Chapter 21 An Error Without Excuse

KINDELL RETURNED TO London by air, and on an understanding that he should not be seen in his familiar haunts, nor make contact with his friends. The sleuths of law were hunting on a cold scent which at any moment might become hot. It was important to confuse those whom they sought to catch. Let them think him still in the grasp of the examining magistrate - the one chosen by the police to expiate the worst crime of which policemen know, the murder of one of themselves.

Kindell might be of some immediate use, and at any moment a position might develop in which he could be of much more. But it was emphatically understood that he was to lie low.

His action in telephoning Irene cannot therefore be condoned. He did evil, and it was not even a doing of evil that good might come. Or, at least, the good, if any, was to be of a private sort, having no connection with the business he was engaged to do. The consequences, which he was far from foreseeing, cannot therefore be a logical credit to him. Yet, whether for evil or good his action was of momentous bearing on the events that followed.

Irene picked up the 'phone in her own room (she had a separate line, intended to ensure the privacy of embassy conversations, rather than hers), and the temper in which she answered was not good, for her wrist-watch, which she was putting on as the bell rang, slipped to the floor, having been insecurely clasped.

"Yes. Who is it?"

"Is that you, Irene?"

"Yes. Who's that?"

"Are you quite alone?"

"Who is that?"

"I want to know whether you're quite alone."

"And I want to know who you are."

"Can't you guess?"

"I don't see why I should. . . . It isn't Will, is it?"

"You're not being overheard?"

"Considering I'm in my own room, and it's between seven and eight - - "

"Will you meet me somewhere for lunch?"

"It really is Will?"

"Yes. But I wish you wouldn't keep saying my name."

"What's the mystery?"

"I'm not supposed to be here. What I asked was, can you meet me for lunch? And not let anyone know?"

"I might, if I knew why. Where shall it be?"

"You know where we met the Tuesday before you went over to Paris. Say a quarter to one?"

"You mean at - - "

"There's no need to say where," he interrupted sharply. "And there's no need for me to come, if you can't - - "

"I'll be waiting there. Right at the back."

He rang off abruptly.

Irene picked up her watch. She looked rather pleased with the world when she heard that it still ticked, but she frowned uncertainly over the proposed appointment. Had he discovered the contents of the substituted suitcase? How much had she to excuse or explain? Were they to meet as friends, or would they continue the quarrel in which they parted?

Well, he had approached her! She debated with herself whether she would go, but she knew all the time what the answer would be. Curiosity alone would have been enough to direct her steps. And there were other deeper, less acknowledged feelings which would be even more potent. But it was uncertain, when they should meet, what her mood would be.

So, with some restlessness of impatience, the morning passed, first in dressing to go out, with more than her usual care, and then in desultory shopping until the hour came at which she could turn into the Norfolk Restaurant and make her way through the well-occupied tables to the dim-lit corner at the back where she had no doubt that Will Kindell would be.

"I thought," she said lightly, "that you were to be guillotined about now," and was then unsure as to whether her words had a heartless sound in respect of what might have been a real trouble to him.

But he took it in the right way. "No such luck for you," he returned, in as light a tone, "but I'm not out of the wood yet. I'm loose on something like a ticket of leave, and on condition that I find out who the real murderer is."

Irene frowned over this somewhat fanciful description of his position. "I don't see," she said, "how you can hope to do much about that here."

"On the contrary," he replied, "I believe that London's the place where the secret lies."

"And so you begin your investigation with me?"

He saw the implication of that. Had he meant that her father was the one to answer the question of who the murderer was? But he must tease her a moment with an oblique reply.

"Yes," he said, "I couldn't do anything till I'd started with you."

"I'd like to know what you mean by that."

"I mean that I can't concentrate on anything else till I know that we're friends again."

"Oh, you meant that!" She looked at him with a renewed kindliness in her eyes. But the next moment her mind recurred to the substituted suitcase, and the explanations that it required upon either side. "I think," she said, "you'd better see my father as soon as possible."

"I don't think I can. I'm not supposed to let anyone know I'm here. I ought not to have 'phoned you, but there are some things that can't wait."

"It's not much use seeing me if you're going on making a mystery of everything. And you really ought to see Father. It's about that case. There's something he wants to explain, and you ought to know."

"About what?"

"About the valise that you asked me to bring over for you."

Kindell controlled the astonishment which, for a moment his eyes revealed, He asked quietly, "Did you bring it?"

"Yes. But it hasn't been delivered yet. Not properly. But Father said he'd rather see you himself to explain."

"It won't be delivered till he has seen me?"

"Oh, no. You can be sure of that."

"Will your father be in now?"

"Yes. But he doesn't see anyone in the afternoon. He always works in his own room."

"I think he'll see me."

"He won't till evening."

"I think he will."

Irene, who had an approximately accurate vision of her father stretched on a couch, and dozing while The Three Star Ranch or Quick-Trigger Jake slipped from his hands to a quiet bed on the fireside rug, did not argue the matter further. They ate a lunch to the quality of which they gave less heed than it deserved, and with some pauses of silence on either side. When it was done, Kindell called a taxi; and they went back to the American Embassy together.