“Yes, I see… I hope you’re not going to suggest that Miss Hillyard is Arthur Robinson in disguise, because I’ve known her for ten years.”
“Why Miss Hillyard? What’s she been doing?”
“Nothing susceptible of proof.”
“Tell me.”
Harriet told him the story of the telephone call, to which he listened with a grave face.
“Was I making a mountain out of a molehill?”
“I think not. I think our friend has realized that you are a danger and is minded to tackle you first. Unless it is a quite separate feud-which is just possible. On the whole it’s as well that you thought of ringing back.”
“You may take the credit for that. I hadn’t forgotten your scathing remarks about the thriller-heroine and the bogus message from Scotland Yard.”
“Hadn’t you?… Harriet, will you let me show you how to meet an attack if it ever does come?”
“Meet a-? Yes, I should like to know. Though I’m fairly strong, you know. I think I could cope with most things, except a stab in the back. That was what I rather expected.”
“I doubt if it will be that,” said he, coolly. “It makes a mess and leaves a messy weapon to be disposed of. Strangling is cleaner and quicker and makes no noise to speak of.”
“Yeough!”
“You have a nice throat for it,” pursued his lordship, thoughtfully. “It has a kind of arum-lily quality that is in itself a temptation to violence. I do not want to be run in by the local bobby for assault; but if you will kindly step aside with me into this convenient field, it will give me great pleasure to strangle you scientifically in several positions.”
“You’re a gruesome companion for a day’s outing.”
“I’m quite serious.” He had got out of the car and was holding the door open for her. “Come, Harriet. I am very civilly pretending that I don’t care what dangers you run. You don’t want me to howl at your feet, do you?”
“You’re going to make me feel ignorant and helpless,” said Harriet, following him nevertheless to the nearest gate. “I don’t like it.”
“This field will do charmingly. It is not laid down for hay, it is reasonably free from thistles and cow-pats, and there is a high hedge to screen us from the road.”
“And it is soft to fall on and has a pond to throw the corpse into if you get carried away by your enthusiasm. Very well. I have said my prayers.”
“Then kindly imagine me to be an unpleasant-faced thug with designs on your purse, your virtue and your life.”
The next few minutes were rather breathless.
“Don’t thrash about,” said Peter, mildly. “You’ll only exhaust yourself. Use my weight to upset me with. I’m putting it entirely at your disposal, and I can’t throw it about in two directions at once. If you let my vaulting ambition overleap itself, I shall fall on the other side with the beautiful precision of Newton’s apple.”
“I don’t get that.”
“Try throttling me for a change, and I’ll show you.”
“Did I say this field was soft?” said Harriet, when her feet had been ignominiously hooked from under her. She rubbed herself resentfully. “Just let me do it to you, that’s all.”
And this time, whether by skill or favour, she did contrive to bring him off his balance, so that he only saved himself from sprawling by a complicated twist suggestive of an eel on a hook.
“We’d better stop now,” said Peter, when he had instructed her in the removal of the thug who leaps from in front, the thug who dives in from behind, and the more sophisticated thug who starts operations with a sill; scarf. “You’ll feel tomorrow as if you’d been playing football.”
“I think I shall have a sore throat.”
“I’m sorry. Did I let my animal nature get the better of me? That’s the worst of these rough sports.”
“It would be a good bit rougher if it was done in earnest. I shouldn’t care to meet you in a narrow lane on a dark night, and I only hope the Poison-Pen hasn’t been making a study of the subject. Peter, you don’t seriously think-”
“I avoid serious thought like the plague. But I assure you I haven’t been knocking you about for the fun of it.”
“I believe you. No gentleman could throttle a lady more impersonally.”
“Thank you for the testimonial. Cigarette?”
Harriet took the cigarette, which she felt she had deserved, and sat with her hands about her knees, mentally turning the incidents of the last hour into a scene in a book (as is the novelist’s unpleasant habit) and thinking how, with a little vulgarity on both sides, it could be worked up into a nice piece of exhibitionism for the male and provocation for the female concerned. With a little manipulation it might come in for the chapter where the wart Everard was due to seduce the glamorous but neglected wife, Sheila. He could lock her to him, knee to knee and breast to breast in an unbreakable grip and smile challengingly into her flushed face; and Sheila could go all limp-at which point Everard could either rain fierce kisses on her mouth, or say, “My God! don’t tempt me!” which would come to exactly the same thing in the end. “It would suit them very well,” thought Harriet, “the cheap skates!” and passed an exploring finger under the angle of her jaw, where the pressure of a relentless thumb had left its memory.
“Cheer up,” said Peter. “It’ll wear off.”
“Do you propose to give Miss de Vine lessons in self-defence?”
“I’m rather bothered about her. She’s got a groggy heart, hasn’t she?”
“She’s supposed to have. She wouldn’t climb Magdalen Tower.”
“And presumably she wouldn’t rush round College and steal fuses or climb in and out of windows. In which case the hairpins would be a plant. Which brings us back to the Robinson theory. But it’s easy to pretend your heart is worse than it is. Ever seen her have a heart-attack?”
“Now you mention it, I have not.”
“You see,” said Peter, “she put me on to Robinson. I gave her the opportunity to tell a story, and she told it. Next day, I went to see her and asked for the name. She made a good show of reluctance, but she gave it. It’s easy to throw suspicion on people who owe you a grudge, and that without telling any lies. If I wanted you to believe that somebody was having a smack at me, I could give you a list of enemies as long as my arm.”
“I suppose so. Do they ever try to do you in?”
“Not very often. Occasionally they send silly things by post. Shaving cream full of nasty bugs and so on. And there was a gentleman with a pill calculated to cure lassitude and debility. I had a long correspondence with him, all in plain envelopes. The beauty of his system was that he made you pay for the pill, which still seems to me a very fine touch. In fact, he took me in completely; he only made the one trifling miscalculation of supposing that I wanted the pill-and I can’t really blame him for that, because the list of symptoms I produced for him would have led anybody to suppose I needed the whole pharmacopoeia. However, he sent me a week’s supply-seven pills-at shocking expense; so I virtuously toddled round with them to my friend at the Home Office who deals with charlatans and immoral advertisements and so on, and he was inquisitive enough to analyze them. ‘H’m,’ said he, ‘six of ’em would neither make nor mar you; but the other would cure lassitude all right.’ So I naturally asked what was in it. ‘Strychnine,’ said he. ‘Full lethal dose. If you want to go rolling round the room like a hoop with your head touching your heels, I’ll guarantee the result.’ So we went off to look for the gentleman.”
“Did you find him?”
“Oh, yes. Dear old friend of mine. Had him in the dock before on a cocaine charge. We put him in jug-and I’m dashed if, when he came out, he didn’t try to blackmail me on the strength of the pill correspondence. I never met a scoundrel I liked better… Would you care for a little more healthy exercise, or shall we take the road again?”