He looked appealingly at their faces as though to plead for a favourable verdict on his conduct.
“Go on, please,” Sir Clinton requested.
“I hardly expected you’d look on it as I do,” Foss confessed rather shamefacedly. “Of course, it was just plain eavesdropping on my part by that time. But I felt Mr Kessock would have expected me to find out all I could about these medallions. To be candid, I’d do the same again; though I didn’t like doing it.”
Sir Clinton seemed to feel that he had been rather discouraging.
“I shouldn’t make too much of it, Mr Foss. What happened next?”
Foss’s face showed that he was at last coming to a matter of real difficulty.
“It’s rather unfortunate that I came to be mixed up in the thing at all,” he said, with obvious chagrin. “I can assure you, Miss Chacewater, that I don’t like doing it. I only made up my mind to tell you about it because it seems to me to give a chance of hushing this supposed burglary up quietly before there’s any talk goes round.”
“Supposed burglary,” exclaimed Joan. “What’s your idea of a real burglary, if this sort of thing is only a supposed one?”
She indicated the shattered show-case and the litter of glass on the floor.
Foss evidently decided to take the rest of his narrative in a rush.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “The next thing I overheard was a complete plan for a fake burglary—a practical joke—to be carried out to-night. The light in here was to be put out; the house-lights were to be extinguished: and in the darkness, your brother and this Mr Foxy How-d’you-call-him were to get away with the medallions.”
“Ah, Mr Foss, now you become interesting,” Sir Clinton acknowledged.
“I heard all the details,” Foss went on. “How Miss Rainhill was to see to extinguishing the lights; how Mr Chacewater was to secure the keeper; and how meanwhile his friend was to put on a thick glove and take the medallions out of the case there. And it seems to me that it was a matter that interested me directly,” he added, dropping his air of apology, “for I gathered that the whole affair was planned with some idea of making this sale to Mr Kessock fall through at the last moment.”
“Indeed?”
Sir Clinton’s face showed that at last he saw something more clearly than before.
“That was the motive,” Foss continued. “Now the whole thing put me in a most awkward position.”
“I think I see your difficulty,” Sir Clinton assured him, with more geniality than he had hitherto shown.
“It was very hard to make up my mind what to do,” Foss went on. “I’m a guest here. This was a family joke, apparently—one brother taking a rise out of another. It was hardly for me to step in and perhaps cause bad feelings between them. I thought the whole thing was perhaps just talk—not meant seriously in the end. A kind of ‘how-would-we-do-it-if-we-set-about-it’ discussion, you understand.”
Sir Clinton nodded understandingly.
“Difficult to know what to do, in your shoes, undoubtedly.”
Foss was obviously relieved by the Chief Constable’s comprehension.
“I thought it over,” he continued, with a less defensive tone in his voice, “and it seemed to me that the soundest course was to let sleeping dogs lie—to let them lie, at any rate, until they woke up and bit somebody. I made up my mind I’d say nothing about the matter at all, unless something really did happen.”
“Very judicious,” Sir Clinton acquiesced.
“Then came to-night,” Foss resumed. “Their plan went through. I don’t know what success they had—the house is full of all sorts of rumours. But I heard that the Chief Constable was on the spot and was taking up the case himself; and as soon as I heard that, I felt I ought to tell what I knew. So I hunted you out, so as to avoid your taking any steps before you knew just how the land lay. It’s only a practical joke and not a crime at all. I don’t know anything about your English laws, and I was afraid you might be taking some steps, doing something or other that would make it impossible to stop short of the whole affair coming out in public. I’m sure the family wouldn’t like that.”
He glanced at Joan’s face, but evidently found nothing very encouraging in her expression.
“It’s been a most unfortunate position for me,” he complained.
Sir Clinton took pity on him.
“It was very good of you to give me these facts,” he said with more cordiality than he had hitherto shown. “You’ve cleared up the thing and saved us from putting our foot in it badly, perhaps. Thanks very much for your trouble, Mr Foss. You’ve been of great assistance.”
His tone showed that the interview was at an end; but, tactfully, as though to spare the obviously ruffled feelings of the American, he accompanied him to the door. When Foss had left the room, Sir Clinton turned back to Joan.
“Well, Joan, what about it?”
“Oh, it sounds accurate enough,” Joan admitted, though there was an undercurrent of resentment in her tone. “Foss couldn’t have known what sort of person Foxy is; and it’s as clear as daylight that Foxy was at the bottom of this. He’s a silly ass who’s always playing practical jokes.”
She paused for a moment. Then relief showed itself in her voice as she added:
“It’s rather a blessing to know the whole affair has been just spoof, isn’t it? You can hush it up easily enough, can’t you? Nobody need know exactly what happened; and then we’ll be all right. If this story comes out, all our little family bickerings will be common talk; and one doesn’t want that. I’m not exactly proud of the way Maurice has been treating Cecil.”
Sir Clinton’s face showed that he understood her position; but, rather to her surprise, he gave no verbal assurance.
“It is all right!” she demanded.
“I think we’ll interview your friend Foxy first of all,” Sir Clinton proposed, taking no notice of her inquiry.
Going to the door, he gave some orders to the keeper.
“You were rather stiff with our good Mr Foss,” he said, turning to Joan as he closed the door again. “What would you have done yourself, if you’d been in his position?”
Joan had her answer ready.
“I suppose he couldn’t help overhearing things; but when this affair came to light, I think if I’d been in his shoes I’d have gone to Cecil instead of coming to us with the tale. Once Cecil found the game was up, he’d have been able to return the medallions in some way or other, without raising any dust.”
“That was one way, certainly.”
“What I object to is Foss coming to you,” Joan explained. “He didn’t know you’re an old friend of ours. All he knew was that you were the Chief Constable. So off he hies to you, post-haste, to give the whole show away; when he might quite well have come to me or gone to Cecil. I don’t like this way of doing things—no tact at all.”
“I can’t conceive how Cecil came to take up a silly prank like this,” said Sir Clinton. “It’s a schoolboy’s trick.”
“You don’t know everything,” said Joan, in defence of her brother.
“I know a good deal, Joan,” Sir Clinton retorted in a decisive tone. “Perhaps I know more than you think about this business.”
In a few minutes the keeper knocked at the door.
“Well?” demanded Sir Clinton, opening it.
“I can’t find Mr Polegate anywhere, sir,” Mold reported. “No one’s seen him; and he’s not in the house.”
“He was here to-night,” Joan declared. “I recognized him when I was dancing with him. You can’t mistake that shock of hair; and of course his voice gave him away when he spoke.”