"I wish this nonsense dispelled, that is all. If you cannot be sufficiently courteous—! I refer to hints. From Patricia, and especially (in a mealy-mouthed fashion, which I detest) from Morley. As though to prepare me for something." Maw shut-her jaws hard, and looked from Dr. Fell to the bishop. If I must speak of it, it concerns rumors of poor dear Mr. Depping's past life."
Again Betty Depping looked at her, curiously. "Could it make any difference?" she asked in a low voice.
For a time Hugh could hear the slow tapping of Dr. Fell's pencil on the table. "My dear," he said suddenly, "since you are here… did you ever have any knowledge of your father's past life?"
"N-no. No knowledge. I — suspected something. I don't know what."
"Did you tell this suspicion to anybody?"
"Yes. I told Morley. I thought it was only fair." She hesitated, and a sort of puzzled, protesting fierceness came into her face. "All I wanted to know is, why should it matter? If father had lived — if he were living now — nobody would have known it or asked questions about it. Now that he's dead, if there's anything against him it's bound to come out…"
She looked away, at a corner of one window, and added in a very low voice: "I never had a great deal of happiness, you see. I thought that I was going to have it, now. Why should — somebody — have spoiled it?"
Again the night breeze went wandering through the trees round the house, with a rustling of turmoil far away; and you knew that it was agitating the beeches and maples round the Guest House as well. All the time Dr. Fell's pencil was slowly clicking against the desk; tap — tap — tap — as though it were a brain endlessly asking the same question.
"How long have you suspected anything in your father's past, Miss Depping?0
She shook her head. There never was anything definite. But I think I started to wonder as much as five years ago. You see, he sent for me to join him in London suddenly. I thought he had always been there; I wrote him once a week, in care of Mr. Langdon, and he would reply about once a month, with a London postmark. So I came over from France; naturally I was pleased to get away from school. He told me he was retiring from whatever it was he did in the City, and going into the publishing business with a Mr. Standish and a Mr. Burke.
Then — we were sitting in the lobby of the hotel one afternoon, and all of a sudden he caught sight of somebody walking towards us, and he was — I don't know — flustered. He said, That's Burke; he didn't say he was coming here. Listen: don't be surprised at anything I say to him in the way of business. So far as you know, I've spent a year in India, where — remember this — where my closest friend was a Major Pendleton.' Then he hushed me." She brushed a hand back across her shining brown hair. It was as though she had an insupportable headache, and tried to smile in spite of it. "You… well, you wonder about things like that. But I never knew. That's why I say I have a right to know."
Again she hesitated, stared at Dr. Fell, and could not ask the question. It was Maw Standish who fired it out.
That's precisely it. That's why I demand to know. I still tell you this is impossible! Poor Mr. Depping… I have even heard rumors from the servants' hall—from the servants hall,I assure you. to the outrageous effect that he was a criminal. A criminal." Maw gulped out the word.
"We had better setde this," declared Dr. Fell, "before. we can go on." His voice became gruff. "I am sorry that I must give you the facts brutally, but it will be best this way. The rumor was correct. Depping was not only a criminal; he was a criminal of the meanest and most damnable variety; a racketeer, an extortionist, and a killer. Do not ask for any of the details. They are not pretty."
"Impossi—" said Mrs. Standish, and stopped. She stared at the bishop, who nodded slowly.
"I am sorry, madam," he said.
"God — help — us…" She touched her white face, her handsome face where you could see the faint wrinkles now. "This — this alters — this — that is…" Her gaze turned towards Betty Depping, who was looking blankly at Dr. Fell.
"Betty darling!" said Maw, with a brisk abrupt smile. "I see that I should not have brought you down here at all. You were upset enough to begin with. These trying events, these monstrous accusations… Child! Do as I tell you. Go upstairs this instant, and he down. Now, now; I won't hear a word! Lie down like a good child, and tell Patricia to put the ice bag on your head. I will stay here and thrash this matter out. There is a mistake somewhere — surely there is a mistake. You will need all your strength presently. Depend on it, I will do my best for you. Run along, now!"
She disengaged her arm from the other's shoulder. Betty Depping was looking at her steadily. Again Betty was sturdy and capable; with the cool cynical eyes and the strong chin. She smiled.
"Yes, it does, alter matters, doesn't it?" she asked softly. "I–I don't think I care to hear anything more."
She inclined her head to the group and walked to the door, but she turned there. She had become tense and fierce, with color in her cheeks: a fighter, and dangerous, and her eyes had a hot blue brilliance. Yet her lips hardly seemed to move.
The only one who matters in this affair," she said, still in a low voice, "is Morley. Understand that. What he thinks, and what he cares" — her breast rose and fell once, with a sort of shudder—"is what I think and car’. Remember that, please."
"Child!" said Maw, lifting her chin.
"Good night," said Betty Depping, and closed the door.
The warmth and strength of her personality was still in that room. Even the colonel's lady felt it. She tried to adjust herself to the new state of affairs; to stare down Dr. Fell and the bishop; to preserve a high-chinned dignity and yet keep an appropriate aloofness.
"Will you kindly," she said in a tense voice, "stop tapping that pencil on the table? It has been driving me insane… Thank you so much. Now that Miss Depping has gone, will you be so good as to substantiate these lurid statements of yours? They can be substantiated, I hope?"
"Unquestionably."
"Dear, dear, dear, dear… and — and will there be a scandal?"
"Why should there be a scandal, ma'am?"
"Oh, don't be so dull-witted! This is the most abominable and — and — incredible thing I have ever heard. I can't believe it. Poor, dear Mr. Depping…
why, the filthy wretch! The—"
Tap-tap-tap-tap, as measured as the ticking of a clock, Dr. Fell's pencil clicked on the table. Hugh Donovan wished he could see his face. The doctor was gathered together into a great mass, his head down.
"Mrs. Standish," he said, "who was the lady whom Depping had persuaded to elope with him?"
CHAPTER XV
A Man Walks in the Dark
The bishop got up abruptly from his chair, went to one window, and pushed it open for more air. Mrs. Standish did not seem to grasp the question. After a sideways glance, she repeated:
"Lady? Elope? — What on earth do you mean? My dear sir, you must be mad!" She edged backwards to a chair, and sat down.
"The ancient and melodious refrain to which," said Dr. Fell musingly, "to which I have got accustomed after all these years. Tell, you must be mad.' It is Chief Inspector Hadley’s favorite ditty. Well, I don't mind. Believe me, ma'am, the subject is distasteful. I mention it only because I believe it has rather a terrible bearing on the murder."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"H'm. Perhaps I had better start from the beginning. Do you mind if I smoke?"
She sniffed the air. "It does not seem to have been necessary for you to get permission, doctor. Do not let my presence interfere with you, please… What were you saying?"