“Absolutely. And you’re so old and clever I’m sure you can help.”
He grimaced.
“You needn’t rub in the patriarchal part,” he said, “though I admit it myself. But you may spread yourself on the subject of my first-class brain. And what am I to say? I know less about young Templar than you do.”
“People say all sorts of things about him.”
Lapping looked reproachful.
“Was there ever a village that didn’t say all sorts of things about inhabitants who weren’t utterly commonplace—and rumours even spring up about the most prosaic people.”
She shook her head.
“It isn’t all rumour,” she said.
Then, as Simon had recommended, she told the whole story of the previous night’s events, omitting very little. She told him about Bittle’s amazing announcement and ultimatum, and about Agatha Girton’s confirmation of the millionaire’s statement. She dwelt at length on the Saint’s irregular behaviour, and on the curious incident at Carn’s. But she did not mention the Saint’s parting warning.
He listened attentively. Watching his face, she saw only a slight smile, as of a mellowed elder making allowances for the irresponsibility and supercharged imagination of youth, and that comprehensive tolerance hardly changed as she piled mystery upon mystery and thrill upon thrill. But for the warning which the Saint had drilled into her, to trust nobody, she would have accepted Lapping as honorary uncle in all sincerity, without hesitation. It was almost impossible to believe that this congenial, simple-minded, clean-looking man could be an associate of the Tiger’s—but then, it was almost as hard to realise that he possessed one of the keenest legal brains of his day, and that those pleasant brown features had assumed the inexorable mask of Justice and the same lips that smiled so avuncularly now had pronounced sentence of death upon many men.