“’Morning, Sir Clinton. I heard you were here, so I came across to say good-bye before I clear out.”
Sir Clinton could hardly pretend astonishment in view of what he knew about the state of affairs at Ravensthorpe; but he did not conceal his regret at the news.
“There was a row-royal between Maurice and me this morning,” Cecil explained, gloomily. “Of course this medallion business gave him his chance, and he jumped in with both feet, you know. He abused me like a fish-wife and finally gave me permission to do anything except stay at Ravensthorpe after to-night. So I’m off.”
“I wish you hadn’t got mixed up with that silly practical joke,” Sir Clinton said in some concern. “I can’t forgive that young blighter for luring you into it.”
Cecil’s resentment against his brother was evidently too deep to let him look on the matter from this point of view.
“If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Any excuse would have served his turn, you know. He’d have flung me out sooner or later—probably sooner. I’ve felt for long enough that he was itching to clear me off the premises. Foxy’s little show only precipitated things. The root of the trouble was there long before.”
“Well, it’s a sad business.” Sir Clinton saw that it was useless to dwell on the subject. “You’re going up to town? Any address you can give me?”
“I’ll probably put up with a man for a day or two. He’s been inviting me to his place once or twice lately, but I’ve never been able to fit it in; so I may as well take him at his word now. I’ve got to look round for something to do, you know.”
“If you want someone to speak for you, Cecil, refer them to me when you apply for anything. And, by the way, if you happen to run short, you know my address. A letter will always find me.”
Cecil thanked him rather awkwardly.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” he wound up. “Something may turn up sooner than one hopes.”
Sir Clinton thought it well to change the subject again.
“By the way, Cecil,” he asked, “do you know anything about this man Foss? What sort of person is he?”
It seemed an unfortunate topic. Cecil’s manner was anything but gracious as he replied:
“Foss? Oh, you know what sort of a fellow he is already. A damned eavesdropper on his hosts and a beggar with a tongue hinged in the middle so that he can talk with both ends at once. I’d like to wring his neck for him! What do they call the breed that runs off and splits to the police? Copper’s narks, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t exactly that side of him that I wanted to hear about, Cecil. I’m quite fully acquainted with his informative temperament already. What I want to know is the sort of man he is socially and so forth.”
Cecil curbed his vexation with an effort.
“Oh, he seems to have decent enough manners—a bit Yankee, perhaps, in some things. He must do well enough out of this agent business of his, acting for Kessock and the like, you know. He arrived here with a big car, a chauffeur, and a man. Except for his infernal tale-bearing, I can’t say he’s anything out of the ordinary.”
Sir Clinton, apparently feeling that he had struck the wrong vein in the conversational strata, contented himself with a nod of comprehension and let Cecil choose his own subject for the next stage in their talk. He was somewhat surprised when it came.
“Have you heard the latest from the village?” Cecil demanded.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“I’ve had very little time to collect local gossip this morning, Cecil. I’ve been busy getting things started for this bit of work in the lake, you see.”
“If you’d been down in Hincheldene village you could hardly have missed it. I went down this morning to get some tobacco and I found the whole place buzzing with it. That was before I’d seen Maurice, luckily.”
“Suppose you tell me what it is,” Sir Clinton suggested, drily.
“Do you remember my telling you about the family spectre, the White Man?” Cecil asked. “Well, it seems that the village drunkard, old Groby, was taking a short cut through our woods last night—or rather this morning, for he’s a bit of a late going-to-rooster—and he got the shock of his life in one of the glades. He swears he saw the White Man stealing about from tree to tree. By his way of it, he was near enough to see the thing clearly—all white, even the face. What a lark!”
“You seem to take your family spectre a bit lightly, Cecil. What’s the cream of the jest?”
Cecil’s face took on a vindictive expression.
“Oh, it gave me a chance of getting home on Maurice, after he’d given me the key of the street. I told him all about it and I rubbed in the old story. You know what I mean? The White Man never appears except when the head of the family’s on his last legs. Maurice didn’t like it a bit. He looked a bit squeamish over it; and I came away leaving that sticking in his gills.”
Sir Clinton hardly concealed his distaste for this kind of thing.
“You flatter yourself, I expect. Maurice is hardly likely to waste any thought over superstitions of that sort.”
Cecil’s expression still showed a tinge of malice.
“You’d wonder,” he said. “It’s all very well for you to sneer at these affairs; but it looks a bit different when you yourself happen to be the object of them, I guess. It’s easy to say ‘Superstition’ in a high-minded way; but if there’s a one per cent, chance that the superstition’s going to hit you personally, then, you know, it rankles a bit. Anything to give pain is my motto where Maurice is concerned.”
Quite oblivious of Sir Clinton’s rather disgusted expression, he laughed softly to himself for a moment or two.
“And the funniest thing in the whole affair,” he went on, “is that I know all about this White Man. Can’t you guess what it was?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Why, don’t you. see?” Cecil demanded, still laughing. “What old Groby came across must obviously have been Maurice himself in his white Pierrot dress, coming back from the burglar-hunt! That’s what makes it so damned funny. Fancy Maurice getting the creeps on account of himself! It’s as good a joke as I’ve heard for a while.”
He laughed harshly.
“You don’t seem to see it. Well, well. Perhaps you’re right. And now I must be getting back to the house. I’ve a lot of stuff to collect before I go off.”
He shook hands with Sir Clinton and moved off towards Ravensthorpe. The Chief Constable gazed after him for a moment or two.
“That young man’s in a most unpleasant frame of mind,” he commented to himself. “He’s obviously quite off his normal balance when he’d make a point of that kind of thing. I can’t say I take much stock in brotherly love; but this is really overdoing the business. Both of them seem to have taken leave of ordinary feelings. It’s just as well they’re parting, perhaps.”
Rather moodily he retraced his steps to where the Inspector was directing the operations by the bank of the lakelet; but by the time he reached the group his face had taken on its normal expression.
“Fishing still poor?” he demanded, as he came up.
“Nothing so far, sir,” the Inspector confessed. “These rocks are the very deuce to work amongst. I’ve been running the grapnel over the same track two or three times, just in case we miss the thing the first shot. We’ve had no luck at all—unless you count this as a valuable find: a bit of limestone or something like that.”
He kicked a shapeless mass of white stone as he spoke. Sir Clinton stooped over it: a dripping mass about the size of a man’s fist. The Inspector watched him as he examined it; but Sir Clinton’s face suggested neither interest nor satisfaction.