"You've no clue?" I asked.
Rawnsley inspected the letter carefully and held it up to the light.
"Written with a Remington, I should say. And a new one, without a single defect in type or alignment. And the paper is made by Hitchcock. That's all I have to go on."
"What are you going to do?"
"Advise Scotland Yard, I suppose. Then await developments. I don't wish what I've told you this morning to go any further; no good purpose will be served by giving the militants a free advertisement. When I am in town, it is to be understood that Mavis is with her mother at Hanningford; and when I am at Hanningford, Mavis must be at Downing Street."
One has no business in private life to badger ministers with political questions, but I could not help asking what line Rawnsley proposed to take with the Marklake Bill. His grey eyes flashed with momentary fire.
"It won't be taken this session," he declared. "I'm moving to appropriate all Private Members' time for the Poor Law Bill. And that's all, I think; I must be getting back to my wife, she's—a good deal upset. Can you spare Nigel, Roden? I should like to take him if I may. Good-bye, Mr. Merivale. Good-bye, Mr. —— Oh, by the way, Roden, remember you're tarred with the same brush. As soon as the Recess is over, you'll have to keep a close watch on your family. Harding's another; I shall have to warn him."
Rawnsley's departure left me with a feeling of anti-climax and vague discomfort. Short of assassination, which would have defeated its own object, a policy of abduction was the boldest and most effective that the militants could devise at a time when—in Joyce's words—all arguments had been exhausted on both sides and war à outrance was declared by women who insisted on a vote against men who refused to concede it. I had every reason to think I knew whose brain had evolved that abduction policy; its reckless simplicity and directness were characteristic. Then and now I wondered, and still wonder, whether the author of that policy had sufficient imagination and perspective to appreciate the enormity of her offence, or the seriousness of the penalty attendant on non-success.
"Ber-luddy day!" exclaimed Michael, rejoining us in the library and delicately brushing occasional drops of moisture from his immaculate person. A heavy downpour of rain was starting, and though I looked like being spared initiation into the mysteries of golf—which I am not yet infirm enough to learn—it was not very clear how we were to kill time between meal and meal. Gladys was spending the morning quietly in her room, Philip wandered to and fro like a troubled spirit, and Sylvia had mysteriously departed.
In time Michael condescended to give us the reason. It appeared that while we were closeted with Rawnsley in the library, Robin had decided that rest and relaxation before his Schools could best be secured by the organisation of an impromptu Calico Ball, to be given that night to all who would come. While he sat at the telephone summoning the County of Hampshire to do his bidding, Sylvia had departed in her little white runabout to purchase masks and a bale of calico from Brandon Junction, and scour the neighbourhood in search of piano, violin, and 'cello. The wet afternoon was to be spent by the women of the party in improvising costumes, by the men in French-chalking the floor of the ball-room.