Miss Fordingbridge seemed slightly mollified by this concession on her brother’s part; but she stuck to her main point.
“Well, you can’t let Foxhills in any case. I won’t have it!”
But apparently her brother had wearied of argument, for he made no reply.
“I shall be going up to Foxhills some time today. I always go up to dust Derek’s rooms, you know,” she continued.
“What on earth do you do that for?” her brother demanded in an exasperated tone. “Are you training for a housemaid’s place? I hear there’s a shortage in that line, but you hardly seem to be a useful kind of recruit, Jay.”
“I’ve always looked after Derek’s rooms. When he was here at Foxhills in the old days, I never allowed anyone to lay a finger on his study. I knew just how he liked his things kept, and I wouldn’t have maids fussing round, displacing everything.”
“Oh, of course you doted on the boy,” her brother retorted. “But it seems a bit unnecessary at this time of day.”
“Unnecessary? Just when Derek has come back?”
Paul Fordingbridge made no attempt to conceal his gesture of annoyance; but he refrained from reopening the sore subject.
“Well, if you come across Peter, you can send him down to me. I haven’t seen him since we came here, and I may as well have a talk about things. Probably there are one or two repairs that need considering. Perhaps you could go round by his cottage and make sure of getting hold of him.”
Miss Fordingbridge nodded her assent.
“I’ll be quite glad to have a talk with Peter. He’ll be so delighted to know that Derek’s back at last. It was only the other day that we were talking about Derek together. Peter thinks there’s no one like him.”
“All the more reason for saying nothing, then. If it turns out that it isn’t Derek, it would disappoint Peter badly if you’d raised his hopes.”
Then, seeing that his scepticism had again roused his sister’s temper, he added hastily:
“By the way, how’s Peter keeping? Has he had any more of these turns of his—apoplexy, wasn’t it?”
“He seemed to be quite well when I saw him the other day. Of course, he’s got to be careful and not excite himself; but he seemed to me as if he’d quite got over the slight attack he’d had in the spring.”
“Still got his old squirrel?”
“It’s still there. And the rest of the menagerie too. He insisted on showing me them all, and of course I had to pretend to be frightfully interested. Poor old man, they’re all he has now, since his wife died. It would be very lonely for him up there, with no one within a mile of him. His birds and things are great company for him, he says.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed relieved that the conversation was edging away from the dangerous subject. He led it still further out of the zone.
“Have you see Cressida and Stanley this morning? They’d finished breakfast and gone out before I came on the scene.”
“I think they were going to play golf. They ought to be back presently.”
She went to the window and gazed out for a moment or two without speaking. Her brother took up The Times and resumed his study of the share market, with evident relief.
“This hotel spoils Lynden Sands,” Miss Fordingbridge broke out after a short silence. “It comes right into the view from the front of Foxhills—great staring building! And, wherever you go along the bay, you see this monstrosity glaring in the middle of the view. It’ll ruin the place. And it’ll give the villagers all sorts of notions, too. Visitors always spoil a small village.”
Her brother made no reply, and when she halted in her complaints he rustled his newspaper clumsily in an obvious effort to discourage further conversation. Just then a knock at the door was heard.
“Come in!” Miss Fordingbridge ordered.
A pageboy appeared.
“Message on the telephone for you, sir.”
Paul Fordingbridge rose reluctantly and left the room. He was absent for a very short time; and when he came back his sister could see that he was disturbed.
“That was a message from the doctor. It seems poor old Peter’s gone.”
“Gone? Do you mean anything’s happened to him?”
“He’s had another attack—some time in the night or earlier. They didn’t find out about it until the morning. The doctor’s just been up at the cottage, so there’s no doubt about it.”
“Poor Peter! He looked so well when I saw him the other day. One would have thought he’d live to see eighty. This will be a dreadful disappointment for Derek. He was so fond of the old man.”
She paused for a moment, as though she could hardly believe the news.
“Are you sure there’s no mistake, Paul?”
“None whatever. It was the doctor himself who rang up. Peter had no relations, you know, so naturally we’ll need to look after things. He served us well, Jay.”
“I remember when he came to Foxhills, and that’s years and years ago. The place won’t seem quite the same without him. Did the doctor tell you anything about it, Paul?”
“No details. He just rung up to let us know, he said, as we seemed to be the only people who had any real connection with the old boy. Now I come to think of it, that sawbones seemed a bit stuffy over something. A bit abrupt in his manner over the phone. He’s a new man, apparently. I didn’t know his name. Perhaps that was what put him out.”
II
A Bus-Driver’s Holiday
Sir Clinton Driffield, after a careful examination of the lie, deliberately put down a long putt on the last green of the
