“Nonsense; you serve your company, Mr. Bredon, and none of us bears you any ill-will for it. I hope, by the way, I have not been indiscreet in mentioning the subject?” he glanced for a moment at the old gentleman. “The Bishop, of course, has not mentioned the matter except to me, because he quite realizes there may be legal difficulties.”
“I can keep a secret as well as most men,” explained Pulteney. “That is to say, I have the common human vanity which makes every man like to be in possession of a secret; and perhaps less than my share of the vulgar itch for imparting information. But you know Chilthorpe little, sir, if you speak of discretion in the same four walls with Mrs. Davis. I assure you that the testamentary dispositions of the late Mr. Mottram are seldom off her lips.”
There was a fractional pause, while everybody tried to think how Mrs. Davis knew. Then they remembered that the matter had been mentioned, though only incidentally, at the inquest.
“To be sure,” said Eames. “I have met Mrs. Davis before. If it is true that confession lightens our burdens, the Load of Mischief must sit easily on her.”
“I’m so glad they haven’t changed the name of the inn,” observed Angela. “These old-fashioned names are getting so rare. And the Load of Mischief is hardly an encouraging title.”
“There used,” said Eames, “to be an inn in my old—in the parish where I lived—which was called ‘The Labour in Vain.’ I sometimes thought of it as an omen.”
“Are you of the funeral party, Mr. Pulteney?” asked Leyland, seeing the old gentleman dressed in deep black.
“There is no hiding anything from you detectives. Yes, I have promised myself the rustic treat of a funeral. In the scholastic profession such thrills are rare; they make us retire at sixty nowadays. My lot is cast amidst the young; I see ever fresh generations succeeding to the old, filling up the gaps in the ranks of humanity; and I confess that when one sees the specimens one sometimes doubts whether the process is worth while. But do not let me cast a gloom over our convivialities. Let us eat and drink, Mrs. Davis’s ‘shape’ seems to say to us, for tomorrow we die.”
“I hope I oughtn’t to have gone,” said Angela. “I’d have brought my blacks if I’d thought of it.”
“Without them, you would be a glaring offence against village etiquette. No, Mrs. Bredon, your presence would not be expected. The company needs no representatives at the funeral; more practical, it sheds golden tears over the coffin. For the rest of us it is different. Mr. Eames pays a last tribute to his diocesan benefactor. Mr. Brinkman, like a good secretary, must despatch the material envelope to its permanent address. For myself, what am I? A fellow wayfarer in an inn; and yet what more is any of us in this brief world? No, Mrs. Bredon, you are exempt.”
“Oh, do stop him,” said Angela. “How did you come down, Mr. Eames?”
“By the midday train, a funeral pageant in itself. Was Mr. Mottram much known in the neighbourhood?”
“He is now,” replied Mr. Pulteney, with irrepressible ghoulishness. “The victim of sudden death is like a diver; no instinct of decency withholds us from watching his taking-off.”
“I don’t think he had any near relations living,” said Brinkman, “except young Simmonds. He’ll be there, I suppose; but there wasn’t much love lost between them. He will hardly be interested, anyhow, in the reading of the will.”
“By the way, Mr. Brinkman, His Lordship asked me to say that you will be very welcome at the Cathedral house, if you are detained in Pullford at all.”
“It is extremely kind of him. But I had wound up all Mr. Mottram’s outstanding affairs before he came away for his holiday, and I don’t suppose I shall be needed. I was thinking of going up to London in a day or two. I have to shift for myself, you see.”
“Have some coffee, Eames,” suggested Bredon; “you must need it after a tiring journey like that.”
“Thanks, I think I will. Not that I’m tired, really. It makes so much difference on the railway if you are occupied.”
“You don’t mean to say you are one of those fortunate creatures who can work in railway trains?”
“No, not work. I played patience all the way.”
“Patience? Did I hear you say patience? Ah, but you only brought one pack, of course.”
“No, I always travel with two.”
“Two? And Mr. Pulteney has two! Angela, that settles it! This afternoon I shall have a game.”
“Miles, dear, not the game? You know you can’t play that and think of anything else at the same time. Mr. Eames, would you mind dropping your packs in the river? You see, it’s so bad for my husband; he sits down to an interminable game of patience, and forgets all about his work and everything.”
“You don’t understand, Angela; it clears the brain. When you’ve been puzzled over a thing, as I have been over this question of suicide, your brains get all stale and used up, and you must give them a fresh start. A game of patience will just do the trick. No, no milk, thanks. Would you tell Mrs. Davis”—this was to the barmaid—“that I shall be very busy all the latter part of this afternoon, and mustn’t be disturbed on any account? It’s all right, Angela; I’ll give you half an hour now to remonstrate with me, but it won’t be any use.”
It was not, as a matter of fact, till after the funeral party had left, and the coffin been removed, that Miles and Angela foregathered. They went to the old mill-house, feeling that it would be a safe place for confidences now that Brinkman was otherwise engaged. “Well,”
