But Mrs. Kenley merely laughed and shook her head, “That, Mr. Bennett, I’m keeping for my grandchildren. Now please show me the car. I love to look at new ones with all the latest tricks.”
We went to the garage, and soon she and Ralph were deep in technicalities. The unventilated garage was stifling, and not being interested in young Bennett’s opulent car, I soon left them to it.
As I strolled back to the house I heard a raucous voice, proceeding apparently from one of the upper bedroom windows. It was cook, and cook in no amiable mood. At first I could clearly hear every word she said, then just as I was getting really interested in what I heard, she moved and I missed the rest. “So I says to meself, it may be orlright and may be not, and there ain’t no reason as how it should be wrong, but seeing what ’appened afterward the perlice might like to know what I saw if I was to tell ’em. But then I thinks ter meself it may be better worth yer while, cook, I thinks, ter keep it to yourself, and the perlice they ain’t no friends o’ yours, cook, I ses ter meself. Now then what do you think abart it?”
Cook gossiping with Annie, was my first conclusion. But Annie appeared with a tea-tray before I reached the house. I heard no more excepting a few slurred and indistinct half-sentences. I felt certain she was, if not drunk, not sober. But drunk or not, it was evident she had seen something of which she had not told Allport.
Intending to round the corner of the house and go to the door in the front garden wall to see if there was a newsboy in sight from whom I could purchase an evening paper, I approached the house pondering—a pastime at which I was fast becoming adept—pondering the question: “Which of our party could cook have been addressing with such drunken garrulity?” It certainly had not been Annie. And I had heard no answering voice. Her words had been spoken with a half-drunken lurching inconsequence. Was it just possible that she might have been talking to herself?
“Ethel, I’m sure it’s dangerous. There can’t be any real difficulty in getting rid of her. I’m sure we ought to take the risk.”
It was the doctor’s voice, and I walked full tilt into him and Ethel round the corner of the house. My shoes were fitted with rubbers which made no sound on the hot plastic asphalt path, and though I had heard every word the doctor said it was obvious that they had not heard me. He was standing with his back to the wall—she was facing him and very close—his hands on her shoulders affectionately, hers holding on to the lapels of his coat, her dark bobbed head tilted back and looking up adoringly to meet his downward gaze. I felt myself go hot with shame, yes, and anger too. The hussy! The inconsiderates. Had they no sense at all of fitness or time? Surely Ethel might have waited until Kenneth was out of the house even if her engagement to him had been a fundamental error—The Tundish her real mate. And if her conduct struck me as reprehensible, words will not describe the sudden surge of indignation that I felt against the well-balanced placid doctor.
Ethel sprang from his embrace, flushed scarlet, then paled to a sickly white. My own embarrassment almost equaled hers. The Tundish never moved a muscle or turned a hair. He greeted me at once, pleased to see me. “Hello, Jeffcock, you’ve just come in time to help us decide about the dismissal of cook. I’m for prompt measures. Ethel for to-morrow and delay.”
“But—but why should she go to-night, Tundish?” Ethel stammered, slowly recovering from the shock of my sudden arrival.
“Ye gods, Jeffcock, what won’t these women stand for the sake of having a thing labeled ‘cook’ in the house? Why should she go to-night? Why? And you can ask me that after all you’ve just been telling me? She’s near enough to being drunk, isn’t she? And, as I was saying, I’m sure there’s no risk of any row.”