"Brat, I wish I could convince you that this is a figment of your imagination."
"You must have a great respect for my imaginative powers."
"If you look back, critically and honestly, you must see how the thing grew in your mind from quite small beginnings. An edifice of your own making."
And that, when Brat took his leave towards two o'clock in the morning, was still the Rector's opinion.
He offered Brat a bed, but Brat compromised on the loan of a waterproof and a torch, and found his way back to Latchetts by the soaking field-path with the rain still pouring hopelessly down.
"Come and see me again before you decide anything," the Rector had said; but he had at least been helpful in one direction. He had answered Brat's main question. If it was a choice between love and justice, the choice had to be justice.
He found the front door of Latchetts unlocked, a note from Bee on the hall table, saying: "Soup on the ring in the pantry," and a silver cup on an ebony stand bearing a card in Eleanor's writing which said: "You forgot this, you blase rodeo hound!"
He put out the lights and crept up through the silent house to his bed in the old night nursery. Someone had put a hot-water bottle in his bed. He was asleep almost before his head touched the pillow.
29
On Friday morning Simon came bright and cheerful to breakfast and greeted Brat with pleasure. He commented on the process of the «trunk» murder investigations, the character of Tattie Thacker (whose value had been estimated by the court at one half-penny) and the iniquity of poisoning as a means of ridding oneself of a human encumbrance. Except for an occasional gleam in his eye he showed no awareness of their changed relationship. He was taking their "spiritual twinship" for granted.