“Miss Cherrell!”

There was Bobbie Ferrar in the doorway. He looked just as usual. But of course he didn’t care. Why should he?

He tapped his breast pocket. “I’ve got the preface. Shall we trot? And he proceeded to talk of the Chingford murder. Had she been following it? She had not. It was a clear case—completely! And he added, suddenly:

“The Bolivian won’t take the responsibility, Miss Cherrell.”

“Oh!”

“Never mind.” And his face broadened.

‘His teeth ARE real,’ thought Dinny, ‘I can see some gold filling.’

They reached the Home Office and went in. Up some wide stairs, down a corridor, into a large and empty room, with a fire at the end, their guide took them. Bobbie Ferrar drew a chair up to the table.

“‘The Graphic’ or this?” and he took from his side pocket a small volume.

“Both, please,” said Dinny, wanly. He placed them before her. ‘This’ was a little flat red edition of some War Poems.

“It’s a first,” said Bobbie Ferrar; “I picked it up after lunch.”

“Yes,” said Dinny, and sat down.

An inner door was opened, and a head put in.

“Mr. Ferrar, the Home Secretary will see you.”

Bobbie Ferrar turned on her a look, muttered between his teeth: “Cheer up!” and moved squarely away.

In that great waiting-room never in her life had she felt so alone, so glad to be alone, or so dreaded the end of loneliness. She opened the little volume and read:

The fire crackled suddenly and spat out a spark. Dinny saw it die on the hearthrug, with regret. She read more poems, but did not take them in, and, closing the little book, opened ‘The Graphic.’ Having turned its pages from end to end she could not have mentioned the subject of any single picture. The sinking feeling beneath her heart absorbed every object she looked upon. She wondered if it were worse to wait for an operation on oneself or on someone loved; and decided that the latter must be worse. Hours seemed to have passed; how long had he really been gone? Only half-past six! Pushing her chair back, she got up. On the walls were the effigies of Victorian statesmen, and she roamed from one to the other; but they might all have been the same statesman, with his whiskers at different stages of development. She went back to her seat, drew her chair close in to the table, rested her elbows on it, and her chin on her hands, drawing little comfort from that cramped posture. Thank Heaven! Hubert didn’t know his fate was being decided, and was not going through this awful waiting. She thought of Jean and Alan, and with all her heart hoped that they were ready for the worst. For with each minute the worst seemed more and more certain. A sort of numbness began creeping over her. He would never come back—never, never! And she hoped he wouldn’t, bringing the death-warrant. At last she laid her arms flat on the table, and rested her forehead on them. How long she had stayed in that curious torpor she knew not, before the sound of a throat being cleared roused her, and she started back.

Not Bobbie Ferrar, but a tall man with a reddish, clean-shaven face and silver hair brushed in a cockscomb off his forehead, was standing before the fire with his legs slightly apart and his hands under his coat tails; he was staring at her with very wide-opened light grey eyes, and his lips were just apart as if he were about to emit a remark. Dinny was too startled to rise, and she sat staring back at him.

“Miss Cherrell! Don’t get up.” He lifted a restraining hand from beneath a coat-tail. Dinny stayed seated—only too glad to, for she had begun to tremble violently.

“Ferrar tells me that you edited your brother’s diary?”

Dinny bowed her head. Take deep breaths!

“As printed, is it in its original condition?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly?”

“Yes. I haven’t altered or left out a thing.”

Staring at his face she could see nothing but the round brightness of the eyes and the slight superior prominence of the lower lip. It was almost like staring at God. She shivered at the queerness of the thought and her lips formed a little desperate smile.

“I have a question to ask you, Miss Cherrell.”

Dinny uttered a little sighing: “Yes.”

“How much of this diary was written since your brother came back?”

She stared; then the implication in the question stung her.

“None! Oh, none! It was all written out there at the time.” And she rose to her feet.

“May I ask how you know that?”

“My brother—” Only then did she realise that throughout she had nothing but Hubert’s word—“my brother told me so.”

“His word is gospel to you?”

She retained enough sense of humour not to ‘draw herself up,’ but her head tilted.

“Gospel. My brother is a soldier and—”

She stopped short, and, watching that superior lower lip, hated herself for using that clichй.

“No doubt, no doubt! But you realise, of course, the importance of the point?”

“There is the original—” stammered Dinny. Oh! Why hadn’t she brought it! “It shows clearly—I mean, it’s all messy and stained. You can see it at any time. Shall—?”

He again put out a restraining hand.

“Never mind that. Very devoted to your brother, Miss Cherrell?”

Dinny’s lips quivered.

“Absolutely. We all are.”

“He’s just married, I hear?”

“Yes, just married.”

“Your brother wounded in the war?”

“Yes. He had a bullet through his left leg.”

“Neither arm touched?”

Again that sting!

“No!” The little word came out like a shot fired. And they stood looking at each other half a minute—a minute; words of appeal, of resentment, incoherent words were surging to her lips, but she kept them closed; she put her hand over them. He nodded.

“Thank you, Miss Cherrell. Thank you.” His head went a little to one side; he turned, and rather as if carrying that head on a charger, walked to the inner door. When he had passed through, Dinny covered her face with her hands. What had she done? Antagonised him? She ran her hands down over her face, over her body, and stood with them clenched at her sides, staring at the door through which he had passed, quivering from head to foot. A minute passed. The door was opened again, and Bobbie Ferrar came in. She saw his teeth. He nodded, shut the door, and said:

“It’s all right.”

Dinny spun round to the window. Dark had fallen, and if it hadn’t, she couldn’t have seen. All right! All right! She dashed her knuckles across her eyes, turned round, and held out both hands, without seeing where to hold them.

They were not taken, but his voice said:

“I’m very happy.”

“I thought I’d spoiled it.”

She saw his eyes then, round as a puppy dog’s.

“If he hadn’t made up his mind already he wouldn’t have seen you, Miss Cherrell. He’s not as case-hardened as all that. As a matter of fact, he’d seen the Magistrate about it at lunch time—that helped a lot.”

‘Then I had all that agony for nothing,’ thought Dinny.

“Did he have to see the preface, Mr. Ferrar?”

“No, and just as well—it might have worked the other way. We really owe it to the Magistrate. But you made a good impression on him. He said you were transparent.”

“Oh!”

Bobbie Ferrar took the little red book from the table, looked at it lovingly, and placed it in his pocket. “Shall we go?”