Punctually at half-past four we swept up the avenue of poplars that led to our cousins' house.
The visit had been arranged by Daphne upon the telephone, and Vandy and his two sisters were ready and waiting....
The réunion was not cordial. Ease and Familiarity were not among the guests. But it was eminently correct. The most exacting Master of Ceremonies, the most severe authority upon Etiquette, would have been satisfied. We were extraordinarily polite. We made engaging conversation, we begged one another's pardon, we enjoyed one another's jokes. The dispensation and acceptance of hospitality did the respective forces infinite credit.
After tea we were taken to see the pictures. Vandy, as showman, naturally escorted Adèle. The rest of us, decently grouped about his sisters, followed like a party of sightseers in the wake of a verger.
To do our host justice, he knew his own fathers. For what it was worth, the history of the Pleydell family lay at his fingers' ends. Men, manners and exploits—he knew them all. Indeed, years ago he had collected his knowledge and had it published in the form of a book. We had a copy somewhere.
We were half-way along the gallery, and our cousin was in full blast, when Adèle, to whom he was introducing the portraits with triumphant unction, started forward with a low cry.
"That's the very man," she exclaimed, pointing at the picture of a middle-aged gentleman in a plum-coloured coat, which, I seemed to remember, was unsigned but attributed—without much confidence—to the brush of Gonzales Coques. "What an extraordinary thing! I've broken my dream."
In the twinkling of an eye Vandy's importance was snatched from him, and the prophet's mantle had fallen upon Adèle. Where, but a moment before, he had been strutting in all the pride of a proprietor, she held the stage. More. Neither our discomfited host nor his sisters could divine what was toward, and the fact that their guests crowded eagerly about Adèle, encouraging her to "let them have it," was more disconcerting than ever.
"It was in a garden," said Adèle, "a quiet sort, of place. I think I was walking behind him. I don't know how I got there, but he didn't see me. All the same, he kept looking round, as if he was afraid he was being watched. Presently we came to a place where there was a stone pedestal standing. It wasn't exactly a pillar—it wasn't high enough. And it was too high for a seat. Well, he stared at this for a moment; then he looked around again, very cautiously, and then—it sounds idiotic, but he began to prod the turf with his stick. At first he did it just casually, here and there: but, after a little, he started prodding at regular intervals, methodically. The ground was quite soft, and his stick seemed to go in like a skewer. Suddenly he seemed to hear something or somebody, for he listened very carefully, and then walked on tiptoe to the pedestal and leaned up against it as if he were resting. The next moment somebody—some man in ordinary clothes came out of...." She hesitated. "I don't know whether it was some bushes or a wall he came out of. Some bushes, I guess. Any way, he appeared, and—don't laugh—gave him a green tomato. Then I woke up."
"And this is the man you saw?" cried Daphne, pointing.