“Char, my precious, don’t, don’t take him away! Not before he’s said he’d have liked to have had me under him in the regiment! Oh, I do think you’re mean, I do, really!”
Charmian, however, was unmoved by this plea, and marched Ingram off to the library. As she lit the central lamp in this rather dismal apartment, she said severely: “You simply make him more outrageous by taking any notice of him. He does it to annoy you.”
“He’s a namby-pamby, effeminate — well, I won’t say!”
“Good lord, I know all about Aubrey! As a matter of fact, he isn’t such a wet as you might think. I never saw anyone ride straighter to hounds.”
“That makes it worse!” said Ingram, not very intelligibly, but with immense conviction. “But I didn’t come here to talk about that young so-and-so! Now, look here, Char, you’ve got a head on your shoulders! What’s your frank opinion about Father’s death?”
“I don’t know. What’s yours?”
“Well, I’ve been having a long pow-wow with Myra about it, and we both of us feel the same. Of course, it isn’t for me to say anything — damned awkward position, and all that! — but taking one thing with another, and looking at it all round — perfectly dispassionately, mind you! — everything points in the same direction.”
“You mean you think Ray did it.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I’ve told you: I don’t know. I shouldn’t have thought he was the sort to poison anyone, but as I said this morning, he takes his own line. I’ve never got to the bottom of Ray, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.”