The Eight of Swords

The dear, dear bishop made a coughing noise, and backed his chair away.

'Ma'am,' said Dr. Fell urbanely, 'one of the most unfortunate features of police work is that it brings us into contact with people whom we should otherwise run a mile to avoid. Pray accept my assurance, ma'am, that nobody appreciates this more than I do.'

Maw sniffed, and after considering this she looked at him sharply.

'Is it possible, Dr. Fell; can it be possible — and in the presence of the dear, dear bishop at that — that I scent an ulterior meaning in what you say?'

'Ma'am, ma'am,' said the doctor, with a touch of reproof. 'Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Pray control yourself. I am sure His Reverence must resent your statement that his presence stimulates your olfactory senses. I must ask you to respect his cloth.'

Maw stared at him as though she could not believe her ears. She stiffened, turned livid, and emitted a sound like the whistle of a peanut vendor's machine on a cold day.

'Well, of all-!' she gasped, 'of all the-of all-Go-rooo! Sir, will you trifle with me?' 'Madam!' rumbled Dr. Fell. He chuckled. Hugh could imagine his wide-open eyes as he looked at her. 'Reluctantly, I am afraid I must decline. I trust you are familiar with that classic anecodote which concludes, 'Ma'am, I am a married man myself, and I would rather have a glass of beer?'Just so. Nunquam nimis quod nunquam satis. Speaking of beer—'

Maw was in a dangerous condition. She turned to the bishop, as though to appeal for assistance. That worthy gentleman narrowly missed doing something which would forever have condemned him in the maternal presence; he turned mirth into a cough at just the right time. Then he looked very ecclesiastial.

'Of all,' said Maw, breathlessly, 'of all the insufferable-'

'Yes. So Mr. Langdon said. Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Mrs. Standish,' said Dr. Fell sharply. 'You are here for the purpose of giving evidence; not orders. You were expressly instructed to come here alone, furthermore. Certain things we have discovered today will not make very pleasant hearing for Miss Depping.'

Betty Depping looked up. There had been a sort of weary humor in her eyes; but now she spoke dully, in a pleasant voice which always seemed to ask a question of her future mother-in-law.

'Isn't that,' she said, 'why I have a right to be here?'

Subdy, it brought a new element into the conversation. You could feel in what she was thinking a vitality, an intensity, even a tragedy about which nobody had bothered to think. Maw's attack was broken, but she went on in a lower voice:

'I wish this nonsense dispelled, that is all. If you cannot be sufficiently courteous—! I refer to hints. From Patricia, and especially (in a mealy-mouthed fashion, which I detest) from Morley. As though to prepare me for something.' Maw shut-her jaws hard, and looked from Dr. Fell to the bishop. If I must speak of it, it concerns rumors of poor dear Mr. Depping's past life.'

Again Betty Depping looked at her, curiously. 'Could it make any difference?' she asked in a low voice.

For a time Hugh could hear the slow tapping of Dr. Fell's pencil on the table. 'My dear,' he said suddenly, 'since you are here… did you ever have any knowledge of your father's past life?'

'N-no. No knowledge. I — suspected something. I don't know what.'

'Did you tell this suspicion to anybody?'

'Yes. I told Morley. I thought it was only fair.' She hesitated, and a sort of puzzled, protesting fierceness came into her face. 'All I wanted to know is, why should it matter? If father had lived — if he were living now — nobody would have known it or asked questions about it. Now that he's dead, if there's anything against him it's bound to come out…'

She looked away, at a corner of one window, and added in a very low voice: 'I never had a great deal of happiness, you see. I thought that I was going to have it, now. Why should — somebody — have spoiled it?'

Again the night breeze went wandering through the trees round the house, with a rustling of turmoil far away; and you knew that it was agitating the beeches and maples round the Guest House as well. All the time Dr. Fell's pencil was slowly clicking against the desk; tap — tap — tap — as though it were a brain endlessly asking the same question.

