“Miles! You really mustn’t go running after every woman you meet like this. I shall deal with her with all my well-known delicacy and tact. Look how I managed them at supper! I should have cried, I think, if I’d found it was Edward who smoked the Callipoli. Do you think Leyland has still got his knife into Simmonds? Or do you think he wants to arrest Brinky, and is only using Simmonds as a blind?”
“He was excited enough when we met Simmonds in the lane. No, I think he’s out to arrest everybody at the moment; Simmonds for doing the murder, and Brinkman for persuading him or helping him to do it. He’s got ’em both shadowed, anyhow, he says—I hope not by the Chilthorpe police, who look to me too substantial to be mistaken for shadows. But I’m sure I’m right, I’m sure I’m right.”
“Of course you are. Though, mind you, it looks to me as if Mottram had only just managed to commit suicide in time to avoid being murdered. The trouble about Leyland’s Simmonds theory is that it makes the little man too clever. I don’t believe Leyland could ever catch a criminal unless he were a superhumanly clever criminal, and of course so few of them are. They go and make one rotten little mistake, and so get caught out.”
“You’re getting too clever. It’s quite time you went to bed.”
“ ‘Raight-ho,’ as your friend the barmaid says. No, don’t stamp about and pretend to be a caveman. Go downstairs like a good boy, and help Leyland incriminate the oldest inhabitant. He’ll be getting to that soon.”
Chapter XIII.
A Morning with the Haberdasher
The sun rose bright the next morning, as if it had heard there was a funeral in contemplation and was determined to be there. The party at the Load of Mischief rose considerably later, and more or less coincided at the breakfast table. “I am afraid we shall be losing you,” said Mr. Pulteney to Angela. “A fortunate crime privileged us with your presence; when the mortal remains of it have been put away I suppose that your husband’s work here is done? Unless, of course, Mrs. Davis’s eggs and bacon have determined you to stay on here as a holiday.”
“I really don’t know what we are doing, Mr. Pulteney. My husband, of course, will have to write a report for those tiresome people at the office, and that will take a little time. Why do men always take a whole day to write a report? I don’t suppose we shall be leaving till to-morrow in any case. Perhaps you will have caught a fish by then.”
“If you would only consent to stay till that happens we should all congratulate ourselves. But, seriously, it will be a deprivation. I came to this hotel feeling that I was foredoomed to solitude, or the company, now and again, of a stray bagman. Instead, I have found the place a feast of reason; and I shall regret the change.”
“You’ll still have Mr. Brinkman.”