He came towards the fire and stood looking down at Shirley with the hint of a smile in his eyes. "Well, Miss Shirley Brown," he said, "I do find you in awkward situations, don't I?"
She gave a small laugh but shuddered a little. "Please."
She glanced fleetingly up at him. "I must look an awfull sight. Won't you sit down? I - I haven't thanked you yet."
He sat down in the plush-covered armchair she had vacated. "Oh yes, you have! Your manners are improving a lot. You thanked me at once."
"Did I?" She smiled at that. "I don't remember. I when I heard the other boat - I had a feeling it was you. Did - did your policeman tell you what had happened?"
"Tucker? Oh no, he hadn't any idea. I apologise for having provided you with such a useless guardian. My own intuition brought me. By the way, Bill jumped through the kitchen window. I left him with Tucker."
"It was nice of you to think of him," said Shirley, feeling shyer than ever.
"I am nice," said Amberley coolly.
She laughed and coloured. "Yes. I - I know."
"I don't want to bother you," he said, "but there's just one thing that's worrying me. What did you do with your half?"
She jumped and sat staring up at him. "My — my half?"
"Don't tell me you had it on you!"
"No," she said numbly, amazed at him.
"Well, where did you put it? Did you leave it about - as you left your gun about, by the way? Try and think; it's important. Your would-be assassin knew that you had it. Felicity let that out, damn her. That's why you had to be got rid of."
"Felicity?" she echoed. "How could she possibly have known?"
"She didn't. But she knew my uncle had left the book in your hands the day he borrowed it from Fountain and she said so."
She put her hand up to her head, pushing the hair off her face. "I can't grasp it. I can't make out how you knew about the book. Who can have told you?"
"No one told me. You must give me credit for some intelligence, my dear girl. Greythorne was twice burgled for that book. I naturally assumed it was the hiding-place Collins had chosen. Only it wasn't there. Owing to your absurd reticence I've been entirely at sea over that half. I only heard today that my uncle had left it behind for ten minutes at the Boar's Head. Where was it?"
She answered like one mesmerised: "In the back, pushed down behind the stitching. I found it quite by chance. But it's no good. Collins is dead, and he had the other half. It's all useless now."
"On the contrary," said Amberley. "That was Collins' half."
"Yes, I know, but he found Dawson's half."
"I hate to contradict you," said Amberley, "but he did no such thing. I've got Dawson's half."
"You?" she choked. "You've got it? But - but how did you know it existed? Where did you find it?"
He smiled. "I took it out of a drawer in a certain tallboy. Didn't you guess?"
She shook her head hopelessly. "I thought Collins had it. I never thought of you. Did you know where it was?"
"No, but I followed you up from the hall when you first went to find it. When you were scared off by Collins, I went to investigate the drawer. Dawson's half of the will was in it. It confirmed all my suspicions."
"Where were you?" she demanded. "I never saw you! It seems unbelievable. I made sure Collins had got back to the tallboy before I could reach it!"
"I was behind the long curtains in the archway. When you and Collins came along the corridor together I beat a strategic retreat into the nearest bedroom. Very simple."
She blinked at him. "Was it? But how could you have known who I was? Lady Matthews hadn't set eyes on me, so it couldn't have been she who told you."
He was interested at that. "Aunt Marion? Do you mean to tell me she knows?" She nodded. "In fact, you confided in her rather than in me."
She found herself oddly anxious to refute this accusation. "No, indeed I didn't! She knew as soon as she saw me. She only told me today when I when I asked her to send you to see me. I'm very like my father, you know. She recognised me."
"Did she?" Amberley gave a chuckle. "Very acute, is Aunt Marion. My suspicions were aroused by a certain portrait hanging on the corridor at the manor. A most striking resemblance. But all this isn't telling me what I want to know: what have you done with your half?"
"I put it in an envelope and posted it to Lady Matthews before I went to the cottage this afternoon," said Shirley. "I couldn't think of anything else to do with it."
"Thank God for that!" said Amberley. "It's the only sensible thing you've done yet." He glanced at his watch. "Now, my dear, at any moment my friend Sergeant Gubbins is likely to appear, and he'll want you to make a long statement. Before he comes I have a question to put to you. I should like a plain answer, please. Will you or will you not marry me?"
For a moment she felt that she could not have understood him. She sat looking up at him in sheer astonishment, and all she could find to say was: "But you don't like me!"
"There are times," said Mr. Amberley, "when I could happily choke the life out of you."
She had to laugh. "Oh, you're impossible! How can you want to marry me?"
"I don't know," said Mr. Amberley, "but I do."
"You told me ages ago that you didn't like me," she insisted.
"Why keep harping on that? I don't like you at all. You're obstinate and self-willed and abominably secretive. Your manners are atrocious, and you're a damned little nuisance. And I rather think I worship you." He leaned forward and possessed himself of her hands, drawing her towards him. "And I have a suspicion that I fell in love with you at first sight."
She made a half-hearted attempt to pull her hands away. "You didn't. You were loathsome to me."
"I may have been loathsome to you," said Mr. Amberley, "but if I wasn't already in love with you, why the hell didn't I inform the police about you?"
She found that she was on her feet, and that he was standing very close to her. She was not quite sure how she came to be there; she hadn't meant to let him pull her up. She studied the pattern of his tie with great intentness and said in a small gruff voice: "I don't know that I want to marry anyone who thinks I'm so objectionable."
Mr. Amberley caught her up in his arms. "My sweet, I think your adorable!"
Miss Shirley Brown, who had just escaped death by drowning, found that a worse fate awaited her. It seemed probable that at least one of her ribs would crack, but she made no very noticeable effort to break free from a hug that was crushing all the breath out of her body.
The apologetic yet not altogether unreproving voice of the sergeant spoke from the doorway. "I beg pardon, I'm sure," it said, "but I knocked twice."
Chapter Twenty
It was eleven o'clock when Lady Matthews, playing Patience, heard the unmistakable sound of the Bentley coming up the drive. Her husband and daughter, who had failed to induce her to tell them what was on her mind, heaved two separate sighs of relief.
Lady Matthews raised her eyes from the card-table. "Quite all right," she said. "It's come out three times running. I wonder if he's brought her here."
They heard the butler's tread in the hall and the opening of the front door. A moment later Shirley, an odd figure in garments that palpably did not belong to her, came in with Mr. Amberley behind her.
Lady Matthews got up. "I knew it was all right," she said placidly. "So glad, my dear. Did you tell Frank?"
Shirley caught her hands. "He knew," she said. "I suppose I've been very silly. He says so anyway."
Sir Humphrey, who had put on his glasses the better to survey her, looked in bewilderment at his nephew.
Amberley grinned. "Admiring Shirley's get-up? It is nice, isn't it? It belongs to the landlady of a pub at Littlehaven. Do you mind going to your study? I've pushed the sergeant in there, he wants a warrant to arrest Fountain."