“Nonsense!” said Madeline. I saw that it was time to put an end to all this rot.
“Of course it’s nonsense,” I thundered. “The whole thing is one of those laughable misunderstandings.”
I must say I was expecting that my explanation would have gone better than it did. But old Bassett, like so many of these police court magistrates, was a difficult man to convince. He kept interrupting and asking questions, and looking at me as he asked them. You know what I mean—questions beginning with “Just one moment—” and “You say—” and “Then you are asking us to believe—” Offensive, very.
However, I managed to get him straight on the umbrella, and he conceded that he might have judged me unjustly about that.
“But how about the bags?”
“There weren’t any bags. ”
“I certainly sentenced you for something at Bosher Street[59]. I remember it vividly”
“I pinched a policeman’s helmet.”
“That’s just as bad as snatching bags.”
Roderick Spode intervened unexpectedly. He had been standing by, thoughtfully listening to my statements.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think you can go so far as that. When I was at Oxford, I once stole a policeman’s helmet myself.”
I was astounded. It just showed, as I often say, that there is good in the worst of us. But old Bassett said,
“Well, how about that affair at the antique shop? Hey? Didn’t we catch him in the act of running off with my cow-creamer? What has he got to say to that?”
Spode nodded.
“The bloke at the shop had given it to me to look at,” I said shortly. “He advised me to take it outside, where the light was better.”
“You were rushing out.”
“I trod on the cat.”
“What cat?”
“It lives there, I suppose.”
“Hm! I saw no cat. Did you see a cat, Roderick?”
“No, no cat.”
“Ha! But what were you doing with that cow-creamer? You say you were looking at it. You are asking us to believe that you were merely looking at it. Why? What was your motive? What possible interest could it have for a man like you?”
“Exactly,” said Spode. “The very question I was going to ask myself.”
“You say the proprietor of the shop handed it to you. But I say that you snatched it up and were running away. And now Mr. Spode catches you here, with the thing in your hands. How do you explain that? What’s your answer to that? Hey?”
“Why, Daddy!” said Madeline. “Naturally your silver would be the first thing Bertie would want to look at. Of course, he is interested in it. Bertie is Mr. Travers’s nephew.”
“What!”
“Didn’t you know that? Your uncle has a wonderful collection, hasn’t he, Bertie? I suppose he has often spoken to you of Daddy’s.”
There was a pause. Old Bassett was breathing heavily. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He glanced from me to the cow-creamer, and from the cow-creamer to me, then back from me to the cow-creamer again.
“Oh!” he said. Just that. Nothing more. But it was enough.
“I say,” I said, “could I send a telegram?”
“You can telephone it from the library,” said Madeline. “I’ll take you there.”
She conducted me to the instrument and left me, saying that she would be waiting in the hall when I had finished. I established connection with the post office, and after a brief conversation with what appeared to be the village idiot, telephoned as follows:
Mrs Travers, 47, Charles Street[60], Berkeley Square, London.
I paused for a moment, then proceeded thus:
Deeply regret quite impossible carry out assignment you know what. Atmosphere one of keenest suspicion and any sort of action instantly fatal[61]. You ought to have seen old Bassett’s eye just now on learning of blood relationship of myself and Uncle Tom. Sorry and all that, but nothing doing.
I then went down to the hall to join Madeline Bassett. She was standing by the barometer, which would have been pointing to “Stormy” instead of “Set Fair”. She turned and gazed at me with a tender goggle which sent a thrill of dread creeping down the spine.
“Oh, Bertie,” she said, in a low voice like beer trickling out of a jug, “you ought not to be here!”
My recent interview with old Bassett and Roderick Spode had rather set me thinking along those lines myself. But I hadn’t time to explain that this was no idle social visit, and that if Gussie hadn’t been sending out SOSs I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming here. She went on, looking at me as if I were a rabbit which she was expecting shortly to turn into a gnome.
“Why did you come? Oh, I know what you are going to say. You felt that you had to see me again, just once. You could not resist the urge to take away with you one last memory, which you could cherish down the lonely years. Oh, Bertie, you remind me of Rudel[62].”
The name was new to me. “Rudel?”
“The Seigneur Geoffrey Rudel, Prince of Blay-en-Saintonge[63].”
I shook my head. “Never met him, I’m afraid. Pal of yours?”
“He lived in the Middle Ages. He was a great poet. And he fell in love with the wife of the Lord of Tripoli[64].”
I stirred uneasily.
“For years he loved her, and at last he could resist no longer. He took ship to Tripoli, and his servants carried him ashore. ”
“Not feeling so good?” I said. “Rough crossing?[65]”
“He was dying. Of love.”
“Oh, ah.”
“They bore him into the Lady Melisande’s[66] presence on a litter, and he had just strength enough to reach out and touch her hand. Then he died.”
She paused, and heaved a sigh. A silence ensued.
“Terrific,” I said, feeling I had to say something. She sighed again.
“You see now why I said you reminded me of Rudel. Like him, you came to take one last glimpse of the woman you loved. It was dear of you, Bertie, and I shall never forget it. It will always remain with me as a fragrant memory, like a flower pressed between the leaves of an old album. But was it wise? Should you not have been strong? Would it not have been better to have ended it all cleanly, that day when we said goodbye at Brinkley Court, and not to have reopened the wound? We had met, and you have loved me, and I had had to tell you that my heart was another’s. That should have been our farewell.”
“Absolutely,” I said. I mean to say, all that was perfectly clear, as far as it went. If her heart really was another’s, fine. Nobody more pleased