But, though there was nothing astonishing or alarming in Agatha Girton's hike, it was annoying because it prevented Patricia from carrying out her first promise to the Saint. Miss Girton might well stay out until dinner time, and then it would be too late to start any controversy, with the big appointment hanging in the background. However, that couldn't be cured, so the only thing to do was to get busy on the next specimen.
Patricia found Lapping pottering about in his garden, arrayed in stained tweeds, coatless, bare-armed, with an ancient felt hat on the back of his head. He looked a picture of healthy rustic late middle age, and the expansive good humour with which he greeted her was in keeping with his appearance.
"My dear Miss Holm! We haven't seen anything of you for far too long. How are you?
"Splendid," she told him. "And you're looking younger than ever."
He shook his head with a whimsical smile.
"Flattery, my dear, base flattery. I'm an old man, and youth belongs to youth." He peered quizzically at her in his short-sighted fashion. "What chance have I got for your favour against that dashing young hero of the Pill Box? No, you must leave me to my years."
"But I want to talk to you, Sir Michael," she said, smiling back. "Can't I even come inside the gate?"
"Temptress!" he teased. "You're a witch but I'm too old and dusty to be vamped even by you."
But he threw down the trowel, wiped his hands on his trousers, and opened the gate for her. It was not a strain to take the Saint's advice and treat Lapping as a sort of honorary uncle. His manner invited it. He was one of those rare and lovable neuters, of kindly wisdom and broad human sympathies, who are invariably adopted as honorary uncles by such sweet young things as Patricia. He had never married perhaps because he was too essentially safe and comfortable and tolerant for any woman to choose him as a partner in such a wild adventure as matrimony.
"And when do we congratulate you?" he asked, pursuing the ro1e of his privilege. "There could hardly be a better match young Templar's exciting enough to make any maiden heart beat faster."
It was no less than she could have wished. He saved her the trouble of leading up to the subject.
"I was just going to ask you what you thought of it," she remarked.
"Then may I first make the conventional felicitations?"
"Not yet. I came to ask your opinion to help me decide."
"But surely your aunt is the proper person "
"I've already asked her. Now I want your advice as well."
He tilted the battered Trilby farther over his ear.
"This is a horrible responsibility to have thrust upon one," he complained. "Even the aged and presumably wise have been known to err in their verdicts upon the rising generation. Still, if you insist.... Well, the first objection you must face is that every other woman he meets will want to take him away from you. Dark, dare-devil, romantic fire-eaters like him are scarce these days, and the few there are can take their pick. Not that I don't thoroughly agree with his choice. But "
"Perhaps," she suggested sweetly, "there might be a quite averagely nice man who would want to take me away from Mr. Templar. I don't want to seem conceited, but you can't have it all yourway."
He stared, then laughed.
"That's a point of view," he admitted.
"Now let's go and sit in the shade and be serious," she pleaded. "And just when we're nearly coming to blows you can give me some tea and I shall collapse.''
They walked over to a couple of wicker chairs that stood under a tree at the side of the house.
"Are you really serious?" he questioned as they settled themselves.
She nodded.
"Absolutely. And you're so old and clever I'm sure you can help."
He grimaced.
"You needn't rub in the patriarchal part," he said, "though I admit it myself. But you may spread yourself on the subject of my first-class brain. And what am I to say? I know less about young Templar than you do."
"People say all sorts of things about him."
Lapping looked reproachful.
"Was there ever a village that didn't say all sorts of things about inhabitants who weren't utterly commonplace and rumours even spring up about the most prosaic people."
She shook her head.
"It isn't all rumour," she said.
Then, as Simon had recommended, she told the whole story of the previous night's events, omitting very little. She told him about Bittle's amazing announcement and untimatum, and about Agatha Girton's confirmation of the millionaire's statement. She dwelt at length on the Saint's irregular behaviour, and on the curious incident at Carn's. But she did not mention the Saint's parting warning.
He listened attentively. Watching his face, she saw only a slight smile, as of a mellowed elder making allowances for the irresponsibility and supercharged imagination of youth, and that comprehensive tolerance hardly changed as she piled mystery upon mystery and thrill upon thrill. But for the warning which the Saint had drilled into her, to trust nobody, she would have accepted Lapping as honorary uncle in all sincerity, without hesitation. It was almost impossible to believe that this congenial, simple-minded, clean-looking man could be an associate of the Tiger's but then, it was almost as hard to realize that he possessed one of the keenest legal brains of his day, and that those pleasant brown features had assumed the inexorable mask of Justice and the same lips that smiled so avuncularly now had pronounced sentence of death upon many men.
Presently her recital was finished, and she was waiting for his response. He pulled a flowery bandanna from his pocket and blew his nose loudly, and then he turned to her with twinkling gray eyes.
"It's certainly got the makings of a good story," he confessed calmly.
"But it happened!" she insisted. "All in a few hours, last night. Surely you must see that there's something queer in the wind? There's some foundation to those rumours, but there's always the chance that the gossips have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you think Mr. Templar's a detective?"
He shrugged,
"Who am I to say? Do detectives behave like that except in detective stories?"
She played crestfallen, looking at him appealingly.
"You must know a lot about detectives, and if you say they don't, then I suppose he's a crook. But I can't believe that!"
"If a crook couldn't convince people that he was honest," Lapping pointed out, "he'd have to give up the game and go into the workhouse."
"But Mr. Templar's different."
"They always are," said Lapping cynically.
But a mocking spray of wrinkles remained creased up at the corners of his eyes, and his mouth was still half smiling. That wasn't the way a man who wanted to blacken another in the eyes of an infatuated girl would go about it. She challenged him.
"You're still ragging," she accused "and I wish you wouldn't. Pleasebe solemn, just for a minute."
"But what's the use?" he temporized. "In any case, either you love him already or you don't. Which is it?"
"I do," she answered defiantly.
He made a gesture of humorous despair. "If that's true, nothing anyone can say will change you. The law is taken out of my hands. If I say I believe in him, you'll fall on my neck and say how wise I am to see deeper than everybody else. If I say I don't believe in him, and advise you to give him up, you'll call me a spiteful old fool, and rush off and fall on his neck and tell him that you don't care what the rest of the world says. So what can I do?"
"Just give me your honest opinion. What would you advise me to do if I were your daughter, for instance?"
He winced.
"Still harping on my gray hairs!" he protested. "However, shall we stick to our former argument? You love him, and that's all there is to be said. I've had a lot of experience with lawbreakers, and unofficially I'm broadminded about them. There are only three kinds of criminal. The first is the small sneak-thief who's been brought up to it from childhood: he's petty, whining, or bullying according to size, and he spends most of his life in prison but to him that's part of the game. Obviously, Templar doesn't fall into that category. The second type is the clever man with a kink: he does fairly well for himself, till one day he makes a slip and ends up in the dock. He may be bred to it like the first kind, or he may drift into crime because he thinks he sees bigger rewards for his cleverness there than in legitimate professions. But he's a coward and a snake and, obviously again, that lets Templar out. The distinction's rather a fine one, but I think you can put it that the worst kink in type the second is that he can't laugh like a completely sane man; and Templar's got such a refreshingly boyish sense of humour. The third and last type is the Raffles. He's common in fiction, but he only occurs once in a blue moon outside a novelist's imagination; he does it more for the thrill than anything. Templar might be that, quite easily; but that kind is always clean, and if he loves you you've nothing to worry about. So suppose we agree that that's the worst we can say about him and we can even excuse some of that on the grounds of youthful high spirits and an impetuous desire for adventure. Are you satisfied?"