often quite unintelligent persons, like Ray, manage to put into clear, concise language what others, like you and me, who are much cleverer, don’t you agree, feel to be the inexpressible?”
“That’ll be all from you, thanks!” said Raymond harshly.
“Ray, dear old fellow!” said Phineas, rising from his chair, and advancing towards his nephew. “I have just been learning from your brothers of your absurdly quixotic behaviour in regard to my stupid affairs! Did I say that I was anxious my little deal should not be noised abroad? I did not mean by requesting your silence to embroil you with the police, my boy!”
“Oh!” said Raymond, glancing round the room. “Pity some of you can’t think of something better to do than to poke your noses into my affairs! I’ll have a word with you about that little deal of yours, Uncle, if you’ve no objection.”
'Just what is this so-called deal?” demanded Ingrain.
“You’d better tell him, Uncle,” recommended Raymond sardonically.
“My dear boy, I’ve already told you that all I wanted was your father’s advice on a certain piece of land.”
“Well, it seems a damned queer business to me!” Ingrain said.
Raymond shrugged, and held the door for his uncle to pass out of the room. He conducted him to his office, remarking that since the house appeared to be full of busybodies there only could they be sure of any privacy.
Once in that austere apartment he shut the door and turned to confront Phineas. “What the devil did you mean by dragging me into yesterday’s business?” he asked fiercely.
“My dear Raymond, I could hardly be expected to guess that you had been foolish enough to deny having seen me when I was here,” Phineas returned. “Really. I can’t imagine what possessed you!”
“God’s teeth, don’t you suppose I’ve got enough to contend with without getting embroiled in that? What’s this cock-and-bull story you’ve hatched up about a land deal? If you’re going to tell the police I can corroborate your stories I’ll thank you to let me know first what they are!”
“There is no point in losing our tempers, my boy.' Phineas said smoothly. “We shall say that I have it in mind to buy up Leason Pastures.”
“You can say what you dam’ well please, but you won’t lug me into it. I’ve told Logan I know nothing about your business with Father, and I’m sticking to that.”
Phineas sat down in a chair by the desk, and began to drum his soft white fingers on the arm of it. “In view of the — er — very equivocal position in which you stand. Ray, do you feel that you are wise to take up this unhelpful attitude?” he inquired.
Raymond looked contemptuously down at him. “You must think I’m a fool if you imagine I don’t know that you’re quite as anxious to keep my secret as I am myself!” he said. “You’d have to leave the neighbourhood, if that got out, wouldn’t you?”
Phineas went on smiling, but the expression in his eyes was hardly in keeping with the benevolent curl of his lips.
“We won’t go into that. A most unfortunate affair, which we must, I agree, do our utmost to conceal. It was for that reason that I came up to see you today. I must know how matters now stand.”
“They don’t stand in any better shape for this precious visit! Already the others are beginning to smell a rat.”
“Then you must have been singularly clumsy, my dear Ray. I thought I could rely on you to present my call upon your father in satisfactory colours. However, there is no profit in repining now that the mischief is done. I have no intention of inquiring into the circumstances of your father’s untimely death, and I beg you will not seek to take me into your confidence. What is done cannot be undone...”
“It wasn’t done by me,” interrupted Raymond.
Phineas bowed his head in polite acceptance of this statement. “That, as I have said, is a matter in which I do not propose to interest myself. My sole concern is to keep my sister’s name unsullied. To this end I must request you to tell me what steps you have taken in regard to the woman, Martha Bugle?”
Raymond answered curtly: “None.”
Phineas raised his brows. “Indeed! Then may I suggest that you give your serious attention to this question?”
Raymond strode over to the window, and stood staring out, his hands thrust into his pockets. After a short pause, he said: “I gather that you believe I murdered Father. I didn’t, but it’s quite likely others will share your belief. If Martha thought it, there’s no bribe I could offer her that would induce her to keep her mouth shut.” He paused. A bleak look came into his face; his mouth twitched as though from a twinge of pain. “You’re wasting your time. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. Martha isn’t the only one who knows.”
Phineas stopped his gentle drumming. “What? Who else?”
'Jimmy the Bastard.”
“This lad who has absconded with the money from your father’s strong-box? His mouth must be shut at once! I consider him far more dangerous than the woman!”
“You’re right,” Raymond said evenly. “I should think he’d demand a high price for giving up the chance of being able to call me — Raymond the Bastard.”
Phineas winced, and glanced at his nephew’s broad back with an expression of distaste. “Really, Raymond, must you?”
Raymond laughed mirthlessly. “Don’t you like the sound of it? Well, if you don’t, what do you think I feel about it?”
“Properly managed, there is no reason why anyone should—”
Raymond wheeled about. “God, can’t you see. Even it I could shut Jimmy’s and Martha’s mouths, I know the truth, don’t I? I’m not Penhallow of Trevellin! I’m just another of Father’s bastards! I’ve no more right here than Jimmy! Do you think I can take that thought to bed with me every night, get up with it every morning, carry it with me all through every day? No, you don’t understand! Why should you? You weren’t brought up to believe yourself Penhallow of Trevellin: it doesn’t mean a thing to you! But it means something to me! You and your land deals! What have you ever cared for the land? What have you ever known about it? I’ve never cared for anything else. Trevellin, and my name! Well, I haven’t got a name, and if I hold “Trevellin it’ll be by the courtesy of my nurse, and my fellow-bastard! I can’t stand it, I tell you!”
“My dear fellow, you’re — you’re overwrought!” Phineas said, looking frightened. “You don’t know what you’re saying! No doubt the whole affair has been too much for you. Naturally I understand how you feel, but really there is no reason for these — well, really, I must say these heroics! If you do not care to approach your nurse, I am perfectly willing to act for you, but I do feel—”
“You’ll keep your nose out of it!” Raymond said savagely. “That was one thing Father told you that was true! You’d get your damned smug face scratched open if you approached Martha, as you call it! If Father told her to keep her mouth shut, she will; if he didn’t, there’s nothing you or I can do about it, and — hell, I won’t buy my place here!”
“Of course, if you believe that your father’s wishes would influence the woman to such a great extent—”
“She was his mistress for years. Didn’t you know? Cared for him, too. I never knew why: he wasn’t any more faithful to her than to any of the rest of them.”
“Need we go into that?” said Phineas disgustedly. “I was certainly unaware of this — this extremely unsavoury relationship, and I should prefer not to discuss it. But I must point out to you that matters are very precariously poised, and you have need to behave with the greatest circumspection. If anything should — er — leak out, I feel sure I can rely on your sense of delicacy to keep my sister’s name out of it. There is really no reason why it should ever be known who your mother was, even if—”
He broke off, shrinking back instinctively in his chair for Raymond had taken a hasty step towards him with such a look of fury in his face that he thought for a moment that he was going to be assaulted.
But Raymond did not touch him. “Get out!” he said. His voice grating unpleasantly. “Get out, and take your sister with you! If you cross this threshold again, you fat hypocrite, I’ll throw you out myself?”
Phineas rose with more haste than was consonant with his dignity. “I realise that you are not yourself, Raymond. so I shall leave you. It was not my wish that my sister should have accompanied me. I was, in fact, very much against it, but her very natural feelings towards you were such that she could not rest until she had seen you.”
“I don’t want to see her! Can’t you grasp that the very sight of her makes me sick? O God, it makes me sick
