Chapter XII
TEA WITH LAPPING
Agatha Girton had not appeared at breakfast that morning, and when Patricia returned home to buckle into the task that the Saint had intrusted to her the. housekeeper told her that the lady had gone out for a walk directly after lunch without saying when she might be expected back. Miss Girton often went for long tramps over the surrounding country, swinging a heavy stick and stepping out with the long, tireless stride of a veteran. In the light of her recently acquired knowledge, Patricia now realized that Miss Girton had been growing more and more grim and taciturn of late, and that concurrently with the beginning of this moodiness those walks had been growing more protracted and more frequent. The girl saw in this the evidence of Agatha Girton's increasing anxiety — the woman was so masculine in all things that she might be expected, in the circumstances, to fall back on the typically masculine relief of strenuous physical effort to aid mental work and at the same time to gain some peace of mind through sheer fatigue.
But, though there was nothing astonishing or alarming in Agatha Girton's hike, it was annoying because it prevented Patricia from carrying out her first promise to the Saint. Miss Girton might well stay out until dinner time, and then it would be too late to start any controversy, with the big appointment hanging in the background. However, that couldn't be cured, so the only thing to do was to get busy on the next specimen.
Patricia found Lapping pottering about in his garden, arrayed in stained tweeds, coatless, bare-armed, with an ancient felt hat on the back of his head. He looked a picture of healthy rustic late middle age, and the expansive good humour with which he greeted her was in keeping with his appearance.
'My dear Miss Holm! We haven't seen anything of you for far too long. How are you?
'Splendid,' she told him. 'And you're looking younger than ever.'
He shook his head with a whimsical smile.
'Flattery, my dear, base flattery. I'm an old man, and youth belongs to youth.' He peered quizzically at her in his short-sighted fashion. 'What chance have I got for your favour against that dashing young hero of the Pill Box? No, you must leave me to my years.'
'But I want to talk to you, Sir Michael,' she said, smiling back. 'Can't I even come inside the gate?'
'Temptress!' he teased. 'You're a witch — but I'm too old and dusty to be vamped even by you.'
But he threw down the trowel, wiped his hands on his trousers, and opened the gate for her. It was not a strain to take the Saint's advice and treat Lapping as a sort of honorary uncle. His manner invited it. He was one of those rare and lovable neuters, of kindly wisdom and broad human sympathies, who are invariably adopted as honorary uncles by such sweet young things as Patricia. He had never married — perhaps because he was too essentially safe and comfortable and tolerant for any woman to choose him as a partner in such a wild adventure as matrimony.
'And when do we congratulate you?' he asked, pursuing the ro1e of his privilege. 'There could hardly be a better match — young Templar's exciting enough to make any maiden heart beat faster.'
It was no less than she could have wished. He saved her the trouble of leading up to the subject.
'I was just going to ask you what you thought of it,' she remarked.
'Then may I first make the conventional felicitations?'
'Not yet. I came to ask your opinion to help me decide.'
'But surely your aunt is the proper person — '
'I've already asked her. Now I want your advice as well.'
He tilted the battered Trilby farther over his ear.
'This is a horrible responsibility to have thrust upon one,' he complained. 'Even the aged and presumably wise have been known to err in their verdicts upon the rising generation. Still, if you insist.... Well, the first objection you must face is that every other woman he meets will want to take him away from you. Dark, dare-devil, romantic fire-eaters like him are scarce these days, and the few there are can take their pick. Not that I don't thoroughly agree with his choice. But — '
'Perhaps,' she suggested sweetly, 'there might be a quite averagely nice man who would want to take me away from Mr. Templar. I don't want to seem conceited, but you can't have it all
He stared, then laughed.
'That's a point of view,' he admitted.
'Now let's go and sit in the shade and be serious,' she pleaded. 'And just when we're nearly coming to blows you can give me some tea and I shall collapse.''
They walked over to a couple of wicker chairs that stood under a tree at the side of the house.
'Are you really serious?' he questioned as they settled themselves.
She nodded.
'Absolutely. And you're so old and clever I'm sure you can help.'
He grimaced.
'You needn't rub in the patriarchal part,' he said, 'though I admit it myself. But you may spread yourself on the subject of my first-class brain. And what am I to say? I know less about young Templar than you do.'
'People say all sorts of things about him.'
Lapping looked reproachful.
'Was there ever a village that didn't say all sorts of things about inhabitants who weren't utterly commonplace — and rumours even spring up about the most prosaic people.'
She shook her head.
'It isn't all rumour,' she said.
Then, as Simon had recommended, she told the whole story of the previous night's events, omitting very little. She told him about Bittle's amazing announcement and untimatum, and about Agatha Girton's confirmation of the millionaire's statement. She dwelt at length on the Saint's irregular behaviour, and on the curious incident at Carn's. But she did not mention the Saint's parting warning.
He listened attentively. Watching his face, she saw only a slight smile, as of a mellowed elder making allowances for the irresponsibility and supercharged imagination of youth, and that comprehensive tolerance hardly changed as she piled mystery upon mystery and thrill upon thrill. But for the warning which the Saint had drilled into her, to trust nobody, she would have accepted Lapping as honorary uncle in all sincerity, without hesitation. It was almost impossible to believe that this congenial, simple-minded, clean-looking man could be an associate of the Tiger's — but then, it was almost as hard to realize that he possessed one of the keenest legal brains of his day, and that those pleasant brown features had assumed the inexorable mask of Justice and the same lips that smiled so avuncularly now had pronounced sentence of death upon many men.
Presently her recital was finished, and she was waiting for his response. He pulled a flowery bandanna from his pocket and blew his nose loudly, and then he turned to her with twinkling gray eyes.
'It's certainly got the makings of a good story,' he confessed calmly.
'But it happened!' she insisted. 'All in a few hours, last night. Surely you must see that there's something queer in the wind? There's some foundation to those rumours, but there's always the chance that the gossips have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you think Mr. Templar's a detective?'
He shrugged,
'Who am I to say? Do detectives behave like that except in detective stories?'
She played crestfallen, looking at him appealingly.
'You must know a lot about detectives, and if you say they don't, then I suppose he's a crook. But I can't believe that!'
'If a crook couldn't convince people that he was honest,' Lapping pointed out, 'he'd have to give up the game and go into the workhouse.'
'But Mr. Templar's different.'
'They always are,' said Lapping cynically.
But a mocking spray of wrinkles remained creased up at the corners of his eyes, and his mouth was still half smiling. That wasn't the way a man who wanted to blacken another in the eyes of an infatuated girl would go about it. She challenged him.
