The Eight of Swords

'That's it, by Jove!' he assented warmly. 'Take him along. Introduce him. Oh, yes; and that reminds me… Patricia, this is Joe Donovan's son. Hugh, my boy, let me present my daughter Patricia. Patricia, this is Hugh Donovan.'

'How do you do?' said Donovan obediently.

'Are you sure you've got it clear now?' she inquired. 'Right-ho, then! Gome along with me; do.'

CHAPTER IX The Deductions of Old John Zed

That was how, in a few short moments, he found himself walking away beside this lithe, bright-eyed, altogether luscious ginch in the tennis frock — walking rather hurriedly, because he was afraid he would hear his father's stern hail from the porch, bidding him back to duty and the lighthouse. If possible, that last remark of hers drew her closer to him than ever, a powerful, unspoken, dazzling sympathy. 'He must be dying for a dri—' She knew. This must be the sort of thing Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote about in the sonnets. It was not only sympathetic feminine intuition on her part, but he realized that the very sight of this girl had made him want to reach for a cocktail; some women have that effect. Such a glamour must have attended all the great sirens of the ages. In its absence there are unfulfilled romances. If, when Dante met Beatrice that famous time on the what's-its-name bridge, Beatrice had smiled at him and whispered, 'Look here, I could do with a slug of Chianti,' then the poor sap would have tried to find out her address and telephone number, instead of merely going home and grousing about it in an epic.

Here in the twilight coppice the strength and reasonableness of this theory grew on him; and, as he looked down at the hazel eyes which were regarding him inquiringly over her shoulder, he was struck with inspiration.

He burst out suddenly:

There once was a poet named Dante,
Who was fond of imbibing Chianti—
He wrote about hell
And a Florentine gel,
Which distressed his Victorian auntie.'

Then he said, 'Hah!' in a pleased, surprised tone, and rubbed his hands together as though he were waiting for the gods to throw him another.

'Hullo!' observed Patricia, opening her eyes wide. 'I say, that's a nice opening speech from a bishop's son! Your father told me a lot about you. He said you were a good young man.'

'It's a contemptible lie!' he said, stung to the depths. 'Look here! I don't want you to go believing any such —'

'Oh, I don't believe it,' she said composedly. 'H'm. What made you think of it? That limerick, I mean?'

'Well, to tell you the truth, I think it was you. That is, it was a sort of inspiration — the kind that's supposed to soak you on your first sight of Tintern Abbey, or something of the sort. Then you rush home, and wake up your wife, and write it down.'

She stared. 'Ooh, you villain! You mean to tell me that looking at me makes you think of a limerick? I don't think that's nice.'

'Eh? Why?'

'H’m. Well' she admitted, lifting an eyebrow meditatively, 'maybe we weren't thinking of the same limerick… Why do you wake up your wife?'

'What wife?' said Hugh, who had lost the thread of the discourse.

She brooded, her full pink lips pressed together. Again she looked at him over her shoulder, with an air of a suspicion confirmed.

'So you've got a wife, have you?' she said bitterly. 'I jolly well might have known it. Secret marriages are all the fashion. I bet you didn't tell your father, did you? One of those forward American hussies, I suppose, who — who let men—h'm?

From experience on both sides of the Atlantic, Donovan was aware that one of the most stimulating qualities of the English girl is her bewildering use of non-sequitur. He wanted wildly to disclaim any foreign entanglement. Yet the statement roused his stern masculine pride.

'I am not married,' he replied with dignity. 'On the other hand, I have known any number of very pleasant ginches on the other side, who were certainly fond of h’m.'

'You needn't bother,' she said warmly, 'to regale me with any account of your disgusting love-affairs. I’m sure Fm not interested! I suppose you're one of those nasty people who think women are toys, and oughtn't to have careers and do some good in the world—'

'Right you are.'

'Bah!' she said, and gave a vigorous toss of her head. That's just it. I never thought anybody could be so stupid and old-fashioned in this day and age… What are you thinking of?' she asked in some suspicion.

'H'm' said Donovan enigmatically. 'You are a little liar. And you keep straying away from the subject. What' I originally said was that merely seeing you inspired me to burst into limericks, like Keats or somebody. The idea of you having a career is unthinkable. Preposterous. If you became a doctor, your patients would wake up out of the strongest anaesthetic the moment you felt their pulses. If you became a barrister, you would probably throw the inkstand at the judge when he ruled against you, and… What ho! That reminds me…'

Patricia, who was beaming, followed his expression.

'Go on,' she prompted, rather crossly.

They had come out of the gloom in the coppice to the warm slope of parkland, drowsy, and almost uncannily still as the evening drew in. After the clanging of cities, this hush made him uncomfortable. He looked up at The Grange, with the poplars silhouetted behind it, and he remembered what Dr. Fell had said about a killer. He remembered that, after all, they were still as far away as ever from knowing the murderer's name. Old Depping made a pitiable ghost. These people went on their easy ways, interested in the gossip, but certainly not mourning him. And something that had persisted in Hugh's mind wormed to the surface again.

Throw the inkstand…' he repeated. 'Why, I was only thinking of your poltergeist, and what it did to the vicar…'

'Oh, that?' She raised her eyebrows quizzically, and grinned. 'I say, we did have a row! You should have been here. Of course none of us believed your father was mad, really — except maybe my father — but we didn't believe him when he told us about that American what’s-his-name—'

'Spinelli?'

' 'M. But that's what made it worse when we heard this morning…' She dug the toe of her shoe round in the grass, uneasily. 'And that reminds me' she went on, as though she would dismiss the subject. 'We don't really want to go up to the house now, do we? If we went along to Henry Morgan's, and maybe had a cocktail…?'

The power of sympathy showed the answer in both their faces. They were beginning to turn round and head the other way almost as soon as she had uttered the words, and Patricia gave a conspirator's gurgle of enjoyment. She knew, she said, a short-cut; a side gate in the boundary wall, not far from the coppice where the Guest House stood, which would lead them out to Hangover House.

'I don't know why,' she continued, as though she hated thinking about the matter, but was determined to flounder through it; 'I don't know why,' she went on suddenly, 'that Spinelli man should want to kill Mr. Depping. But he did do it; and Spinelli's an Italian, and probably a member of the Black Hand, and they do all sorts of queer things — don't they? You know. You know all about criminals, don't you?'

'Urn' said Hugh judicially. He was beginning to feel remorseful. He wanted to explain everything to this little