Sir Clinton’s face showed that he agreed with this reading.
“There’s one point that hasn’t come out, though,” he said. “What’s the meaning of this sudden collapse on your part? If your conscience is clear—and I don’t doubt your account of it—why do you throw up the sponge like this? That’s not very clear.”
Stenness’s face showed that Sir Clinton had touched him on the raw. He had some difficulty with his voice as he replied.
“I may as well put all the cards on the table. You know what Miss Hawkhurst was like? Any man might have fallen in love with her. I did, at any rate.”
“Were you engaged?”
“No. I’ve got some sort of pride, even if I am a forger. Miss Hawkhurst had an income of her own. What had I? Nothing. Anyone might have supposed I was after her money.”
“Hardly the money alone, surely—Miss Hawkhurst herself would account for the attraction without that.”
“Well, I’m not that sort,” said Stenness, abruptly. “I’m not the kind of man who can live on his wife’s money. I can’t explain it. It is so.”
“Your conscience is a rum contrivance,” Sir Clinton commented, not unkindly.
“It’s in good working order, at any rate,” Stenness retorted. “Now, isn’t the thing clear enough to you? I meant to recover my money, clear out, work hard and make enough for my purposes. I reckoned that a couple of years would do it, if I took risks. And before I went, I was going to take the biggest risk of all. I was going to tell Sylvia the whole story and see what she had to say.”
Sir Clinton could not repress his surprise.
“You’re a rum card, Stenness. Be thankful I’ve had a large experience of liars and know when a man’s speaking the truth; for that yarn wouldn’t be believed by one person in a hundred.”
“It’s the truth for all that,” returned Stenness, doggedly. “I’ve told you before that I see nothing wrong in what I’ve done—nothing morally wrong, I mean. He swindled me. I take my money back again. What’s wrong in that?”
“I wish I had your simple way of looking at things.”
Sir Clinton sat in silence for a few moments, evidently pondering over the case.
“You’re a problem, Stenness,” he said at last. “I don’t really know what to do with you.”
“Oh, arrest me!” Stenness exclaimed, bitterly. “Nothing matters now. She’s dead. It’s all over; and I don’t much care what happens.”
“Pull yourself together, man,” said Sir Clinton, curtly. “That sort of chatter does all right on the stage. Nobody with a backbone takes a knock like that. If you wake up three years hence in a prison cell, you’ll look at things in a different light, and be very fed-up that you’ve lost your liberty as well as other things. Some things are inevitable. Others aren’t. Don’t behave like a child.”
Stenness took the rebuke sullenly.
“Well, what does it matter?” he demanded. “You have enough in your hands to convict me if you want to—and I don’t care. Do as you like. I’ll write it out for you now, if you think it’ll save you trouble. I’m not inclined to wriggle at the last moment.”
Sir Clinton gave no sign that he had heard him. Instead, he seemed engrossed on some problem. At last he lifted his head.
“I can’t follow that intricate conscience of yours, Stenness. It’s beyond me. But I can sympathise to some extent with your analogy of the pickpocket caught red-handed. That was very apt. I’m going to give you a chance. I know well enough that you’re speaking the truth about this business. Besides, I can get it checked if necessary. On the basis of ethics, I think you’ve some right to the money. You have it here in notes, I suppose?”
“It’s upstairs.”
“Very well. Bring it down. Put it in the safe. Seal it up in an envelope with your name on it before putting it away. I’ll see what’s to be done about it tomorrow. Now, do that at once. Don’t argue.”
“The money means nothing much to me now,” said Stenness angrily.
“Then hand it back to the people it legally belongs to,” Sir Clinton said coolly. “If you don’t want it, other people may have a use for it. It’s a fair test of all that high falutin’ stuff you laid off a minute or two ago.”
Stenness made no reply, but rose and went towards the door.
“Oh, just another thing, Stenness. Meet me at the front of the house here at … at. … Have you a timetable?”
Stenness produced the A.B.C. from a shelf and Sir Clinton turned over its pages before continuing.
“The first train’s at 7:10 a.m.,” he said. “Meet me out at the house-door at half-past six sharp tomorrow morning. Now don’t fail!”
Stenness was plainly bewildered, and in his astonishment he gave a grudging assent.
“That’ll do, then,” Sir Clinton went on. “Just put that cash in the safe, now. And, by the by, send Ardsley to me as you go out.”
Stenness nodded dully and moved towards the door. Now that he had made a clean breast of things, his mind seemed to have gone back to his loss; and his whole bearing was eloquent of his utter despair. Sir Clinton watched him leave the room.
“A tough bullet for the poor devil to bite on,” he thought to himself. “Well, ‘joy cometh in the morning,’ it says somewhere or other. Perhaps he’ll find it so.”
He lit a fresh cigarette and seemed
