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“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 Di
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 Di
“It’s a first,” said Bobbie Ferrar; “I picked it up after lunch.”
“Yes,” said Di
An i
“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. Di
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. Di
“Miss Cherrell! Don’t get up.” He lifted a restraining hand from beneath a coat-tail. Di
“Ferrar tells me that you edited your brother’s diary?”
Di
“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.”
Di
“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 Di
He again put out a restraining hand.
“Never mind that. Very devoted to your brother, Miss Cherrell?”
Di
“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 i
“It’s all right.”
Di
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 Di
“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?”