"Abraham," said Neville. "Well, that settles him, at all events. Pity: the name had possibilities."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I let myself into the garden, and walked up the path to Ernie's study. Ernie was there, but I soon saw I'd made a mistake to come. He was - almost horrid - as horrid as a person with charm like his could be."
"That's what comes of getting me to become a pukka sahib," said Neville. "You can't blame Ernie."
"How long did you stay with him?" demanded Sally. "Think! it's probably important."
"I don't have to think: I know," said Helen. "Ernie said something about my being found with him at a compromising hour, and I looked at the clock, and said if he thought a quarter to ten a compromising hour he must be actually a Victorian, though I'd thought him merely Edwardian."
"Good!" approved Sally.
"Yes, I was in a rage," admitted Helen. "And I walked straight out, the way I'd come."
"Straight home?"
Helen hesitated, her eyes on Neville, who was regarding her with an expression of sleepy enjoyment. "No," she said, after a pause. "Not quite. I heard the gate open, and naturally I didn't want to be seen, so I dived behind a bush beside the house."
"Who was it?" asked Sally quickly.
"I don't know. I couldn't see. A man, that's all I can tell you."
Sally looked at her rather searchingly, and then said: "All right, go on!"
"He went into the study. I think he closed the window behind him; I didn't hear anything except a sort of murmur of voices."
"Oh! Did you beat it while you had the chance?" Helen nodded. "Yes, of course." "And no one but Ernie saw you?" "No."
"And you didn't go dropping handkerchiefs about, or anything like that?"
"Of course I didn't."
"Then there's nothing except the IOUs to connect you with the murder!" Sally declared. "We've got to get hold of them before the police do."
Helen said: "Oh, Sally, if only I could! But how? They aren't in his desk -'
"How do you know?" asked Sally swiftly.
"Why, I - something Ernie said," faltered Helen.
"I shouldn't set much store by anything he said. Of course, they may be in a safe, but we'll hope he didn't go in for safes. Neville, this is your job."
Neville opened his eyes. Having surveyed both sisters in his peculiarly dreamy way, he dragged himself out of his chair, and wandered over to the table where the cigarette-box stood. He selected and lit one, produced his own empty case, and proceeded to fill it. "All this excitement," he said softly, "has gone to your head."
"Oh no, it hasn't! You're staying in the house; you said you'd help Helen. You can jolly well find those IOUs before Scotland Yard gets on to the case."
"Scotland Yard!" gasped Helen.
"Yes, I should think almost certainly," replied Sally. "This is the Metropolitan area, you know. They'll probably send a man down to investigate. Neville, are you willing to take a chance?"
"No, darling," he replied, fitting the last cigarette into his case.
"You would fast enough if they were your IOUs!"
He looked up. "I daresay I should. But they aren't mine. I won't have anything to do with them."
"If you had a grain of decency, or - or chivalry -'
"Do stop trying to cast me for this beastly Gunga Din role!" he implored. "Find someone else for the job! You must know lots of whiter men than I am."
"Very well!" said Sally. "If you haven't the guts to do it, I have, and I will!"
"I don't want to blight your youthful ardour, sweet one, but I think I ought to tell you that there's a large, resolute policeman parked in the front hall."
Her face fell. "I never thought of that," she said slowly. An idea occurred to her. "Do you mean he's keeping a watch over the household?"
"Well, he's certainly not a paying-guest."
She started up. "You utter, abysmal idiot, what did you come here for if the house was being watched?"
"To get some cigarettes. We've run out."
"Oh, don't be a fool! Don't you realise you'll have led them straight to Helen?"
"Oh no! No, really I haven't," Neville replied, with his apologetic smile. "I climbed out of my window, and over the wall."
"You - Did you really?" exclaimed Sally, her thunderous frown vanishing. "I must say I should never have thought it of you."
"Atavism," he explained.
"Oh, Neville, how on earth did you manage it?" Helen asked, a note of admiration in her voice.
He looked alarmed. "Please don't get misled! It wasn't a bit heroic, or daring, or even difficult."
"It must have been. I can't think how you did it! I should never have had the nerve."
"No nerve. Merely one of the advantages of a University education."
"Well, I think it was fairly sporting of you," said Sally. "Only it doesn't help us to solve the problem of how to get those IOUs."
"Don't strain yourself," Neville recommended. "You can't get them. They're probably in Ernie's safe, just like you suggested."
"There are ways of opening safes," said Sally darkly, cupping her chin in her hands. "I suppose you don't happen to know the combination?"
"You're right for the first time tonight. God, how I hate women!"
"Sally, you don't really know how to open safes, do you?" asked Helen, forgetting her troubles in surprise.
"No, not offhand. I should have to look it up. Of course, I know about soup."
"What sort of soup?" inquired Neville. "If we're going to talk gastronomy I can be quite intelligent, though seldom inspired."
"Ass. Not that kind of soup. The stuff you blow open safes with. I forget exactly what it's made of, but it's an explosive of sorts."
"Is it really?" said Neville. "What lovely fun! Won't it go big with the policeman in the hall?"
"I wasn't thinking of using it, even if I knew how to make it, which I don't."
"That must be your weak woman's nature breaking through the crust, darling. Get the better of it, and don't stop at the safe. Blow the whole house up, thus eliminating the policeman."
"Have a good laugh," said Sally. "After all, you aren't in this jam, are you?" She got up, and began to stride about the room. "Well, let's face it! We can't open the safe, and we don't know how to get by the policeman. In fact, we're futile. But if I created this situation in a book I could think of something for the book-me to do. Why the devil can't I think of something now?"
Neville betrayed a faint interest. "If we were in one of your books, we should all of us have much more nerve than we really have, to start with."
"Not necessarily."
"Oh yes! You always draw your characters rather more than life-size. We should have more brains, too. You, for instance, would know how to make your soup -"
"Any where to buy the - the ingredients, which actually one just doesn't know," she interpolated.
"Exactly. Helen would go and scream blue murder outside the house, to draw the policeman off while you blew up the safe, and I should put up a great act to regale him with on his return, telling him I thought I heard someone in the study, and leading him there when you'd beaten it with the incriminating documents. And can you see any one of us doing any of it?"
"No, I can't. It's lousy, anyway. It would be brought home to us because of Helen's being an obvious decoy."
"Helen would never be seen. She'd have merged into the night by the time the policeman got there."
"Let's discuss possibilities!" begged Helen.
"I'll go further, and discuss inevitabilities. We shall all of us sit tight, and let the police do the worrying. Ernie's dead, and there isn't a thing we can do, except preserve our poise. In fact, we are quite definitely in the hands of Fate. Fascinating situation!"