Berry watched her retreat, and turned to his listeners with a sigh.
"I'm afraid I've gone and upset her now," he said. "I oughtn't to have reminded her of the untoward incident. It was the only string bag they had, and it was an awful blow to her. It upset him, too, terribly. Never the same man again. In fact, from that day he began to go wrong—criminally, I mean."
The little group grew closer to him than ever. Like a fool, I stayed to hear more.
"Yes," Berry went on, "in less than a month he was up at the Old Bailey, under the Merchandise Marks Act, for selling Gruyere cheese with too big holes in it. Five years his sentence was. Let's see, he ought to be coming out in about—oh, about—When does father come out, Cousin Albert?"
The excursionists gazed greedily at me—the felon's son. I approached Berry and laid a hand upon his arm. Then I turned to the little group.
"This fellow," I said, "has got us into trouble before. Those of you who have motor-cars will understand me when I refer to the great difficulty of securing a really trustworthy chauffeur. Now, this man is honest and a most careful driver, but when he is, so to speak, off duty, he is so unfortunate as to suffer from delusions, usually connected with crime and the administration of the criminal law. While we were having lunch at Whitchurch only this afternoon, he went off to the police-station and tried to give himself up for the Hounslow murder, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir," faltered Berry.
"And all the time," I went on, "I'm not at all satisfied myself that he did murder the woman, although things certainly looked rather black—"
"I did!" said Berry fiercely.
The crowd of excursionists recoiled, and a small boy in a green flannel blazer burst into tears.