"A terrible situation," said the Padre. "Duelling is in direct contravention of all Christian principles, and, I believe, of the civil law. The discharge of a pistol, in unskilful hands, may lead to deplorable results. And Major Flint, so one has heard, is an experienced duellist . . . That, of course, makes it even more dangerous."
It was at this identical moment that Major Flint came out of his house and quai-haied cheerily to Puffin. Miss Mapp and the Padre, deep in these bloody possibilities, neither saw nor heard them. They passed together down the road and into the High Street, unconscious that their every look and action was being more commented on than the Epistle to the Hebrews. Inside the garden-room Miss Mapp sighed, and bent her eyes on her chrysanthemums.
"Quite terrible!" she said. "And in our peaceful, tranquil Tilling!"
"Perhaps the duel has already taken place, and — and they've missed," said the Padre. "They were both seen to return to their houses early this morning."
"By whom?" asked Miss Mapp jealously. She had not heard that.
"By Hopkins," said he. "Hopkins saw them both return."
"I shouldn't trust that man too much," said Miss Mapp. "Hopkins may not be telling the truth. I have no great opinion of his moral standard."
"Why is that?"
This was no time to discuss the nudity of Hopkins and Miss Mapp put the question aside.
"That does not matter now, dear Padre," she said. "I only wish I thought the duel had taken place without accident. But Major Benjy's — I mean Major Flint's — portmanteau has not come back to his house. Of that I'm sure. What if they have sent it away to some place where they are unknown, full of pistols and things?"
"Possible — terribly possible," said the Padre. "I wish I could see my duty clear. I should not hesitate to — well, to do the best I could to induce them to abandon this murderous project. And what do you imagine was the root of the quarrel?"
"I couldn't say, I'm sure," said Miss Mapp. She bent her head over the chrysanthemums.
"Your distracting sex," said he with a moment's gallantry, "is usually the cause of quarrel. I've noticed that they both seemed to admire Miss Irene very much."
Miss Mapp raised her head and spoke with great animation.
"Dear, quaint Irene, I'm sure, has nothing whatever to do with it," she said with perfect truth. "Nothing whatever!"
There was no mistaking the sincerity of this, and the Padre, Tillingite to the marrow, instantly concluded that Miss Mapp knew what (or who) was the cause of all this unique disturbance. And as she bent her head again over the chrysanthemums, and quite distinctly grew brick-red in the face, he felt that delicacy prevented his inquiring any further.
"What are you going to do, dear Padre?" she asked in a low voice, choking with emotion. "Whatever you decide will be wise and Christian. Oh, these violent men! Such babies, too!"
The Padre was bursting with curiosity, but since his delicacy forbade him to ask any of the questions which effervesced like sherbet round his tongue, he propounded another plan.
"I think my duty is to go straight to the Major," he said, "who seems to be the principal in the affair, and tell him that I know all — and guess the rest," he added.
"Nothing that I have said," declared Miss Mapp in great confusion, "must have anything to do with your guesses. Promise me that, Padre."
This intimate and fruitful conversation was interrupted by the sound of two pairs of steps just outside, and before Withers had had time to say "Mrs Plaistow," Diva burst in.
"They have both taken the eleven-twenty tram," she said, and sank into the nearest chair.
"Together?" asked Miss Mapp, feeling a sudden chill of disappointment at the thought of a duel with pistols trailing off into one with golf clubs.
"Yes, but that's a blind," panted Diva. "They were talking and laughing together. Sheer blind! Duel among the sand-dunes!"
"Padre, it is your duty to stop it," said Miss Mapp faintly.
"But if the pistols are in a portmanteau —" he began.
"What portmanteau?" screamed Diva, who hadn't heard about that.
"Darling, I'll tell you presently," said Miss Mapp. "That was only a guess of mine, Padre. But there's no time to lose."
"But there's no tram to catch," said the Padre. "It has gone by this time."
"A taxi then, Padre! Oh, lose no time!"
"Are you coming with me?" he said in a low voice. "Your presence —"
"Better not," she said. "It might — Better not," she repeated.
He skipped down the steps and was observed running down the street.
"What about the portmanteau?" asked the greedy Diva.
* * *
It was with strong misgivings that the Padre started on his Christian errand, and had not the sense of adventure spiced it, he would probably have returned to his sermon instead, which was Christian, too. To begin with, there was the ruinous expense of taking a taxi out to the golf links, but by no other means could he hope to arrive in time to avert an encounter that might be fatal. It must be said to his credit that, though this was an errand distinctly due to his position as the spiritual head of Tilling, he rejected, as soon as it occurred to him, the idea of charging the hire of the taxi to Church Expenses, and as he whirled along the flat road across the marsh, the thing which chiefly buoyed up his drooping spirits and annealed his courage was the romantic nature of his mission. He no longer, thanks to what Miss Mapp had so clearly refrained from saying, had the slightest doubt that she, in some manner that scarcely needed conjecture, was the cause of the duel he was attempting to avert. For years it had been a matter of unwearied and confidential discussion as to whether and when she would marry either Major Flint or Captain Puffin, and it was superfluous to look for any other explanation. It was true that she, in popular parlance, was "getting on", but so, too, and at exactly the same rate, were the representatives of the United Services, and the sooner that two out of the three of them "got on" permanently, the better. No doubt some crisis had arisen, and inflamed with love . . . He intended to confide all this to his wife on his return.
On his return! The unspoken words made his heart sink. What if he never did return? For he was about to place himself in a position of no common danger. His plan was to drive past the clubhouse, and then on foot, after discharging the taxi, to strike directly into the line of tumbled sand-dunes which, remote and undisturbed and full of large convenient hollows, stretched along the coast above the flat beach. Any of those hollows, he knew, might prove to contain the duellists in the very act of firing, and over the rim of each he had to pop his unprotected head. He (if in time) would have to separate the combatants, and who knew whether, in their very natural chagrin at being interrupted, they might not turn their combined pistols on him first, and settle with each other afterwards? One murder the more made little difference to desperate men. Other shocks, less deadly but extremely unnerving, might await him. He might be too late, and pop his head over the edge of one of these craters, only to discover it full of bleeding if not mangled bodies. Or there might be only one mangled body, and the other, unmangled, would pursue him through the sand-dunes and offer him life at the price of silence. That, he painfully reflected, would be a very difficult decision to make. Luckily, Captain Puffin (if he proved