And, of course, there was another thing. Speaking of my earlier visit to Totleigh Towers, I mentioned that when Pop Bassett immured me in my room, he stationed the local police force on the lawn below to see that I didn't nip out of the window. That local police force was this same Oates, and as it was raining like the dickens at the time, no doubt the episode had rankled. Only a very sunny constable can look with an indulgent eye on the fellow responsible for his getting the nastiest cold in the head of his career.
At any rate, he showed himself now a man of few words, though good at locking people up in cells. There was only one at the Totleigh-in-the-Wold emporium, and I had it all to myself, a cosy little apartment with a window, not barred but too small to get out of, a grille in the door, a plank bed and that rather powerful aroma of drunks and disorderlies which you always find in these homes from home. Whether it was superior or inferior to the one they had given me at Bosher Street, I was unable to decide. Not much in it either way, it seemed to me.
To say that when I turned in on the plank bed I fell into a dreamless sleep would be deceiving my public. I passed a somewhat restless night. I could have sworn, indeed, that I didn't drop off at all, but I suppose I must have done, because the next thing I knew sunlight was coming through the window and mine host was bringing me breakfast.
I got outside it with an appetite unusual with me at such an early hour, and at the conclusion of the meal I fished out an old envelope and did what I have sometimes done before when the bludgeonings of Fate were up and about to any extent - viz. make a list of Credits and Debits, as I believe Robinson Crusoe used to. The idea being to see whether I was ahead of or behind the game at moment of going to press.
The final score worked out as follows:
Credit Debit
Not at all a bad breakfast, that. Don't always be thinking of your
Coffee quite good. I was sur- stomach, you jailbird,
prised.
Who's a jailbird? You're a jailbird.
Well, yes, I suppose I am, if you More than your face is.
care to put it that way. But I am
innocent. My hands are clean.
Not looking my best, what? You look like something the cat
brought in.
A bath will put that right. And you'll get one in prison.
You really think it'll come to Well, you heard what Pop Bassett
that? said.
I wonder what it's like, doing You'll hate it. It'll bore you stiff,
twenty-eight days? Hitherto, I've
always just come for the night.
I don't know so much. They give What's the good of a cake of soap
you a cake of soap and a hymn- and a hymnbook?
book, don't they?
I'll be able to whack up some
sort of indoor game with them. And
don't forget that I've not got to
marry Madeline Bassett. Let's
hear what you have to say to that.
And the Debit account didn't utter. I had baffled it.
Yes, I felt, as I hunted around in case there might be a crumb of bread which I had overlooked, that amply compensated me for the vicissitudes I was undergoing. And I had been musing along these lines for a while, getting more and more reconciled to my lot, when a silvery voice spoke, making me jump like a startled grasshopper. I couldn't think where it was coming from at first, and speculated for a moment on the possibility of it being my guardian angel, though I had always thought of him, I don't know why, as being of the male sex. Then I saw something not unlike a human face at the grille, and a closer inspection told me that it was Stiffy.
I Hullo-there-ed cordially, and expressed some surprise at finding her on the premises.
'I wouldn't have thought Oates would have let you in. It isn't Visitors Day, is it?'
She explained that the zealous officer had gone up to the house to see her Uncle Watkyn and that she had sneaked in when he had legged it.
'Oh, Bertie,' she said, 'I wish I could slip you in a file.'
'What would I do with a file?'
'Saw through the bars, of course, ass.'
'There aren't any bars.'
'Oh, aren't there? That's a difficulty. We'll have to let it go, then. Have you had breakfast?'
'Just finished.'
'Was it all right?'
'Fairly toothsome.'
'I'm glad to hear that, because I'm weighed down with remorse.'
'You are? Why?'
'Use the loaf. If I hadn't pinched that statuette thing, none of this would have happened.'
'Oh, I wouldn't worry.'
'But I do worry. Shall I tell Uncle Watkyn that you're innocent, because I was the guilty party? You ought to have your name cleared.'
I put the bee on this suggestion with the greatest promptitude.
'Certainly not. Don't dream of it.'
'But don't you want your name cleared?'
'Not at the expense of you taking the rap.'
'Uncle Watkyn wouldn't send me to chokey.'
'I dare say not, but Stinker would learn all and would be shocked to the core.'
'Coo! I didn't think of that.'
'Think of it now. He wouldn't be able to help asking himself if it was a prudent move for a vicar to link his lot with yours. Doubts, that's what he'd have, and qualms. It isn't as if you were going to be a gangster's moll. The gangster would be all for you swiping everything in sight and would encourage you with word and gesture, but it's different with Stinker. When he marries you, he'll want you to take charge of the parish funds. Apprise him of the facts, and he won't have an easy moment.'
'I see what you mean. Yes, you have a point there.'
'Picture his jumpiness if he found you near the Sunday offertory bag. No, secrecy and silence is the only course.'
She sighed a bit, as if her conscience was troubling her, but she saw the force of my reasoning.
'I suppose you're right, but I do hate the idea of you doing time.'
'There are compensations.'
'Such as?'
'I am saved from the scaffold.'
'The - ? Oh, I see what you mean. You get out of marrying Madeline.'
'Exactly, and, as I remember telling you once, I am implying nothing derogatory to Madeline when I say that the thought of being united to her in bonds of holy wedlock was one that gave your old friend shivers down the spine. The fact is in no way to her discredit. I should feel just the same about marrying many of the world's noblest women. There are certain females whom one respects, admires, reveres, but only from a distance, and it is to this group that Madeline belongs.'
And I was about to develop this theme, with possibly a reference to those folk songs, when a gruff voice interrupted our tete-a-tete, if you can call a thing a tete-a-tete when the two of you are on opposite sides of an iron grille. It was Constable Oates, returned from his excursion. Stiffy's presence displeased him, and he spoke austerely.
'What's all this?' he demanded.
'What's all what?' riposted Stiffy with spirit, and I remember thinking that she rather had him there.
'It's against regulations to talk to the prisoner, Miss.'
'Oates,' said Stiffy, 'you're an ass.'
This was profoundly true, but it seemed to annoy the officer. He resented the charge, and said so, and Stiffy said she didn't want any back chat from him.
'You road company rozzers make me sick. I was only trying to cheer him up.'