley burst his bombshell.
He had been gloomy and apprehensive at breakfast, starting nervously at trifles and refusing to give any reason for his agitation, and had gone out, disguised as a black nanny-goat, immediately afterwards. Laura’s nerves, already strained, naturally caused his anxiety to communicate itself to her. Poring over her Kennedy during the morning alone in the study, she was unable to assimilate a word. Vague terrors afflicted her, drastic plans for ending everything by flying from the country, or at least down to Duffley, flitted in and out of her mind like passengers in a tube lift. The farmer tilled his fields for her in vain, his wife fruitlessly looked after the house; even the news that Hannibal and Philopœmen were cut off by poison left her unmoved.
By the time Mr. Priestley returned, wild of eye and distraught of mien, half an hour before lunch-time, she had worked herself up to the pitch of tears; and for a young woman of Laura’s disposition there is no need to say more.
“We’re done for!” announced Mr. Priestley melodramatically. “They’re on our track. It’s only a question of hours.”
“Oh, no!” cried Laura.
Mr. Priestley clutched at his collar. “I can feel the rope round my neck already. Our arrest is imminent. Laura, the game’s up.”
They stared at each other with horrified eyes.
Now Laura knew perfectly well that Mr. Priestley was in no sort of danger really. She knew it, but she couldn’t realise it. To her it seemed by this time as if the truth could never be proved. Whatever she said, whatever George said, whatever any of them said would make no difference. They had plotted too well. They had staged a murder, and a murder had been committed. It was not the least use to say that their murder was not the real one. Who was going to believe that? They were caught helplessly and hopelessly in the trap of their own setting.
“Oh!” she wailed. “Can’t anything be done?”