'How long have you suspected anything in your father's past, Miss Depping?⁰

She shook her head. There never was anything definite. But I think I started to wonder as much as five years ago. You see, he sent for me to join him in London suddenly. I thought he had always been there; I wrote him once a week, in care of Mr. Langdon, and he would reply about once a month, with a London postmark. So I came over from France; naturally I was pleased to get away from school. He told me he was retiring from whatever it was he did in the City, and going into the publishing business with a Mr. Standish and a Mr. Burke.

Then — we were sitting in the lobby of the hotel one afternoon, and all of a sudden he caught sight of somebody walking towards us, and he was — I don't know — flustered. He said, That's Burke; he didn't say he was coming here. Listen: don't be surprised at anything I say to him in the way of business. So far as you know, I've spent a year in India, where — remember this — where my closest friend was a Major Pendleton.' Then he hushed me.' She brushed a hand back across her shining brown hair. It was as though she had an insupportable headache, and tried to smile in spite of it. 'You… well, you wonder about things like that. But I never knew. That's why I say I have a right to know.'

Again she hesitated, stared at Dr. Fell, and could not ask the question. It was Maw Standish who fired it out.

That's precisely it. That's why I demand to know. I still tell you this is impossible! Poor Mr. Depping… I have even heard rumors from the servants' hall—from the servants hall,I assure you. to the outrageous effect that he was a criminal. A criminal.' Maw gulped out the word.

'We had better setde this,' declared Dr. Fell, 'before. we can go on.' His voice became gruff. 'I am sorry that I must give you the facts brutally, but it will be best this way. The rumor was correct. Depping was not only a criminal; he was a criminal of the meanest and most damnable variety; a racketeer, an extortionist, and a killer. Do not ask for any of the details. They are not pretty.'

'Impossi—' said Mrs. Standish, and stopped. She stared at the bishop, who nodded slowly.

'I am sorry, madam,' he said.

'God — help — us…' She touched her white face, her handsome face where you could see the faint wrinkles now. 'This — this alters — this — that is…' Her gaze turned towards Betty Depping, who was looking blankly at Dr. Fell.

'Betty darling!' said Maw, with a brisk abrupt smile. 'I see that I should not have brought you down here at all. You were upset enough to begin with. These trying events, these monstrous accusations… Child! Do as I tell you. Go upstairs this instant, and he down. Now, now; I won't hear a word! Lie down like a good child, and tell Patricia to put the ice bag on your head. I will stay here and thrash this matter out. There is a mistake somewhere — surely there is a mistake. You will need all your strength presently. Depend on it, I will do my best for you. Run along, now!'

She disengaged her arm from the other's shoulder. Betty Depping was looking at her steadily. Again Betty was sturdy and capable; with the cool cynical eyes and the strong chin. She smiled.

'Yes, it does, alter matters, doesn't it?' she asked softly. 'I–I don't think I care to hear anything more.'

She inclined her head to the group and walked to the door, but she turned there. She had become tense and fierce, with color in her cheeks: a fighter, and dangerous, and her eyes had a hot blue brilliance. Yet her lips hardly seemed to move.

The only one who matters in this affair,' she said, still in a low voice, 'is Morley. Understand that. What he thinks, and what he cares' — her breast rose and fell once, with a sort of shudder—'is what I think and car’. Remember that, please.'

'Child!' said Maw, lifting her chin.

'Good night,' said Betty Depping, and closed the door.

The warmth and strength of her personality was still in that room. Even the colonel's lady felt it. She tried to adjust herself to the new state of affairs; to stare down Dr. Fell and the bishop; to preserve a high-chinned dignity and yet keep an appropriate aloofness.

'Will you kindly,' she said in a tense voice, 'stop tapping that pencil on the table? It has been driving me insane… Thank you so much. Now that Miss Depping has gone, will you be so good as to substantiate these lurid