Cakes and Ale

very much to heart. Fortunately he’s done nothing rash.” She turned to me. “As soon as Mr. Newton told us about it I went round to Limpus Road. Edward was out, but the maid said he’d only just gone; that means that he must have gone home between the time he ran away from Allgood and this morning. You’ll wonder why I asked you to come and see me.”

I did not answer. I waited for her to go on.

“It was at Blackstable you first knew the Driffields, wasn’t it? You can tell us who is this Lord George Kemp. Edward said he was a Blackstable man.”

“He’s middle-aged. He’s got a wife and two sons. They’re as old as I am.”

“But I don’t understand who he can be. I can’t find him either in Who’s Who or in Debrett.”

I almost laughed.

“Oh, he’s not really a lord. He’s the local coal merchant. They call him Lord George at Blackstable because he’s so grand. It’s just a joke.”

“The quiddity of bucolic humour is often a trifle obscure to the uninitiated,” said Allgood Newton.

“We must all help dear Edward in every way we can,” said Mrs. Barton Trafford. Her eyes rested on me thoughtfully. “If Kemp has run away with Rosie Driffield he must have left his wife.”

“I suppose so,” I replied.

“Will you do something very kind?”

“If I can.”

“Will you go down to Blackstable and find out exactly what has happened? I think we ought to get in touch with the wife.”

I have never been very fond of interfering in other people’s affairs.

“I don’t know how I could do that,” I answered.

“Couldn’t you see her?”

“No, I couldn’t.”

If Mrs. Barton Trafford thought my reply blunt she did not show it. She smiled a little.

“At all events that can be left over. The urgent thing is to go down and find out about Kemp. I shall try to see Edward this evening. I can’t bear the thought of his staying on in that odious house by himself. Barton and I have made up our minds to bring him here. We have a spare room and I’ll arrange it so that he can work there. Don’t you agree that that would be the best thing for him, Allgood?”

“Absolutely.”

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t stay here indefinitely, at all events for a few weeks, and then he can come away with us in the summer. We’re going to Brittany. I’m sure he’d like that. It would be a thorough change for him.”

“The immediate question,” said Barton Trafford, fixing on me an eye nearly as kindly as his wife’s, “is whether this young sawbones will go to Blackstable and find out what he can. We must know where we are. That is essential.”

Barton Trafford excused his interest in arch?ology by a hearty manner and a jocose, even slangy way of speech.

“He couldn’t refuse,” said his wife, giving me a soft, appealing glance. “You won’t refuse, will you? It’s so important and you’re the only person who can help us.”

Of course she did not know that I was as anxious to find out what had happened as she; she could not tell what a bitter jealous pain stabbed my heart.

“I couldn’t possibly get away from the hospital before Saturday,” I said.

“That’ll do. It’s very good of you. All Edward’s friends will be grateful to you. When shall you return?”

“I have to be back in London early on Monday morning.”

“Then come and have tea with me in the afternoon. I shall await you with impatience. Thank God, that’s settled. Now I must try and get hold of Edward.”

I understood that I was dismissed. Allgood Newton took his leave and came downstairs with me.

“Our Isabel has un petit air of Catherine of Aragon to-day that I find vastly becoming,” he murmured when the door was closed behind us. “This is a golden opportunity and I think we may safely trust our friend not to miss it. A charming woman with a heart of gold. Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee.”

I did not understand what he meant, for what I have already told the reader about Mrs. Barton Trafford I only learned much later, but I realized that he was saying something vaguely malicious about her, and probably amusing, so I sniggered.

“I suppose your youth inclines you to what my good Dizzy named in an unlucky moment the gondola of London.”

“I’m going to take a bus,” I answered.

“Oh? Had you proposed to go by hansom I was going to ask you to be good enough to drop me on your way, but if you are going to use the homely conveyance which I in my old-fashioned manner still prefer to call an omnibus, I shall hoist my unwieldy carcase into a four-wheeler.”

He signalled to one and gave me two flabby fingers to shake.