“And now,” said Major Guthrie, leaning his sightless face forward, “will you kindly inform me for what reason my wife has been summoned to Witanbury this afternoon? The Dean’s letter—I do not know if you have read it—is expressed in rather mysterious and alarming language.”
The man he addressed waited for a moment. He knew that the two people before him had only been married that morning.
“Yes, that is so,” he said frankly. “I suppose the Dean thought it best that I should inform Mrs. Guthrie of the business which brought me to Witanbury three hours ago. It chanced that I was in the neighbourhood, so when the Witanbury police telephoned to London, I, being known to be close here, was asked to go over.”
“The police?” repeated both his hearers together.
“Yes, for I’m sorry to tell you”—he looked searchingly at the lady as he spoke—“I’m sorry to tell you, Mrs. Guthrie, that a considerable number of bombs have been found in your house. I believe it to be the fact that you hold the lease of the Trellis House in Witanbury Close?”
She looked at him too much surprised and too much bewildered to speak. Then, “Bombs?” she echoed incredulously. “There must be some mistake! There has never been any gunpowder in my possession. I might almost go so far as to say that I have never seen a gun or a pistol at close quarters——”
She felt a hand groping towards her, and at last find and cover in a tight grip her fingers. “You do not fire bombs from a gun or from a pistol, my dearest.” There was a great tenderness in Major Guthrie’s voice.
Even in the midst of her surprise and disarray at the extraordinary thing she had just heard, Mrs. Guthrie blushed so deeply that Mr. Reynolds noticed it, and felt rather puzzled. He told himself that she was a younger woman than he had at first taken her to be.
In a very different tone Major Guthrie next addressed the man he knew to be sitting opposite to him: “May I ask how and where and when bombs were found in the Trellis House?” To himself he was saying, with anguished iteration, “Oh, God, if only I could see! Oh, God, if only I could see!” But he spoke, if sternly, yet in a quiet, courteous tone, his hand still clasping closely that of his wife.
“They were found this morning within half an hour, I understand, of your wedding. And it was only owing to the quickness of a lady named Miss Forsyth—assisted, I am bound to say, by Mr. Hayley of the Foreign Office, who is, I believe, a relation of Mrs. Guthrie—that they were found at all. The man who came to fetch them away did get off scot free—luckily leaving them, and his motor, behind him.”