"Some weeks ago," she said, "one afternoon when you had gone out for a walk, I found what seemed to be a loose cheque on the carpet. I knew how carelessly you leave things about, and I picked it up, and found that, though it was like a cheque in other respects, it was rather curiously worded. I could not understand it at all, but it seemed to have something to do with the steamer you came home from Australia in; so, intending to ask you for an explanation when you came in, I thought in the meantime I would put it in some safe place where I should be sure to see it, and I put it behind the clock; and then—oh, Peter!——"
Peter understood. The cheques were all payable to "self or bearer." Sophia had innocently presented one, and it had been paid. If he had only taken "order" cheques, this would not have happened, but it was too late now! He continued to imitate the tactics of that eminent strategist, Brer Rabbit; in other words, he "lay low and said nuffin," while Sophia continued:
"Then, without in the least knowing how I came there, I found I was on a big steamer, and as I walked along, perfectly bewildered, I saw the name Boomerang painted on some fire-buckets, and of course I knew then that that was your steamer. I fancied that perhaps, in some way, you might be on board too, and would explain how this had happened to me. At all events, I decided to find out if you were; and seeing a girl reading on deck, I took a chair near her, and after a few introductory remarks I mentioned your name. The effect upon her was such as to convince me that she felt more than an ordinary interest in you. By degrees I drew from her the whole story of her relations with you: she even asked me—me—for advice!"
So Miss Davenport's confidante had not been Miss Tyrrell after all—but Sophia! If he had only known that before!
"I could not speak to her," continued Sophia, "I felt stifled, stupefied by what I had heard! I could bear no more; and so I rose and left her, and walked down some stairs, and somehow found myself back in our own room again! I was more bewildered than ever. I looked for the cheque, but there was nothing, and soon I was forced to believe that the whole thing was imaginary. Still, I was not wholly satisfied. You may remember how I questioned you one evening when you were reading the Doll's House to me; well, your answers quite reassured me for the time. I told myself that my suspicions were too wildly improbable not to have been a delusion. I was even afraid that my brain must be slightly affected, for I had always prided myself upon having my imagination under thorough control. But by degrees, Peter—by degrees—I began to doubt again whether it was really nothing but fancy on my part. I noticed that your manner was suspiciously odd at times. I discovered that there was one drawer in your secretary that you kept carefully locked. I caught your eye wandering towards the clock from time to time. What I suspected I hardly know; but I felt certain that I should find the explanation of that mystery in the locked drawer. I tried key after key, until I found one that fitted. Oh, I am not at all ashamed of it! Had I not a right to know? There were no letters, nothing but a cheque-book; but that cheque-book proved to me that, after all, I had imagined nothing: all the cheques were the same as the one I found on the carpet! I tore one out and kept it by me, and from that time I watched you closely. I saw how restless and impatient you were this evening, and I was certain that you were intending to use a cheque from that book. You were bent on getting back to the Boomerang, and I was equally determined that, if I could help it, you should not go alone. Only I could not be quite sure how you managed to get there, and at last I hit upon a little device for finding out. There is no such person as Professor Dibbs, Peter; I invented him to put you off your guard. As I passed into the other room with the lamp, I saw you, reflected in the mirror over the study chimneypiece, rise and go to the drawing-room mantelpiece: you had a slip of paper in your hand—a cheque, of course. I had the cheque I tore out hidden in the waistband of my dress; and so, as soon as I saw you slip your cheque behind the clock in the drawing-room, I put my cheque behind the one in the study. I was on the deck at once, and it was dark, but I could hear your voice and another's—round a corner. I held my breath and listened. What I heard, you know!"
Peter shrank up in his chair, utterly confounded by this last vagary on the part of the Time Cheques. He certainly would not have supposed that the mere presentation even of a "bearer" cheque by Sophia would entitle her to the same fifteen minutes he was receiving himself. He could only account for it by the fact that the two cheques were cashed simultaneously at two separate clocks; but even this explanation was not wholly satisfactory.
He found his voice at last:
"Well," he said, "now that you know all, what are you going to do about it, Sophia? I—I would rather know the worst!"
"I will tell you that in good time," she replied; "but, first of all, I want you to tell me exactly how you came to have these cheques, and what use you made of them on previous occasions?"
So, slightly reassured by her manner, which was composed, Peter gave her a plain unvarnished account of the way in which he had been led to deposit his extra time, and the whole story of his interviews with Miss Davenport. He did not mention any others, because he felt that the affair was quite complicated enough without dragging in extraneous and irrelevant matter.