Mr. Lushington went on speaking.
“Colonel Garratt is convinced that such an organization exists. He believes that it has plans for sabotage on a large scale. If this country were faced with a sudden emergency, these plans would be brought into operation. He has compiled a list of suspected agents, and was very anxious that I should sanction a general round up. I wished to think the matter over, and asked to be furnished with a memorandum and a list of the suspected persons before the week-end. The envelope delivered to Carstairs contained this information. It came from Colonel Garratt through our own people, and I am not excluding the possibility of a leakage, but it is sufficiently obvious that there would have been no need to steal the papers if the information had already been obtained from either of the departments concerned. When I say that the messenger is above suspicion, I have regard not only to his character and length of service, but to the fact that it is incredible that he would have risked substituting a blank envelope for the one addressed to me, when all that he had to do was to allow the enclosures to be copied or photographed. He could not possibly have anticipated that neither Carstairs, nor you, nor I myself would not immediately examine the envelope and detect the fraud. Now, Algy, I am coming to the point. The papers were stolen a week ago. I am advised that a raid would not be likely to produce sufficient evidence to justify itself. Whoever had an interest in acquiring the papers has therefore probably achieved his end. He has found out which of his agents are under suspicion. He has been able to warn them, and he will probably now replace them by others. We shall have to begin all over again. As I said before, the skies won’t fall, but what matters to me is the suggestion that the papers were stolen here in my own house.”
Algy felt exactly as if someone had poured about half a pint of cold water down the back of his neck, because-well, after all-hang it all-what was Monty saying?
He said aloud, “Yes, sir?” and was rather proud of the fact that the words came out in quite an ordinary tone.
“It has been suggested to me-” this was Monty on the high horse of offence-“it has been suggested that it would have been far more credible that an attempt to steal the papers should be made here, where the fact that I was expecting them was known, and their nature if not known was at least guessed at, rather than at Wellings, where no one could reasonably be supposed to have any information on the subject.”
Algy had been thinking. His thoughts made a clear and very unpleasant pattern. He wanted to get up, to shout out the fury and anger which filled him. But he did not do either of these things. He sat quite still, and he said quietly,
“That puts it on me.”
“That is why I am talking to you like this,” said Montagu Lushington. “When you say that this puts it on you, you are perhaps exaggerating. Four people handled the envelope in this house-”
“Four?”
Mr. Lushington inclined his head.
“The messenger-Carstairs-you, Algy-and I. The messenger really is above suspicion. Our own people swear to him. There remain Carstairs, whom I am prepared to swear to, and you, Algy, and myself. If I could remember reading the address upon the envelope I should be able to clear you, and in doing so I should prove, no doubt to some people’s satisfaction, that I had abstracted the papers myself.”
Algy looked across the table. His pleasant face had taken on the most unwontedly stern expression. He looked as he would not look, except under stress, for a dozen years at least. He said, still in that quiet voice,
“It does come back to me, you see. Do I have to say that I didn’t do it, sir?”
He got the shrewd look again. Montagu Lushington said,
“Not to me, Algy.”
VIII
Algy Somers was dining out. He was dining with the Giles Westgates. Giles was his very good friend, and Linda was a cousin-one of the many cousins who bloomed, sprouted, and climbed on a highly prolific family tree. Linda and Giles knew everyone, went everywhere, and did everything. They probably knew all about the papers that had gone missing at the Wessex-Gardners’-the “all” not to be read to include criminal knowledge, but merely an expert collection of every scrap of fact and gossip on the subject. This being so, Algy had serious thoughts of getting the man at his rooms to ring up and say that he was dead. No lesser excuse would be any good, and Barker would do it awfully well-“Mr. Somers’ compliments, and he is very sorry indeed to inconvenience your table, madam, but he is unavoidably prevented from joining you tonight owing to his sudden decease.” The dark melancholy of Barker’s voice was made for messages like this, and wasted, lamentably wasted, on orders for groceries and fish.
Algy turned on his bath, and reflected that this was one of the most unpleasant days he had ever spent. The fog outside was nothing to the fog within. In this fog of suspicion, which didn’t amount to accusation and would never amount to accusation, he had endured the long humiliating hours of a long humiliating day. He brought himself to realize that the future now promised an indefinite number of similar days. The Home Secretary had asked for an important memorandum on sabotage, and it had gone missing. Algy Somers was the person who had had by far the best opportunity of taking it. This was a quite insane, quite incontrovertible proposition. And there they were. And there he was. There was no evidence of course. Nobody would quite accuse him, nobody would quite believe him. There would be a whisper that would pursue him wherever he went and whatever he did. It would be prefaced by a vague “They say,” or a hearty “Of course, I don’t believe it, but-” and it would slide by insidious degrees from damaging into damning him. And only twenty-four hours ago he had been trying hard to remember that a young man with the ball at his foot had better put off thinking about marriage for another half dozen years or so. Well, there was no ball at his foot now, and nothing to offer Gay Hardwicke or any other girl. Monty would stand by him-Monty had behaved uncommon well-but the fact that he was a relation put them both in an awkward position. It would have been much easier, for instance, for Monty to stand up for Brewster.
Algy got into his bath, and considered with bitterness that Brewster had all the luck. Why couldn’t it have been Brewster who had been told off to take that damnable envelope up to Monty? A bit hard on Brewster perhaps, but on the other hand imagination really boggled at the idea of anyone suspecting Brewster. He tried to picture him under suspicion and failed. Brewster was the perfect assistant secretary, the industrious apprentice, the human encyclopedia. No good bothering about Brewster. This was the affair Algy Somers. What was Algy Somers going to do about it? See his good name and his prospects die a slow death from poison? Well then, what about it? The answer came to him vigorous and clear-“I’ve damn well got to find out who took those papers.”
He ceased to lie supine in the gratifyingly hot water. You didn’t expose villainy by lying in a hot bath-you girded yourself for the fray, and you went out and looked for the fellow who had really done the deed.
Algy proceeded to gird himself. He didn’t know where he was going to look, but it occurred to him that Linda’s dinner table wasn’t at all a bad place to begin, because what he wanted to do was to listen to the voice of scandal. About the Wessex-Gardners, and the Wessex-Gardners’ house-party.
He ran through the guests in his own mind. Monty had been a bit stiff over telling him about them, but had stood and delivered like a man in the end.
Beaufort and Poppy Wessex-Gardner. The host and hostess. He was the little man with the bald head at the Ducks and Drakes. Insignificant physically and no use socially, but a bulging forehead and probably a great brain. Anyhow he had made masses of money, and was now going to build aeroplanes for the government. They called him Buffo. Sabotage might interest him. Poppy? Amazing clothes, bizarre make-up, moderate personal attractions, age very difficult to tell-somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Nothing to suggest whether she was or could be interested in anything or anyone except herself.