In this way the time passed pleasantly and instructively till they had passed the lodge gates once more.
“So you see,” concluded Roger happily, “that while in medieval philosophy this mysticism is in powerful and ultimately successful opposition to rationalistic dogmatism, with its contemptuous disregard for all experience, the embryonic science of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was actually in itself a logical development of neo-Platonism in this same opposition to barren rationalism.”
“Was it?” said Alec gloomily, registering a secret but none the less fervent prayer that he might never hear the word neo-Platonism again as long as he lived. “I see.”
“You do? Good. Then let us seek out and have speech with friend William.”
“Are you going to give him a short lecture on rationalistic dogmatism?” Alec asked carefully. “Because if so, I’m going indoors.”
“I’m afraid it would be wasted on William,” Roger replied seriously. “William, I feel sure, is a dogmatist of the most bigoted type if ever there was one; and to lecture to him on the futility of dogma would be as ineffective as to harangue a hippopotamus on the subject of drawing-room etiquette. No, I just want to sound William a little. Not that I think it will really be of much help to us, but just at present I’m turning every stone I can see.”
In due course William was run to earth in a large greenhouse. He was mounted unhappily on an exceedingly rickety pair of steps and engaged in tying up a vine. On seeing Roger he hastily descended to firm ground. William did not believe in taking chances.
“Good afternoon, William,” said Roger brightly.
“Arternoon, sir,” William responded suspiciously.
“I’ve just been having a chat with your wife, William.”
William grunted noncommittally.
“I was telling her that a friend of mine, whom I expected to come up to the house to see me last night, never turned up; and I was wondering if you’d seen anything of him down at the lodge.”
William ostentatiously busied himself with a small plant.
“Never see’d no one,” he observed with decision.
“No? Never mind, then. It doesn’t really matter. That’s an interesting job you’ve got on hand, William. You take a plant out of its pot, sniff its roots and put it back again; is that it? Now what operation do you call that in the science of horticulture?”
William hastily relinquished the plant and glowered at his interlocutor.
“Some folks mayn’t have no work to do,” he remarked darkly; “but other folks ’ave.”
“Meaning yourself, I take it?” Roger said approvingly. “That’s right. Work away. Nothing like it, is there? Keeps you cheerful and bright and contented. Great thing, work, I agree with you.”
A flicker of interest passed across William’s countenance. “What did that there Mr. Stanworth want to shoot hisself for, eh?” he demanded suddenly.
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth,” said Roger, somewhat taken aback at the unexpectedness of this query. “Why, have you got any ideas about it?”
“I don’t ’old with it meself,” said William primly. “Not with sooeycide.”
“You’re absolutely right, William,” Roger replied warmly. “If more people were like you, there’d be—there’d be less suicides, undoubtedly. It’s an untidy habit, to say the least.”
“It ain’t acting right,” William pursued firmly. “That’s what it ain’t.”
“You put it in a nutshell, William; it isn’t. In fact, it’s acting all wrong. By the way, William, somebody or other was telling me that a stranger had been seen about the grounds during the last day or two. You noticed him by any chance?”
“Stranger? What sort of a stranger?”
“Oh, the usual sort; a head and four pairs of fingers, you know. This particular one, they said, was a rather large man. Have you seen a rather large strange man round the house lately?”
William cogitated deeply.
“I ’ave an’ all.”
“Have you, though? When?”
William cogitated again. “It ’ud be a matter of ha’-past eight last night,” he announced at last. “Ha’-past eight it ’ud be, as near as anything. I was a-settin’ out in front o’ the lodge, an’ up he walks, bold as brass, an’ nods at me an’ goes on up the drive.”
Roger exchanged glances with Alec.
“Yes, William?” he said warmly. “A man you’d never seen before? A fairly large man?”
“A very large man,” William corrected meticulously.
“A very large man. Excellent! Go on. What happened?”
“Well, I says to the missus, ‘Oo’s that?’ I says. ‘A-walkin’ up the drive as if he owned the place.’ ” William pondered. “ ‘As if he owned the place,’ I says,” he repeated firmly.
“And a very good thing to say, too. Well?”
“ ‘Oh, ’im?’ she says. ‘ ’E’s the cook’s brother,’ she says. ‘I was interjuiced to ’im at Helchester the other day,’ she says. ‘At least, she says ’e’s ’er brother,’ she says.” A strange rasping noise in his throat appeared to indicate that William was amused. “ ‘At least, she says ’e’s ’er brother,’ she says,” he repeated with much enjoyment.
“Oh!” Roger exclaimed, somewhat dashed. “Oh, did she? And did you see him again, William?”
“That I did. Back ’e come nigh on a quarter of a hower later, an’ cook with ’im, a-hangin’ on ’is arm like what she ought to have known better not to ’ave done,” William rejoined, suddenly stern. “I don’t ’old with it meself, I don’t,” added this severe moralist. “Not at ’er age, I don’t.” His expression relaxed reminiscently. “ ‘At least, she says ’e’s ’er brother,’ she says,” he added, with a sudden rasp.
“I see,” said Roger. “Thank you, William. Well, I suppose we mustn’t interrupt you any more. Come on, Alec.”
Slowly and sadly they made their way back to the house.
“William got his own back then, if he only knew it,” Roger said with a wry smile. “I did think for a moment that we might be getting at something at last.”
“You really are a hell of an optimist, Roger,” Alec observed wonderingly.
Their
