“No one may go in here at present,” said she.

“But Miss Pottinger,” said Solly, “we have special orders from Miss Rich.”

“Perhaps, then, Miss Rich will be good enough to come here and tell me so.”

“My dear lady,” said Cobbler; “it is needless to dissemble; we are privy to the dark secret of The Shed. We are going in to mop up the blood.”

“I don’t understand what you are talking about,” said Auntie Puss.

“It’s really quite all right,” said Solly; “we know what happened.”

“If that is so, you have no right to speak of it in that flippant tone.”

“And why not, if I may ask?” said Cobbler, argumentatively. “Why should we go all solemn because Mackilwraith has hashed up his attempt at suicide?”

“Hush!” said Auntie Puss, fiercely. “Don’t you dare to use that word.”

“It’s the right word, isn’t it?”

“It will provoke a scandal if it gets around. Do you want to ruin the man’s life?”

“He’s just done his best to ruin it himself.”

“That has nothing to do with it. He has been spared, doubtless for some purpose beyond our understanding. If you so much as hint at it again, Mr Cobbler, I’ll speak to the Dean about you, and you will have to find yourself another position.”

“Blackmail!” said Cobbler.

“Call it what you like,” said Auntie Puss. “This man deserves his chance, and I shall do whatever I can to see that he gets it. I do not approve of the modern custom of babbling disgraceful secrets to anybody and everybody. I do not know Mr Mackilwraith well, and what I do know about him I do not care for, but I will not be a party to his ruin. Do you understand me, Mr Cobbler?”

“I hear you, Miss Pottinger, but I shall never understand you. The world is full of people who have tried to kill themselves, or who have at least thought about it. It’s as natural as falling in love or getting one’s heart broken. I don’t see what’s so disgraceful about it. It’s the first interesting thing Mackilwraith has ever done, so far as I know.”

Valentine appeared around the corner of the house.

“Thank you so much, Miss Pottinger,” said she. “Will you let me have the key now? Mr Webster is offering some refreshment in his library. Perhaps you had better have a hot drink. You’ve been wonderful, keeping watch for so long.”

“I am glad to do whatever I can,” said Auntie Puss, who had been shivering a little in the night air. “And I advise you to remember, Mr Cobbler, that I can do more.” She rattled off toward the house, her head erect.

“My respect for Mackilwraith was never very high, and it is dropping every minute,” said Solly, as they went into The Shed. “Can you imagine a man of any gumption at all thinking that he could hang himself with a rotten old rope like that? I’ll bet it’s fifty years old. What a boob.”

“I don’t suppose he thought about it very clearly,” said Valentine.

“Oh yes he did,” said Cobbler. “He probably imagined he was wrapped up in his sorrows, but we all have keener perception than we know. The superficial Mackilwraith, the despairing lover, thought the rope would do, but the true, essential, deep-down Mackilwraith knew damn well that it wouldn’t. You don’t play safe for forty years and then cut loose. Our Hector was looking for pity, not death.”

“Why do you call him the despairing lover?” asked Valentine, who had thought that this was a secret between herself and Auntie Puss.

“Because it’s obvious that’s why he did it. He’s been mooning after the Impatient Griselda for weeks. Surely you noticed? Anyway, he told me so—or as good as admitted it—at that awful brawl of yours, Bridgetower. I had a notion that he’d do something silly, though I never thought it would be anything as silly as this.”

“Well, do keep it quiet, won’t you, Humphrey,” said Valentine. “We don’t want to make trouble for him—more trouble than he has now, that’s to say.”

“I don’t know why everybody imagines that I am going to run around town blatting everything I know. That old poll-parrot at the door said exactly the same thing to me, though much less nicely. I’m not going to blab. On the honour of a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. But I don’t see why I can’t discuss it with you two; you know all about it anyway.”

“It would be rather hard on Griselda. People might think she had driven him to it.”

“That would merely enhance her reputation as a charmer. But really I don’t suppose she had anything to do with it.”

“What, then?” asked Solly.

“She was just a hook on which Mackilwraith hung a middle-aged man’s nerve-storm. Do you know what I think ails Mackilwraith? Male menopause. This is his last fling at romance before he goes out of business entirely as a male creature.”

“He can’t be much over forty,” said Valentine.

“Spiritually—if one may use the word of Hector—he’s been seventy for years. No, it’s the male climacteric. The last gutterings of the candle—the gurgle of the last pint of suds in the drain.”

“Well, I don’t agree,” said Solly. “I think it’s the logical outcome of his education and the sort of life he has led. He’s vulgar. I don’t mean just that he wears awful suits and probably eats awful food: I mean that he has a crass soul. He thinks that when his belly is full and his job safe, he’s got the world by the tail. He has never found out anything about himself, so how can he ever know anything about other people? The condition of a vulgarian is that he never expects anything good or bad that happens to him to be the result of his own personality; he always thinks it’s Fate, especially if it’s bad. The only people who make any sense in the world are those who know that whatever happens to them has its roots in what they are.”

“I think you are both hard on him,” said Valentine. “When I found him he was really very touching. You’re both away off the track.”

“Dear Val,” said Solly; “if I were in a mess like that I would pray to be found by somebody like you. Somebody that pities, and doesn’t natter and theorize.”

“I’m happy to theorize,” said Cobbler; “I keep my feelings for musical purposes.”

“I’m going to see if I can get Griselda to talk to him for a little,” said Valentine.

“That’s brilliant,” said Solly; “maybe that will put him on his feet.”

“A wonderful idea, but do you think they should be alone together?” said Cobbler. “I mean, there ought to be somebody there, just to see that he doesn’t get maudlin and embarrass the girl. I’d be happy to do it, if nobody else wants to.”

“You’re aching to snoop,” said Valentine.

“Of course I am. Curiosity is the mainspring of my life. If I weren’t curious I’d probably be an egocentric pinhead like Mackilwraith.”

The door of The Shed opened, and Freddy came in, dressed in slacks and a shirt, followed by Tom.

“We came to clean up,” said Freddy. “I suppose you’ll want this room again tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Valentine. “Hadn’t you heard that we are doing a special matinee for school children?”

“A brutish auditory, at half-price, but we artists must bear it in the sacred name of education,” interjected Cobbler.

“No; I hadn’t heard a thing about it,” said Freddy.

“Heavens, I thought I had told all the cast. It was a last-minute decision of Nellie’s; it appears that a few hundred kids are still confined to school, and they can all be roped in at fifty cents a head. I must go at once and make sure everybody knows,” said Valentine, and ran out of The Shed.

“We’ll help you clear things away,” said Solly.

“Oh don’t bother. Daddy’s giving drinks to a few favoured souls in the library. I’m sure you would count as favoured souls if you went along.”

“We’ll go when we’ve helped you,” said Cobbler. “I’m anxious to know what this stuff is that Mackilwraith knocked over. It has a vinous smell. In fact, Roscoe told me that Mackilwraith smelt like a big pickle as he was hoisting him up your stairs.”