And then the door opened and Peveril Craddock came in.
A sudden silence fell. Maurice stopped half way through a sentence, and Benjy in the middle of a roar. Jennifer let go of him and backed away until she came to her place at the table. When she reached it she pulled the chair out with a jerk and sat down. The boys scrambled for their places and began to eat the porridge which had been cooling. Jennifer did not touch hers. She drank a cup of health tea, and presently got up and poured herself out another.
As a rule Mr. Craddock read one of the papers at breakfast and kept the other beside him in case he wished to read that too. This morning he made no attempt to look at either, merely removing them from the table, folding them, and laying them aside. All this in an abstracted and gloomy manner. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he had already read the news, and that it had affected him painfully. Miss Silver had not been long in discovering that whilst he constantly proclaimed the right of children to complete freedom in the manner of self-expression, he was in practice extremely intolerant of anything that ran counter either to his opinions or his comfort. That Jennifer both disliked and feared him was apparent, but even Maurice’s bold tongue was apt to fail him under a certain portentous look, and when Maurice blenched all the spirit went out of Benjy too. They sat as still as mice and gulped their porridge whilst Mr. Craddock frowned over his coffee, complained of the sausages, and enquired how many times he had stated that he would not eat cold toast.
It was whilst Jennifer had gone to make some more that Emily put down her cup and said in a fluttering voice,
“You have seen the papers? This is terrible news, isn’t it?”
The Jovian frown rested upon her.
“I do not consider it a suitable topic for the breakfast table, but since you have referred to it, I can only say that I am very much shocked. I was in the bank only yesterday and had a few words with the manager. It is a terrible occurrence, but not, I think, adapted for family discussion. Is it really not possible to obtain better coffee than this, Emily? May I ask how many spoons you put in?”
Mrs. Craddock looked guilty.
“I-I-Mrs. Masters-”
“You let Mrs. Masters make the coffee! After all that I have said! I do not expect that my wishes should carry any undue weight, but I thought I had made a very particular request that you should see to the coffee yourself. Mrs. Masters can see no difference between water that has been freshly boiled and water that either has not boiled at all or has been kept stewing on the stove for hours. This coffee has been made with only half the proper amount, and it has been stewed. My special herbal flavouring, designed not only to improve the taste but to counteract the disastrous effects of caffeine, has been omitted. Is Jennifer merely making toast, or has she to bake the bread as well?”
“There-there-is plenty of bread.”
“If it is burned, I will not eat it,” said Peveril Craddock with a rasp in his voice.
The toast was, fortunately, not burned. When she had placed it before him Jennifer poured herself yet another cup of health tea and drank it in sips, holding the cup between her hands as if she needed the warmth.
The police arrived at just after ten o’clock.
CHAPTER XXIII
As they turned into the drive, Frank Abbott said to Inspector Jackson,
“Look here, I want Miss Silver to be there when we question these people, and the only way it can be done is to have them all in together. She knows them, and we don’t, and I want her opinion as to how they react. But I don’t want to give anything away. I don’t know how long she means to stay anyhow, but her position here would be quite untenable if they thought she had anything to do with the police. So if it’s all right with you, I suggest we round up all these Colony people and see them together at Deepe House, and if there seems to be any reason for it, we can go through them one at a time afterwards. If I drop you off about here you can do Remington, and Miranda, and the Miss Tremletts, whilst I collect the elusive Robinson. And you had better bring Miss Elliot along too. She’s staying with the Miss Tremletts. I don’t suppose any of them will be out.”
Inspector Jackson agreeing, Frank Abbott stopped the car and set him down.
He stopped again at the east wing, where he wasted ten minutes trying to make Mr. John Robinson hear. All the windows looking on to the courtyard had been boarded up, and an accumulation of dead leaves and dusty spiders’ webs suggested that the front door was no longer in use. The bell was certainly out of order. Having made as much noise as he could with the knocker without producing any result except to awake the courtyard echoes, he walked along the impenetrable hedge which joined the front wall of the house and called, “Hullo!” At the sixth or seventh repetition there was an answering call, and a man’s voice said, “Want anything?”
“I want Mr. John Robinson.”
“Well?”
“Are you Robinson?”
“I am. What do you want with me?”
“Answers to a few questions. I am Inspector Abbott of Scotland Yard, and I have come over with Inspector Jackson of the Ledshire County Police to make some enquiries. We shall be obliged if you will join the other members of the Colony over at Mr. Craddock’s side of the house.”
A not unmelodious whistle came from behind the hedge. Mr. Robinson said,
“What’s up?”
“A routine enquiry.”
“Well, even routine enquiries have to be about something. All right. I’ll know more about it when I join the party, won’t I? You’ll have to put up with my working clothes.” His voice receded.
Frank had begun to wonder whether it had gone away for good, when there was a sound of footsteps away on his left and John Robinson hove into view. The working clothes to which he had alluded were of the disintegrating kind-flannel trousers with a good many rents in them and a liberal plastering of mud, a couple of sweaters so carelessly disposed that the under one, which showed traces of having once been blue, stuck out at the neck and sleeves and from gaping holes in the elbows. Above all this, a short beard, a very untidy head of hair, dark eyes under bushy eyebrows.
He nodded affably as he came up, and remarked,
“Go where glory waits thee, but when fame elates thee, oh then remember me-as Tommy Moore says. And if you have any idea of haling me to quod on account of something I haven’t done, I will merely mention that I have a family of hens, a blackbird with a broken leg, and a tame rat called Samuel Whiskers. He is the only one of the party able to shift for himself, so I commend the others to your humanity-if a policeman has any. It is, of course, rather a lot to expect.” He had a soft, agreeable voice and a country accent, more noticeable than it had been from the other side of the hedge.
They arrived at the door of the other wing, and were admitted by Mrs. Masters, who put them in the study and went to tell Mrs. Craddock that there was a policeman there with “that Mr. Robinson,” her manner declaring that she always had said there was something wrong about him.
Peveril Craddock came into the study, very much the master of the house and of the situation. He might have been the headmaster receiving a deputation of which he could not be expected to approve. There was a kind of courteous gloom, a magnanimous condescension. His voice took on its richest tones.
The police-he really failed to see-but of course every facility they desired… The other members of the Colony?… Indeed?… Of course if they wished it… Oh, yes-certainly, certainly…
He was wearing corduroy trousers of a subdued blue and a belted blouse of the same colour with the merest hint of red and green embroidery at the neck and wrists. Hair and beard were in beautiful order and disengaged a faint odour of what was doubtless a herbal brilliantine. His gaze rested upon Mr. John Robinson’s deplorable get-up for no more than a moment, and then withdrew.