“The doctor!” exclaimed Lettie. “You haven’t been to him?”
“Seen him this afternoon,” replied Cotherstone. “Don’t alarm yourself. But that’s what he says—naught wrong, all sound, but—it’s time I rested. Rest and change—complete change. And I’ve made up my mind—I’m going to retire from business. Why not? I’m a well-to-do man—better off than most folks ’ud think. I shall tell Mallalieu tomorrow. Yes—I’m resolved on it. And that done, I shall go and travel for a year or two—I’ve always wanted to go round the world. I’ll go—that for a start, anyway. And the sooner the better, says the doctor. And—” here he looked searchingly at his listeners—“I’d like to see you settled before I go. What?”
Lettie’s calm and judicial character came out in the first words she spoke. She had listened carefully to Cotherstone; now she turned to Bent.
“Windle,” she said, as quietly as if she were asking the most casual of questions, “wouldn’t it upset all your arrangements for next year? You see, father,” she went on, turning to Cotherstone, “Windle had arranged everything. He was going to have the whole of the spring and summer away from business; we were going on the Continent for six months. And that would have to be entirely altered and—”
“We could alter it,” interrupted Bent. He was watching Cotherstone closely, and fancying that he saw a strained and eager look in his face, he decided that Cotherstone was keeping something back, and had not told them the full truth about his health.
“It’s all a matter of arrangement. I could arrange to go away during the winter, Lettie.”
“But I don’t want to travel in winter,” objected Lettie. “Besides—I’ve made all my arrangements about my gowns and things.”
“That can be arranged, too,” said Bent. “The dressmaker can work overtime.”
“That’ll mean that everything will be hurried—and spoiled,” replied Lettie. “Besides, I’ve arranged everything with my bridesmaids. They can’t be expected to—”
“We can do without bridesmaids,” replied Bent, laying his hand on Lettie’s arm. “If your father really feels that he’s got to have the rest and the change he spoke of, and wants us to be married first, why, then—”
“But there’s nothing to prevent you having a rest and a change now, father,” said Lettie. “Why not? I don’t like my arrangements to be altered—I had planned everything out so carefully. When we did fix on next spring, Windle, I had only just time as it was!”
“Pooh!” said Bent. “We could get married the day after tomorrow if we wanted! Bridesmaids—gowns—all that sort of tomfoolery, what does it matter?”
“It isn’t tomfoolery,” retorted Lettie. “If I am to be married I should like to be married properly.”
She got up, with a heightened colour and a little toss of her head, and left the room, and the two men looked at each other.
“Talk to her, my lad,” said Cotherstone at last. “Of course, girls think such a lot of—of all the accompaniments, eh?”
“Yes, yes—it’ll be all right,” replied Bent. He tapped Cotherstone’s arm and gave him a searching look. “You’re not keeping anything back—about your health, are you?” he asked.
Cotherstone glanced at the door and sank his voice to a whisper.
“It’s my heart!” he answered. “Overstrained—much overstrained, the doctor says. Rest and change—imperative! But—not a word to Lettie, Bent. Talk her round—get it arranged. I shall feel safer—you understand?”
Bent was full of good nature, and though he understood to the full—it was a natural thing, this anxiety of a father for his only child. He promised to talk seriously to Lettie at once about an early wedding. And that night he told Brereton of what had happened, and asked him if he knew how special licences can be got, and Brereton informed him of all he knew on that point—and kept silence about one which to him was becoming deeply and seriously important.
XIII
The Anonymous Letter
Within a week of that night Brereton was able to sum things up, to take stock, to put clearly before himself the position of affairs as they related to his mysterious client. They had by that time come to a clear issue: a straight course lay ahead with its ultimate stages veiled in obscurity. Harborough had again been brought up before the Highmarket magistrates, had stubbornly refused to give any definite information about his exact doings on the night of Kitely’s murder, and had been duly committed for trial on the capital charge. On the same day the coroner, after holding an inquest extending over two sittings, had similarly committed him. There was now nothing to do but to wait until the case came on at Norcaster Assizes. Fortunately, the assizes were fixed for the middle of the ensuing month: Brereton accordingly had three weeks wherein to prepare his defence—or (which would be an eminently satisfactory equivalent) to definitely fix the guilt on some other person.
Christopher Pett, as legal adviser to the murdered man, had felt it his duty to remain in Highmarket until the police proceedings and the coroner’s inquest were over. He had made himself conspicuous at both police-court and coroner’s court, putting himself forward wherever he could, asking questions wherever opportunity offered. Brereton’s dislike of him increased the more he saw of him; he specially resented Pett’s familiarity. But Pett was one of those persons who know how to combine familiarity with politeness and even servility; to watch or hear him talk to anyone whom he buttonholed was to gain a notion of his veneration for them. He might have been worshipping Brereton when he buttoned-holed the young barrister after Harborough had been finally committed to take his trial.
“Ah, he’s a lucky man, that, Mr. Brereton!” observed Pett, collaring Brereton in a corridor outside the crowded court. “Very
