‘You don’t think, then, you see any resemblance—any resemblance at all?’
‘Resemblance?’ repeated Mr Bethany in a flat voice, and without raising his face again to meet Lawford’s direct scrutiny. ‘Resemblance to whom?’
‘To me? To me, as I am?’
‘But even, my dear fellow (forgive my dull old brains!), even if there was just the faintest superficial suggestion of—of that; what then?’
‘Why,’ said Lawford, ‘he’s buried in Widderstone.’
‘Buried in Widderstone?’ The keen childlike blue eyes looked almost stealthily up across the book; the old man sat without speaking, so still that it might even be supposed he himself was listening for a quiet distant footfall.
‘He is buried in the grave beside which I fell asleep,’ said Lawford; ‘all green and still and broken,’ he added faintly. ‘You remember,’ he went on in a repressed voice—‘you remember you asked me if there was anybody else in sight, any eavesdropper? You don’t think—him?’
Mr. Bethany pushed the book a few inches away from him. ‘Who, did you say—who was it you said put the thing into your head? A queer friend surely?’ he paused helplessly. ‘And how, pray, do you know,’ he began again more firmly, ‘even if there is a Sabathier buried at Widderstone, how do you know it is this Sabathier? It’s not, I think,’ he added boldly, ‘a very uncommon name; with two b’s at any rate. Whereabouts is the grave?’
‘Quite down at the bottom, under the trees. And the little seat I told you of is there, too, where I fell asleep. You see,’ he explained, ‘the grave’s almost isolated; I suppose because he killed himself.’
Mr Bethany clasped his knuckled fingers on the tablecloth. ‘It’s no good,’ he concluded after a long pause; ‘the fellow’s got up into my head. I can’t think him out. We must thrash it out quietly in the morning with the blessed sun at the window; not this farthing dip. To me the whole idea is as revolting as it is incredible. Why, above a century—no, no! And on the other hand, how easily one’s fancy builds! A few straws and there’s a nest and squawking fledglings, all complete. Is that why—is that why that good, practical wife of yours and all your faithful household have absconded? Does it’—he threw up his head as if towards the house above them—‘does it reek with him?’