“Well, I’ll think it over if you like,” Roger replied with a great show of reluctance, “but I’m very much afraid— Anyhow, I’ll let you know definitely in a quarter-of-an-hour. Will that do?”
He listened for a moment, then hung up the receiver and turned to Anthony with a beaming face. “Our little trip’s off I fear,” he said happily.
“What?” exclaimed Anthony. “But—but we’ve booked our rooms!”
“You’ve booked them,” Roger corrected. “And there’s nothing to prevent you from occupying them. You can sleep in one and brush your hair in the other, can’t you? Of course I shall be delighted to reimburse you for any expense you may have incurred through your misunderstanding that I would accompany you, though I must take this opportunity of pointing out, without prejudice, that I am not legally liable; and should my heirs or fellow-directors dispute the claim, my solicitors will have instructions not to⸺”
“What are you talking about?” Anthony shouted. “Why do you want to back out at the last minute like this? What’s happened? Whom were you talking to then?”
Roger resumed his seat at the breakfast-table and poured himself out another cup of coffee.
“To take your questions in inverse order,” he said at length, and with a slight diminution of his bantering air, “that was the editor of the Daily Courier, a very great man and one before whom politicians tremble and duchesses stand to attention. You may remember that I had some truck with him last summer over that Wychford business. He wants me to go down at once to Hampshire as Special Correspondent to the Courier.”
“To Hampshire?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether you saw a little paragraph in the papers yesterday about a woman who fell over the cliffs at Ludmouth Bay and was killed. The idea now appears to be that it might not have been an accident after all, and there’ve been one or two important developments. They want me to follow up those articles I’ve been doing by covering the business for them, to say nothing of putting in a little amateur sleuth-work if the chance arises. It’s a job after my own heart!”
“But I heard you say that it was out of the question, because you were going away with me?”