Cecil’s expression still showed a tinge of malice.
“You’d wonder,” he said. “It’s all very well for you to sneer at these affairs; but it looks a bit different when you yourself happen to be the object of them, I guess. It’s easy to say ‘Superstition’ in a high-minded way; but if there’s one per cent. chance that the superstition’s going to hit you personally, then, you know, it rankles a bit. Anything to give pain is my motto where Maurice is concerned.”
Quite oblivious of Sir Clinton’s rather disgusted expression, he laughed softly to himself for a moment or two.
“And the funniest thing in the whole affair,” he went on, “is that I know all about this White Man. Can’t you guess what it was?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Why, don’t you see?” Cecil demanded, still laughing. “What old Groby came across must obviously have been Maurice himself in his white Pierrot dress, coming back from the burglar-hunt! That’s what makes it so damned funny. Fancy Maurice getting the creeps on account of himself! It’s as good a joke as I’ve heard for a while.”
He laughed harshly.
“You don’t seem to see it. Well, well. Perhaps you’re right. And now I must be getting back to the house. I’ve a lot of stuff to collect before I go off.”
He shook hands with Sir Clinton and moved off towards Ravensthorpe. The Chief Constable gazed after him for a moment or two.
“That young man’s in a most unpleasant frame of mind,” he commented to himself. “He’s obviously quite off his normal balance when he’d make a point of that kind of thing. I can’t say I take much stock in brotherly love; but this is really overdoing the business. Both of them seem to have taken leave of ordinary feelings. It’s just as well they’re parting, perhaps.”