Note.—I have certainly written this chapter—with a pen, that is. Neither my brother's wife nor my own actually set down a word of the following. I am not responsible, and I will say no more. You will understand why when you have read this last chapter. If I were the usual sort of poopstick that often lurks behind such a story, I should say: "This is put in at the request of my friends." It is not. It is done simply to tell you the end of our little affairs, and rather more with my heart in my mouth than my tongue in my cheek.—J. C.
It was Sunday night in Lieutenant Murphy's house at Cockthorpe. The wires had worked. By dawn there was an army of police from Norwich in a fleet of motor cars. They invested Morstone House School. Old Mr. Pugmire, startlingly sober for once, was placed in charge of the boarders, who were all sent home during the course of the next day. Another, and more dangerous reprobate, Mrs. Gaunt with the broken leg, was interrogated by a stern-faced inspector in the presence of a doctor. The hag had been in von Vedal's confidence for years. The police learned much.
By ten o'clock, others than the County Police had arrived. There were clean-shaved, quiet-mannered officials from the Admiralty. There was a lean, elderly gentleman in khaki, with the red band round his cap and on his shoulders which pronounced him of the War Office Staff.
Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter and the man, Schweitzer, were in Norwich Castle by eleven. The whole countryside and coastline buzzed like swarming bees. A detachment of Territorials patrolled the village. Nobody knew anything at all of what had really happened, but everyone was very excited. All the local people agreed that there had not been a Sunday like this for many years!
Doris and Marjorie Joyce were at Cockthorpe, in the Lieutenant's house. They were being looked after by Mrs. Murphy, a jolly old Irishwoman with all the tact and humour of her nation—a woman who knew when to foil hysteria with a jest, to hearten a girl with a sharp word, and, when the final interrogation was over, to invite the warm relieving flood of tears with the instinctive motherhood of one who nightly prayed to Mary to pray for those in distress.
The girls were troubled very little. The Lieutenant of the Coastguards had seen almost everything. There would not be an inquest for two or three days. They had made their statement to a courteous person from London. They were to be left in peace.
After lunch the old lady came to them—came to the little sitting-room which opened out of the bedroom she had given them.
"Now, my dear children," she said, "ye'll just take off your stays and pull down your hair, and I'll tuck ye in under the eiderdown, and ye'll sleep!"
She had two tumblers in her plump hands, upon which sparkled many rings—the Irish carbuncles, which are so much larger and more brilliant than mere rubies, the Ballysheen emeralds, "which you can only find at Ballysheen, me dear, and glad the jewellers of Regent Street would be if they could get a supply of 'em! Faith! and the doctor has given me this for you. Bromide to calm the nerves—not that I ever had any nerves, meself, when I was your age! But I never had a crool stepfather lying dead in an adjacent village, nor was mixed up with spies, though in the Sin-fein riots of '84—Marjorie, me darlint, take your shoes off. Now then, I'll tuck ye both up and pull down the blinds to keep out the sunlight, though it's shutters I would be putting up when I was a gurl!"
It was like a fairy story, and Mrs. Murphy was the good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid: "The children sank into a deep, dreamless sleep."