He spoke lightly; but Joan took what he said very seriously indeed. “My dear Bob,” she said. “This is positively awful. But why ever should anyone think you—had anything to do with it?”
“Oh, just because I failed to give a ‘satisfactory explanation’—I think that is what they call it—of my movements on Tuesday night. You know I walked home after dinner. Well, I wandered round a bit and didn’t get home till midnight. So they argue that I had plenty of time to kill half a dozen people, and insist that I must either prove an alibi—or take the consequences. What do you say? Do you think I did it?”
“My dear Bob, don’t joke about it. It’s far too serious, if the police are going to drag you into this terrible business.”
“No, really, it isn’t serious at all—now at any rate. I am in a position, fortunately, to produce a conclusive alibi. You see, I wasn’t alone, and I’ve found the chap who was with me most of the time, and sent him round to Scotland Yard to tell them it’s all right. I expect the gentleman with the boots will be out of a job before long.”
“You’re sure it’s really all right?”
“Of course it is, or I shouldn’t have said a word about it. And I dare say what you have heard about the police suspecting old Walter isn’t a bit more serious.”
“Oh, but it is. From their point of view, I’m afraid they have a very strong case.” And Joan told him all that she knew—both what she had heard about Charis Lang from Marian Brooklyn, and what Carter Woodman had told her. Finally, she told Ellery that she had made up her mind to go at once to her stepfather, and try to make him tell her the truth.
As Joan told her story, Ellery could not help saying to himself that it looked bad for old Walter. He did not know Walter Brooklyn very well; but all he did know was unfavourable, and he had never heard anyone—even Joan herself—say a good word for him. Left to his own reflections, Ellery would not have hesitated to suspect Walter Brooklyn of murder; for he realised at once that the wicked uncle had everything to gain by putting his two nephews out of the way. But Joan knew the man, and he did not; and, if Joan was positive, that was good enough for him. He was so completely under her influence that the idea that Walter Brooklyn was guilty was dismissed almost as soon as it was entertained. Ellery would make it his business to get Walter Brooklyn cleared—he would work for the old beast with the feeling that he was working for Joan himself. Entering at once into Joan’s plan, he applauded her determination to go and see her stepfather, and placed himself unreservedly at her service.
“You’re a dear,” she said.
While they had been discussing Walter Brooklyn’s story, Ellery’s embarrassment had quite left him; but these words of Joan’s, and her look as she spoke them, brought it back in double force. He felt the blood rushing to his head, and became uncomfortably aware that he was going red in the face. Also, he could not take his eyes off Joan, and somehow it seemed that she could not take her eyes off him. They gazed at each other, with something of fear and something of embarrassment in their looks, and each was conscious of a heart beating more and more insistently within. For at least a minute neither of them spoke. Then Ellery said one word and put out his hand towards her. “Joan,” he said, and his voice sounded to him strange and unreal. He felt her hand grasp his, almost fiercely, and an acute sensation—it has no name—ran right through him at the touch. In an instant, her head was on his shoulder and his arms were round her. She was sobbing, and his cheek was caressing hers. “Poor darling,” he said at last.
Joan had meant that talk with Robert Ellery to be so practical, so entirely the opening of a business partnership. She and Bob were to clear her stepfather together; and, when they had done that, who knew what might come after? But there was to be no intrusion of sentiment until the work in hand was completed. In the event, things had not gone off at all as she intended. From the moment of his coming, she had felt a sense of danger—something poignant, yet intensely welcome—in their meeting. This feeling had been dispelled for the time while she told him her tale, and she had half said to herself that now she was safe. Then, in a moment, security had vanished, the sense of tension had come back far more strongly than before, she had felt herself merely a passive thing—as he was another passive thing—in the control of great elemental forces beyond herself. Without a word said, it seemed, a marriage had been arranged.
There was, indeed, no need for words between them on this matter of matters that had joined them indissolubly together. They were sitting now on the couch, holding each other’s hands. They could talk business—speak of what must be done to clear Walter Brooklyn—while with the contact of their bodies love interpenetrated them. And Joan could say to herself already that this most unbusinesslike proceeding was the best stroke of business she had ever done. For the immediate purpose she had in view, it had immensely strengthened their partnership. For these twain had become one flesh, and what was near her heart needs must be near his also.
As they sat there together, they formed their plan of campaign. It was obviously impossible to make a beginning until Joan had done her best to make Walter Brooklyn tell what he knew. If he were to refuse, their task would be so much the harder; but even the hardest task now seemed
