'Perhaps. I don't know…'
Norton said quietly:
'A lot of people would agree with you in theory. But practice is a different matter.'
'That's not logical.'
Norton said impatiently:
'Of course it's not. It's really a question of courage. One just hasn't got the guts – to put it vulgarly.'
Judith was silent. Norton went on:
'Frankly, you know, Judith, you'd be just the same yourself. You wouldn't have the courage when it came to it.'
'Don't you think so?'
'I'm sure of it.'
'I think you're wrong, Norton,' said Boyd Carrington. 'I think Judith has any amount of courage. Fortunately the issue doesn't often present itself.'
The gong sounded from the house.
Judith got up.
She said very distinctly to Norton:
'You're wrong, you know. I've got more – more guts than you think.'
She went swiftly towards the house. Boyd Carrington followed her, saying:
'Hey, wait for me, Judith.'
I followed, feeling for some reason rather dismayed. Norton, who was always quick to sense a mood, endeavoured to console me.
'She doesn't mean it, you know,' he said. 'It's the sort of half-baked idea one has when one is young – but fortunately one doesn't carry it out. It remains just talk.'
I think Judith overheard, for she cast a furious glance over her shoulder.
Norton dropped his voice.
'Theories needn't worry anybody,' he said. 'But look here, Hastings -'
'Yes?'
Norton seemed rather embarrassed. He said:
'I don't want to butt in, but what do you know of Allerton?'
'Of Allerton?'
'Yes, sorry if I'm being a Nosy Parker, but frankly – if I were you, I shouldn't let that girl of yours see too much of him. He's – well, his reputation isn't very good.'
'I can see for myself the sort of rotter he is,' I said bitterly. 'But it's not so easy in these days.'
'Oh, I know. Girls can look after themselves, as the saying goes. Most of them can, too. But – well – Allerton has rather a special technique in that line.'
He hesitated, then said:
'Look here, I feel I ought to tell you. Don't let it go further, of course – but I do happen to know something pretty foul about him.'
He told it me then and there – and I was able to verify it in every detail later. It was a revolting tale. The story of a girl, sure of herself, modern, independent. Allerton had brought all his 'technique' to bear upon her. Later had come the other side of the picture – the story ended with a desperate girl taking her own life with an overdose of Veronal.
And the horrible part was that the girl in question had been of much the same type as Judith – the independent highbrow kind. The kind of girl who when she does lose her heart, loses it with a desperation and an abandonment that the silly little fluffy type can never know.
I went in to lunch with a horrible sense of foreboding.
Chapter 12
I
'Is anything worrying you, mon ami?' asked Poirot that afternoon.
I did not answer, merely shook my head. I felt that I had no right to burden Poirot with this, my purely personal problem. It was not as though he could help in any way.
Judith would have treated any remonstrances on his part with the smiling detachment of the young towards the boring counsels of the old.
Judith, my Judith…
It is hard now to describe just what I went through that day. Afterwards, thinking it over, I am inclined to put something down to the atmosphere of Styles itself. Evil imaginings came easily to the mind there. There was, too, not only the past, but a sinister present. The shadow of murder and a murderer haunted the house.
And to the best of my belief the murderer was Allerton, and Judith was losing her heart to him! It was all unbelievable – monstrous – and I didn't know what to do.
It was after lunch that Boyd Carrington drew me aside. He hemmed and hawed a bit before coming to the point. At last he said rather jerkily:
'Don't think I'm interfering, but I think you ought to speak to that girl of yours. Give her a word of warning – eh? You know this fellow Allerton – reputation's pretty bad, and she – well, it looks rather like a case.'
So easy for these men without children to speak like that! Give her a word of warning?
Would it be any use? Would it make things worse?
If only Cinders were here. She would know what to do – what to say.
I was tempted, I admit, to hold my peace and say nothing. But I reflected after a while that this was really only cowardice. I shrank from the unpleasantness of having things out with Judith. I was, you see, afraid of my tall, beautiful daughter.
I paced up and down the gardens in increasing agitation of mind. My footsteps led me at last to the rose garden, and there, as it were, the decision was taken out of my hands, for Judith was sitting on a seat alone, and in all my life I have never seen an expression of greater unhappiness on any woman's face.
The mask was off. Indecision and deep unhappiness showed only too plainly.
I took my courage in my hands. I went to her. She did not hear me until I was beside her.
'Judith,' I said. 'For God's sake, Judith, don't mind so much.'
She turned on me, startled.
'Father? I didn't hear you.'
I went on, knowing that it would be fatal if she managed to turn me back to normal everyday conversation.
'Oh, my dearest child, don't think I don't know, that I can't see. He isn't worth it – oh, do believe me, he isn't worth it.'
Her face, troubled, alarmed, was turned towards me. She said quietly:
'Do you think you really know what you are talking about?'
'I do know. You care about this man, But, my dear, it's no good.'
She smiled sombrely. A heartbreaking smile.
'Perhaps I know that as well as you do.'
'You don't. You can't. Oh, Judith, what can come of it all? He's a married man. There can be no future there for you – only sorrow and shame – and all ending in bitter self-loathing.'
Her smile grew wider – even more sorrowful.
'How fluently you talk, don't you?'
'Give it up, Judith – give it all up.'
'No!'
