'Looks like it, doesn't it?' she smiled, though inwardly she was cursing the arrival of another person to whom explanations would have to be made. 'Aunt Agatha simply sagged when she saw me.'
'I should think so!' said Algy. 'What happened to the eggs? Tell me about it.'
'But what have you come here in such a flurry for?' she countered.
Mr. Lomas-Coper gaped, groping feebly in the air. 'But haven't you heard? Of course not — I forgot to tell you. You know we're next door to old Bittle? Well, there's been no end of a shindy. Lots of energetic souls whooflin' round the garden, yellin' blue murder, an' all Bittle's pack of.man-eatin' hounds howlin' their heads off. So old Algy goes canterin' round for news, thinks of you, and comes rampin' along to see if you've heard anything about it an' find out if you'd like to totter along to the Chateau Bittle an' join in the game. And here you are, lookin' as if you'd been in the thick of it yourself. Doocid priceless! Eh? What? What?'
He beamed, full of an impartial good humour, and not at all abashed by the unenthusiastic reception of his brilliance. Miss Girton stood over by the settee, lighting a fresh gasper from the wilting stump of the last, a rugged and gaunt and inscrutable woman. Patricia was suddenly glad of the arrival of Algy. Although a fool, he was a friend: as a fool, he would be easily put off with any facile explanation of her dishevelment, and as a friend he was an unlooked-for straw to be caught at in the turmoil that had flooded the girl's life that night.
'Sit down, Algy,' she pleaded tolerantly. 'And for Heaven's sake don't stare at me like that. There's nothing wrong.'
Algernon sat down and stopped staring, as commanded, but it was more difficult to control his excited loquacity.
'I'm all of a dither,' he confessed superfluously. 'I don't know whether I'm hoofin' it on the old Gibus or the old Dripeds, sort of style, y'know.'
Patricia looked at her watch. It was twenty past eleven. That meant half an hour to go before she could appeal to Carn. Why Carn? — she wondered. But Algy was still babbling on.
'Abso-jolly-old-uutely, all of a doodah. It's shockin'. I always thought the Merchant Prince was too good to be true, an' here he is comin' out into the comic limelight as a sort of what not. I could have told you so.'
'Aren't you rather jumping to conclusions?' asked Patricia gently, and Algy's mouth dropped open.
'But haven't you been lookin' up the grocery trade?'
She shook her head.
'I haven't been near the place. I went out for a walk and missed the edge of the cliff in the dark. Luckily I didn't fall far — there was a ledge — but I had a stiff climb getting back.'
He collapsed like a marionette with the strings cut.
'And you haven't been fightin' off the advances of a madman? No leerin' lunatic tryin' to rob you of life and/or honour?'
'Of course not.'
; 'Oo-er!' The revelation was too much for Mr. Lomas-Coper — one might almost have thought that he was disappointed at the swift shattering of his lurid hypothesis. 'Put the old tootsy into it, haven't I? What? ... I'd better be wobblin' home. Stammerin' out his apologies, the wretched young man took his hat, his leave, and his life.'
She caught his sleeve and pulled him back.
'Do be sensible,' she begged. 'Was your uncle worried?'
'Nothing ever moves the old boy,' said Algy. 'He just takes a swig at the barleywater and says it reminds him of Blitzensfontein or something. Unsympathetic, I call it.
The girl's mind could give only a superficial at-tention to Algy's prattle. She had not known that the noise had been great enough to rouse the neighbourhood, and she wondered how that would affect the Saint's obscure plans. On the other hand, Bittle would hardly dare go to extremes while she was at large and could testify to some of the events of the evening, and while other people's curiosity had been aroused by the resultant hullabaloo. Then she remembered that Bittle's house and Bloem's stood some distance apart from the others, and it was doubtful whether enough of the din could have been heard outside to attract the notice of Sir Michael Lapping or the two retired CiviI Servants — whose bungalows were the next nearest. But Bloem and Algy knew, and their knowledge might save the Saint.
Miss Girton, who had been holding aloof for some time, suddenly said:
'What's the fuss about, anyhow?'
'Oh, a noise....' Algy, abashed, was unwont-ediy reticent, and seemed to want nothing more than the early termination of the discussion. He fidgeted, polishing his monocle industriously. 'Sir John Bittle kind of giving a rough party, don't you know.'
'I think we've had quite enough nonsense for one evening,' remarked Agatha Girton. 'Everyone's a bundle of nerves. Is there any need for all this excitement?'
She herself had lost her usual sangfroid. Under the mask of grim disapproval she was badly shaken — Patricia saw the slight trembling of the big rough hand that held the limp cigarette.
'Right as per,' agreed Algy weakly. 'Sorry, Aunt Agatha.'
Miss Girton was absurdly pettish.
'I decline to adopt you as a nephew, Mr. Lomas-Coper.'
'Sorry, Aunt — Miss Girton. I'll tool along.'
Patricia smiled and patted his hand as she said good-bye, but the ordinarily super-effervescent Algy had gone off the boil. He contrived a sickly smile, but he was clearly glad of an excuse to leave the scene of his
' 'Come and see us to-morrow,' invited Patricia, and he nodded.
'Most frightfully sorry, and all that rot,” he said. 'I never did have much of a brain, anyway. Let me know if there's anything I can do, or anything, y'know. What? Cheer-tiddly-ho!'
He offered a hand to Miss Girton, but she looked down her nose at it and turned away
'Honk-honk!' said Algy feebly, and departed.
They heard the front door close with a click, and were impressed with Mr. Lomas-Coper's humility. Among his more normal habits was that of slamming doors with a mighty bang.
'You were very hard on Algy,' said Patricia resentfully.
'I can't be bothered with the fool,' responded Miss Girton brusquely. 'Thank Heavens he swallowed that wild yarn of yours about falling off a cliff. If he'd had any brains, the whole village would have been talking, about you to-morrow. Now, what's the truth?'
Patricia looked at her watch again. The time was crawling. Eleven-thirty. She looked upland responded;
'That yarn's as good as another.'
'Not for me.' Agatha Girton came and stood over the girl. She looked very forbidding and masculine at that moment, and Patricia had a fleeting qualm of fear. 'What happened at Bittle's?'
'Oh, nothing. ... He told me that the only way to save you was for me to marry him.'
'Did he?' said Miss Girton harshly. The swine!'
'Aunt Agatha!'
'You make me sick! He is a swine — why shouldn't I say so? And with an adjective, if I choose. Why didn't you tell him so yourself? What did you say?'
'I — ' Patricia pulled herself up. The Saint's volcanic arrival had ended the discussion somewhat abruptly. 'I didn't know what to say,' answered Patricia truthfully.
Miss Girton glowered down at the girl.
'And then he got fresh?'
'Not — not exactly. You see — '
'Then who did?'
Patricia covered her eyes.
'Oh, leave me alone! Tell me how you got into his debt.'
'There's nothing much to tell,' replied Agatha Girton coldly. 'When Bittle first came, and was trying to get into Baycombe society, nobody returned his calls. Then he called on me and insisted on seeing me — I suppose because he thought the Manor had the most influence. He knew I was hard up — I don't know how — and if I helped him he'd help me. It was my only way out. I agreed. You know he's been here several times, but even then I couldn't make anyone else take him up, although he didn't seem at all uneducated and behaved perfectly. They're
