demonstrative American. If you laughed at him about it, he laughed with you, and then went out of his way to be even more extravagant and to laugh even louder. She didn’t know when it was that she first realized there was more to it. When she did, it came rather as a shock, and she didn’t know quite how to handle the situation. She liked Earle very much. He had brightened up her rather sombre existence at Merely. But she wasn’t in love with him, and she didn’t want him to fall in love with her, and now he had done so the situation was extremely awkward.
‘Under all that gay front of his he was a very sensitive person, and I was sure that he would be hurt very deeply if I snubbed him or tried to shake him off. He was such a boy, you know. I believe Americans mature more slowly than Englishmen. They like to talk loudly and seem worldly and tough, but just below the surface they are… well, bewildered. Earle wanted reassuring. He couldn’t quite believe in the act he was putting on. And if I had treated him roughly it would have shattered his confidence… He didn’t just love me, he needed me too.’
So she had continued on the same footing with him, trying to hold the balance. She accepted his exaggerated behaviour as before, as though it were all a game and a jest. For some time it was enough. She was able to conceal from him that he was being held at arm’s length. Unfortunately, love affairs do not stand still, and Earle, in the end, began to find the Thou Shalt Not that was impeding his progress.
‘He got very silent sometimes when we were alone together. Naturally, I tried to avoid having a tete-a-tete with him, but in a place like this it isn’t easy to steer clear of them. He began to talk a lot about his people and his home in Missouri, and then he got that idee fixe about us going over there on a visit. I was the target there, I’m afraid. Les was very largely a stalking-horse to get me to agree. I expect poor Bill thought that once I was in Missouri my resistance would vanish — one plate of fried chicken, and another GI bride would be added to the tally.’
‘Did he make any passes at you?’
‘Only in a playful sort of way. Honestly, he didn’t know much about it, and evasive action was quite simple.’
‘In public, was that?’
‘No, he never did it in public. In public he kept up his Campus King act.’
‘Would anyone have cause to think you took him seriously… that’s what I’m trying to get at?’
‘I’m quite sure they wouldn’t. I’d say on the contrary.’
‘You made it plain that it was jest?’
‘Absolutely plain.’
‘And you were never alone with him in a way that might have been compromising?’
She shook her head. ‘He wanted me to meet him in London — you know, Christmas shopping! — but I squashed that flatter than a pancake, both in private and public.’
‘Ah well.’ Gently made a humorous face. ‘Go on, Mrs Page.’
The Christmas shopping idea had been a definite invitation. He had not been explicit, but the original suggestion had been for her to spend the night in town, on the excuse that they would need a full day at the shops. When she had turned this down he still persisted that she should accompany him, and she had then invented an unanswerable rush of workshop-business to put a final period to his importunity. He had taken this rather hardly. He had apparently built a good deal on that day in London. He had probably been under the impression that Mrs Page’s attitude was governed to a great extent by her environment, and that once she was got away from it opportunity might develop. However, he had her answer, and he had to accept it. He came back from his excursion with undiminished high spirits, and threw himself into the business of being the (slightly transatlantic) Spirit of Christmas at Merely. But there were obviously other things on his mind. His grand project, though halted, was only very temporarily postponed. After lunch he had jockeyed her into taking the walk to the folly with him, and on the way he had talked not entirely of Missouri and the old folks at home.
‘He told me right out that he was in love with me, and that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Part of the time he was jesting about, talking of Christmas being the time of love and goodwill, et cetera, when people ought to let their hair down and commit a few follies. But the rest of the time he was deadly serious. He told me that he had already written to his mother telling her that he had met the girl he was going to marry, and that if I had gone to London with him he would have bought the ring then and there. Well, I did my best to keep it all in a facetious vein, but I’m afraid it was getting very difficult. I saw that soon I should have to clamp down on Bill in sheer self-defence. I think, too, that he understood the way I felt about it. On the whole, I was just a little frightened.’
‘Frightened?’ queried Gently, lifting an eyebrow.
‘Yes — oh, I don’t mean in the sense of being scared. But Bill had gone so far, you see, that he probably felt he couldn’t go back, and I was trying desperately to keep the situation fluid, if you understand me.’
Gently nodded. ‘You wanted to let him keep his face.’
‘Exactly. And if I’d taken him seriously for a moment, it would have been all over. But I weathered that particular storm. I laughed at him all the way back to the house. When you laughed at Bill, he had to laugh back, and so we got over the walk without too much damage being done. There was just that little tension there. Once or twice, I caught him looking at me in a rather peculiar way. I felt that trouble was very definitely brewing for some occasion in the future, and I was glad there was going to be a party to give me a respite.’
During the party Bill had had to behave, and he kept his credit up manfully. There had been nothing to reproach him for. He had been his old self as ever. He had sought no tete-a-tetes, dropped no equivocal phrases, looked no odd looks. He had given a magnificent performance. It had all been saved up until everyone except Somerhayes had retired. And then, under pretext of seeing her to the door — a natural act for Bill — he had fiercely told her that he must see her alone, then, that night, as soon as he could reasonably get rid of Somerhayes.
Gently rocked forward in the chair he had been tilting. ‘And your cousin — he could have heard that? He could have heard the tone in which it was spoken?’
‘No.’ She was quick and positive. ‘That would have been quite impossible.’
‘Why do you say so, Mrs Page? You have described Earle’s tone as being fierce.’
‘Yes — it was. But naturally, he kept it down. Besides, my cousin was the length of the room away… He was pouring a drink, you remember? The drinks were on a sideboard at the far end of the room.’
‘This is a silent house, Mrs Page.’
‘I know — but then, we were round the door…’
‘Yet you saw your cousin pouring drinks at the sideboard?’
‘I–I mean he went to the sideboard just as Bill saw me out.’
Gently nodded inscrutably. ‘Let us say he was pouring drinks…’
Mrs Page gave him a glance of quick apprehension, but there was nothing to be gleaned from a poker-faced Gently.
‘Well, Inspector… what could I do? I was afraid that if I didn’t agree he would do something unforgivable — he spoke with a sort of desperation which I hadn’t heard before. So I told him I would see him in the saloon in about twenty minutes, and after staring at me for a moment, he went back to join my cousin. I assure you, I wasn’t very happy during those twenty minutes. I thought several times of going back on my offer. But in the state he was in, he would have been quite capable of coming here after me… In the saloon, at least, I would not be afraid to raise an alarm if he got out of hand.’
When she arrived in the saloon he was already there waiting for her. Apart from a gleam of light from the hall, which was lit at the lower level by a single night-lamp, the saloon was quite dark. She could not see his face. He had immediately seized her two hands and begun making violent protestations, punctuated with requests to be allowed to go back to her room with her. She had endeavoured to laugh it off, but he was in no laughing mood. She struggled to free her hands, but he embraced her and held her there by brute force. Finally, by threatening to call for assistance, she had made him release her; and after giving him to understand that he had better leave in the morning she had hurried, almost run back to her wing, and bolted the door behind her.
‘And that, Inspector, is everything I have been holding back. I am willing to have it taken down and to sign a statement to that effect.’
Gently gave the ghost of a shrug. ‘It’s certainly a very interesting story, Mrs Page.’
‘I beg your pardon, Inspector?’
‘I say it raises some interesting points — do you mind if I smoke?’
She shook her head impatiently, and he rose to empty his pipe in the hearth. Her eyes followed him as he scraped it out and filled it, and caught his for a second as the yellow flame bobbed over the pipe-bowl. Wariness,
