gone quite mad. He grabbed his overcoat, struggled into it, dashed to the wash-stand and the blue willow jug, splashed the icy water on the girl’s face and rubbed her hands violently. Her eyelids flickered, she struggled up.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered. “Don’t tell them, please—don’t tell them ever!”
She tottered across the room and out the door. Mr. Pinkerton, who had got most of the cold water on his own bare feet, shivered and sneezed. Then he pushed the settle against the panel and the table by the bed in front of the door and got out of his pyjamas into his clothes so fast that the cold perspiration on his brow turned perceptibly warmer. Then he sank down on the side of his bed again and wiped off the perspiration with the corner of the rough homespun sheet.
It didn’t, of course, he was thinking unhappily, take any more extraordinary clarity of mind than it does to put two and two together to make out what the matter with the girl was. Nor did it take more than Mr. Pinkerton had at the moment to realize that that idea had been struggling in his own mind for some time. Kathleen’s young man, furthermore, had had every appearance to him of being a desperate character. However, he thought suddenly, he was definitely not Sir Lionel Atwater’s son and heir. Not unless there was definitely more hanky-panky about than even Mr. Pinkerton was prepared to accept.
He got up, eventually found a kindling or two, lighted his fire again and sat huddled miserably in front of it, wondering why in the first place he had ever been born, and in the second place why, having been born, he had not died. True, Job had had more boils, but Job had not got in bed with Scotland Yard for the dozenth time . . . nor had he, friendless himself, had the awful secret of a friendless little chambermaid thrust into his unwilling hands.
Then, as the fire caught feebly, his spirits rose feebly too. All Bull had got out of him incriminated only Mr. Jeffrey Atwater, who, if Mr. Pinkerton was any judge of young men’s jaws, was quite able to take care of himself. It was Kathleen who wanted help. Mr. Pinkerton straightened his lozenge-shaped spectacles and his narrow shoulders. He had never been very young, himself; and that was why he had got a very good idea of how much more important people like Kathleen were than people like old Atwater, who, as a matter of fact, wasn’t any longer even alive.
He had just got that far when there was a sound of heavy feet on the stairs, and a sharp rap on his door. Somebody then gave it a shove. It stuck against the table.
“He’s got himself barricaded in,” a deep voice said.
“Oh, dear!” Mr. Pinkerton thought. All the high resolves ran out of his spirit like eaves-water out of a drain. He jumped up, started to pull the table away from the door, dashed back and pulled the settle away from the panel, and then dashed back to the door.
“I was just dressing, and people . . .” he began, and stopped. It was not what he had meant to say at all, but the heavy-faced sandy-haired man with Bull fortunately noticed nothing. He stepped inside, his eyes fixed enquiringly on the little man. Inspector Bull followed. Then Mr. Pinkerton heard the most incredible thing.
“This is my friend Pinkerton, Inspector Kirtin,” Bull said, with his utmost imperturbability. “He’s been on a number of cases with me—unofficially, but Sir Charles has the greatest confidence in him.”
Mr. Pinkerton swallowed. He knew very well that Bull was adding to himself “. . . to make the worst possible bother at the most inconvenient time possible.” Still, he wasn’t saying it aloud.
Inspector Kirtin shook his limp hand.
“How do you happen to be here, Mr. Pinkerton?”
Mr. Pinkerton, catching his breath desperately, happened also to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror of the shaving glass in front of the window. He was so frail, so insignificant and watery-eyed, that it startled him again to think of Inspector Bull’s magnanimity in laying himself open by such barefaced perjury.
“Just . . . on a little holiday, Inspector,” he said. “To . . . to take the sea air.”
There was no wonder, he thought as soon as he had said it, that Inspector Kirtin looked skeptical. The wind, howling about the ancient corner of the Old Angel, seemed bent on ripping his flimsy explanation to tatters.
“I don’t have much to do, in town,” he added, blinking apologetically. Though it did seem to him, hastily thinking it over, that it was rather on the disloyal side for Inspector Kirtin as an old Ryer to question anyone’s reasons for coming to the little Tudor town perched on its rock in the Marshes. Perhaps, however, he was not an old Ryer, in which case of course the question would be pertinent.
“I see,” Inspector Kirtin said, though he had not looked that way. “Inspector Bull tells me you noticed an unusual . . . let’s say, atmosphere, in the inn tonight?”
Mr. Pinkerton blinked at his large friend. He could not recall having said any such thing, at least not in those words. He cleared his throat nervously. He should have suspected that Bull’s placid attempt to save his skin would have to be bitterly paid for. Knowing Bull’s calm habit of realizing exactly what he was thinking all the time, he could not imagine why he had been deceived for a moment, not after all that he, a sheep in sheep’s clothing, had been through with this . . . Thoughts failed him entirely. Wolf in cinnamon bear’s clothing was not precisely it, but almost.
“Not . . . exactly,” he said. “Just that Mrs. Humpage said she couldn’t see why Sir Lionel Atwater didn’t settle the family differences at their own home, instead of bringing them to hers.”
“I see,” Inspector Kirtin said again. As that was more than Mr. Pinkerton had done, he looked up at the head of the Rye police with new interest. Inspector Kirtin turned to Bull.
“I expect that was about this American young lady that Mr. Jeffrey Atwater has been running down here all year to see.”
Bull nodded.
“Village gossip says the old gentleman went off the deep end about it. Disinherited him in favour of the younger son. Not the jewels, but his money.”
For a moment Mr. Pinkerton blinked. Then he remembered abruptly where he had heard of Sir Lionel Atwater. He was possessor, of course, of the famous Atwater jewels, historical precious stones of fabulous value, the envy of collectors the world over. Mr. Pinkerton’s spine tingled suddenly with excitement as he wondered what difference that might make.
“He made the money himself,” Inspector Kirtin went on, “and it wasn’t entailed. Besides being an American, the lady is divorced.”
He added that—exactly like Mrs. Humpage—as if the two together were sufficient reason for anything.
Mr. Pinkerton felt an unfamiliar and quite unreasonable heat generating under the narrow confines of his celluloid collar.
“Indeed, Inspector, she’s a very nice-appearing young woman,” he heard himself saying, to his own astonishment. Consternation, even as he saw the mild blue gaze of the man from Scotland Yard resting on him.
“Was she here?” Bull asked.
Mr. Pinkerton nodded. He had done it again, he thought unhappily.
“Lord Atwater sent for her, apparently,” he added.
Just as he glanced apologetically at Inspector Bull there was an appalling commotion from down in the lounge. Both of the policemen were out of the room in an instant. Mr. Pinkerton,
