“You’re a dear,” she said.
While they had been discussing Walter Brooklyn’s story, Ellery’s embarrassment had quite left him; but these words of Joan’s, and her look as she spoke them, brought it back in double force. He felt the blood rushing to his head, and became uncomfortably aware that he was going red in the face. Also, he could not take his eyes off Joan, and somehow it seemed that she could not take her eyes off him. They gazed at each other, with something of fear and something of embarrassment in their looks, and each was conscious of a heart beating more and more insistently within. For at least a minute neither of them spoke. Then Ellery said one word and put out his hand towards her. “Joan,” he said, and his voice sounded to him strange and unreal. He felt her hand grasp his, almost fiercely, and an acute sensation—it has no name—ran right through him at the touch. In an instant, her head was on his shoulder and his arms were round her. She was sobbing, and his cheek was caressing hers. “Poor darling,” he said at last.
Joan had meant that talk with Robert Ellery to be so practical, so entirely the opening of a business partnership. She and Bob were to clear her stepfather together; and, when they had done that, who knew what might come after? But there was to be no intrusion of sentiment until the work in hand was completed. In the event, things had not gone off at all as she intended. From the moment of his coming, she had felt a sense of danger—something poignant, yet intensely welcome—in their meeting. This feeling had been dispelled for the time while she told him her tale, and she had half said to herself that now she was safe. Then, in a moment, security had vanished, the sense of tension had come back far more strongly than before, she had felt herself merely a passive thing—as he was another passive thing—in the control of great elemental forces beyond herself. Without a word said, it seemed, a marriage had been arranged.
There was, indeed, no need for words between them on this matter of matters that had joined them indissolubly together. They were sitting now on the couch, holding each other’s hands. They could talk business—speak of what must be done to clear Walter Brooklyn—while with the contact of their bodies love interpenetrated them. And Joan could say to herself already that this most unbusinesslike proceeding was the best stroke of business she had ever done. For the immediate purpose she had in view, it had immensely strengthened their partnership. For these twain had become one flesh, and what was near her heart needs must be near his also.
As they sat there together, they formed their plan of campaign. It was obviously impossible to make a beginning until Joan had done her best to make Walter Brooklyn tell what he knew. If he were to refuse, their task would be so much the harder; but even the hardest task now seemed easy to them with the power of their love behind them. Whatever his attitude might be, they would still be ready to do their best for him. But surely he would tell Joan. There was no time to be lost. He must be seen at once, and Ellery set to work to advise Joan about the questions she ought to ask.
“It seems clear enough that he was in the house. I suppose he will be able to explain that. But we mustn’t be content with getting just his explanation of what he was doing here. Try to find out exactly what he did and where he went that day. We may need to be able to account for every minute of his time.”
Joan said that she quite saw how every detail mattered. If he would tell her anything, he would probably be willing to tell the whole story. At all events, she would do her best. It would be wisest, they agreed, for her to go alone; for Walter Brooklyn would very likely refuse to talk if Ellery were with her. But he would walk round to the club with her, and wait while she tried to get her stepfather to see her.
So Joan and Ellery walked round to the Byron Club together. There was a strange pleasure—quite unlike anything they had known before—in merely walking side by side. They belonged to each other now. But the answer to Ellery’s inquiry of the Club porter was that Mr. Brooklyn was out, and that he had left word he might not return to the Club that night. Joan did not at all like the expression on the porter’s face as he gave this information. She saw that he at any rate had strong suspicions, presumably put into his mind by the police.
Asked whether he could say where Mr. Brooklyn was, the porter did not know. He might, perhaps, be at his other Club, the Sanctum, in Pall Mall. Or again, he might not. He had not said where he was going.