‘I am quite certain,’ said Ada a little flatly, ‘that I did shut the door. And cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till I came down the area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about it, ma’am; except that he was here when I came back. I did not know even there was a Dr Ferguson; and my mother has lived here nineteen years.’
‘We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,’ replied Mrs Lawford suavely. ‘Please tell cook to be very careful with the cornflour—to be sure it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.’
Mrs Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narrow print shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse was—Arthur’s! She ran up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel of his door. And just as she was about to turn away again, there came a little light knock at the front door.
Mrs Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether with gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr Bethany, inquiring in cautious but quite audible tones after her husband.
She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room.
‘I could not sleep,’ he said; ‘I don’t think I grasped in the least, I don’t indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I came, in fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And then—you know how such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden inspiration, I realised how tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we every one of us have on our mere personality. But that,’ he continued rapidly, ‘that’s only for ourselves—and after the event. Ours, just now, is to act. And first—?’
‘You really do, then—you really are convinced—’ began Mrs Lawford.
But Mr Bethany was too quick. ‘We must be most circumspect. My dear friend, we must be most circumspect, for all our sakes. And this, you’ll say,’ he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other—‘this is being circumspect—a seven o’clock in the morning call! But you see, my dear, I have come, as I took the precaution of explaining to the maid, because it’s now or never to-day. It does so happen that I have to take a wedding for an old friend’s niece at Witchett; so when in need, you see, Providence enables us to tell even the conventional truth. Now really, how is he? has he slept? has he recalled himself at all? is there any change?—and, dear me, how are you?’
Mrs Lawford sighed. ‘A broken night is really very little to a mother,’ she said. ‘He is still asleep. He hasn’t, I think, stirred all night.’
‘Not stirred!’ Mr Bethany repeated. ‘You baffle me. And you have watched?’