“Yes, sir, I can’t find it nowhere this morning.”
Now, I remembered quite definitely that the cloth, a red one, was on the table when Janet and I had left the kitchen in the early hours of the morning. I remembered the large wet patch where the whisky had been upset. The Tundish had taken away the bottle and the glass, and had left us two talking alone together. The cloth was there then, and now, only a few hours later, it had disappeared. Clearly, either the doctor must have come back and annexed it, or the police had taken advantage of the open windows to return after we had gone to bed. It occurred to me that it had been a rather strange suggestion to make, that we should leave the window open. In either case it was interesting, and made me begin to wonder whether the accident to cook had been an accident at all.
Poor besotted cook, sitting drinking alone in the dark basement kitchen, slowly drinking herself to death, while all the time that more rapid certain death was swirling round her in the poisoned air. I pictured her pitching forward in the dark. In the dark——? It suddenly struck me how strange it was that she should have been sitting there alone without any light, and my doubt about it being an accident became a certainty that it was not.
“You’re sure that it isn’t there, Annie? You’ve looked everywhere, I suppose?”
“It isn’t in either the kitchen or the scullery, sir.”
I was puzzled, and decided to tell Janet about it at the first opportunity. Breakfast was not yet ready and no one was down, so I sauntered out into the garden. I was just in time to see Janet come in through the little door that leads into Dalehouse Lane. I was standing on the far side of the lawn, level with the end of the doctor’s wing, and somehow, from the way she looked about her, perhaps, I could guess that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.
To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when they quite suddenly realize that the word “friendship” can no longer express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was as Janet moved the few short paces across the end of the surgery wing that I realized that I was head over heels in love.
She looked so solemn and reliable as she came in through the door, so utterly dependable and brave. She scanned the garden toward the garage, apparently to make sure that her return had been unobserved, a little smile flickering across her serious face, as though half amused at her own precaution. It was not until she reached the corner of the wing that she saw me, and it was then at that instant that I knew with an absolute assurance that she was the one and only woman in the world for me. Had an angel with wings sailed down from the cathedral tower and led her to me, saying, “Mr. Jeffcock, allow me to introduce you to your wife,” I could not have been more sure about the matter.
Laughing that she had not seen me before, she came forward to greet me, and my uneasy thoughts of whisky-stained red table-cloths that mysteriously vanished in the night vanished too, and I could have cried out aloud, “Oh, you darling, you darling, what have you done?” But instead, I stood awkward and silent, thrilled with the realization of her nearness and her morning beauty.
“You’ve caught me,” she laughed.