The Three Just Men · Chapter 27 (2/2)

Joan hesitated. “Not exactly. Do you mind if I’m not here tonight?”

Mirabelle shook her head. If the truth be told, she was glad to be alone. All that day she had been forced to listen to the plaints and weepings of this transfigured girl, and she felt that she could not well stand another twenty-four hours.

“You’re sure you won’t mind being alone?”

“No, of course not. I shall miss you,” added Mirabelle, more in truth than in compliment. “When will you return?”

The girl made a little grimace. “Tomorrow.”

“You don’t want to come back, naturally? Have you succeeded in persuading your⁠—your friend to let me out too?”

Joan shook her head.

“He’ll never do that, my dear, not till⁠ ⁠…” She looked at the girl. “You’re not engaged, are you?”

“I? No. Is that another story they’ve heard?” Mirabelle got up from the bed, laughing. “An heiress, and engaged?”

“No, they don’t say you were engaged.” Joan hastened to correct the wrong impression. There was genuine admiration in her voice, when she said: “You’re wonderful, kid! If I were in your shoes I’d be quaking. You’re just as cheerful as though you were going to the funeral of a rich aunt!”

She did not know how near to a breakdown her companion had been that day, and Mirabelle, who felt stronger and saner now, had no desire to tell her.

“You’re rather splendid.” Joan nodded. “I wish I had your pluck.”

And then, impulsively, she came forward and kissed the girl.

“Don’t feel too sore at me,” she said, and was gone before Mirabelle could make a reply.

The doctor was waiting for her in the factory.

“The spy has walked up to the canal bridge. We can go forward,” he said. “Besides,”⁠—he had satisfaction out of this⁠—“he cannot see over high walls.”

“What is this story about marrying Mirabelle Leicester?”

“So he has told you? Also did he tell you that⁠—that he is going to marry her?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her than you.”

“So!” said the doctor.

“I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.”

Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently, without any thought of its application, and uttered an “Oh!” of dismay when she realized her mistake.

“I meant Gurther,” she said.

“Well, I know you meant Gurther, young miss,” he said stiffly.

To get back to the house they had to make a half-circle of the factory and pass between the canal wall and the building itself. The direct route would have taken them into a deep hollow into which the debris of years had been thrown, and which now Nature, in her kindness, had hidden under a green mantle of wild convolvulus. It was typical of the place that the only beautiful picture in the grounds was out of sight.

They were just turning the corner of the factory when the doctor stopped and looked up at the high wall, which was protected by a cheval de frise of broken glass. All except in one spot, about two feet wide, where not only the glass but the mortar which held it in place had been chipped off. There were fragments of the glass, and, on the inside of the wall, marks of some implement on the hard surface of the mortar.

“So!” said the doctor.

He was examining the scratches on the wall.

“Wait,” he ordered, and hurried back into the factory, to return, carrying in each hand two large rusty contraptions which he put on the ground.

One by one he forced open the jagged rusty teeth until they were wide apart and held by a spring catch. She had seen things like that in a museum. They were mantraps⁠—relics of the barbarous days when trespass was not only a sin but a crime.

He fixed the second of the traps on the path between the factory and the wall.

“Now we shall see,” he said. “Forward!”

Monty was waiting for her impatiently. The Rolls had been turned out in her honour, and the sulky-looking driver was already in his place at the wheel.

“What is the matter with that chauffeur?” she asked, as they bumped up the lane towards easier going. “He looks so happy that I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that his mother was hanged this morning.”

“He’s sore with the old man,” explained Monty. “Oberzohn has two drivers. They do a little looking round in the morning. The other fellow was supposed to come back to take over duty at three o’clock, and he hasn’t turned up. He was the better driver of the two.”

The chauffeur was apparently seeking every pothole in the ground, and in the next five minutes she was alternately clutching the support of the arm-strap and Monty. They were relieved when at last the car found a metal road and began its noiseless way towards The Lights. And then her hand sought his, and for the moment this beautiful flower which had grown in such foul soil, bloomed in the radiance of a love common to every woman, high and low, good and bad.