CHAPTER XXV

Summing up the matter, as she did in a night made busy with the comings and goings of doctors, and vocal with the low-voiced agony of Mr. Superbus, Diana was glad that the man had escaped. She was sorry, extremely sorry about the Julian toe--a small toe by all accounts, and not especially valuable or wholly necessary to his complete enjoyment of life--still, it was his, and had been (as he explained between paroxysms) a close companion throughout his chequered life. He recounted stories about it, half fond, half wistful. Once he had dropped a hammer on it and had cursed it for being in the way. He regretted that now. It had been a gentle, easy-going toe, and had never given him trouble. Other toes had developed callosities that were painful; but this child of his heart amongst the pedal appendages had never given him a moment’s unease.

Yes, she was rather sorry, even though the doctor said he was in no pain and (not knowing the fearless character of the man) had given an opinion that Julius was more frightened than hurt. But she was glad Double Dan had gone ... ever so glad.

And the shooting had produced one most desirable result--Dempsi had been completely subdued ever since. Not once had he described her as his angel or his serene vision. He who had searched the heavens and starry spaces thereof for illustrations of her beauty, her charm and her numerous attractions, was satisfied with the most commonplace terminology.

“The fact is,” said Bobbie, “the poor Wop has never used an automatic before, and the darn thing went off before he realised he had touched the trigger.”

“Poor Wop!” Diana’s nose went up. “Poor Mr. Superbus rather!”

This was so long after breakfast that Bobbie had had time to make a call at Diana’s bank, and Mr. Dempsi was a notable absentee.

“How did you sleep?” he asked sympathetically.

“Terribly! Bobbie, did you get the money?”

“Yes, by great good luck your credits came through on Saturday. I have the money. The manager was full of apologies on behalf of self and bank. Here it is.” He produced from his hip pocket a thick wad of bills. “In American money. By some strange accident it is clean.”

She was thoughtful, biting her lip.

“I had a wire from Gordon. He has reached Inverness,” she mentioned.

“I’m sure he has,” said Bobbie drily. “And how is the old K Bus?”

“Poor old fellow!” she laughed quietly. “I think he’s almost reconciled to his very great loss. I shouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t develop into a war-hero, but for the moment he’s worrying what his good lady will say about the lost toe. From what he says I gather that she counts them every night.”

Bobbie grinned at the fire. There seemed something inexpressibly comic about a man losing a toe.

“Nothing has been heard of Double Dan?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“No, he seems to have disappeared. We know by the marks on the brickwork that he climbed the wall, and according to Mr. Superbus, he had a companion. In one way I’m glad he’s gone.”

Bobbie looked at the girl in astonishment.

“Glad?” he said. “Good lord, why?”

“For the poor girl’s sake.” Diana’s face was saddened. “You don’t know what she’s suffered at his hands, Bobbie. There’s a whole lot of good in Heloise. Of course she feels his going. That’s the curse of it--a woman never loses hope.”

“He must have got away pretty quickly,” said Bobbie. “I was down immediately after Dempsi, and though I searched the house and the courtyard at once, there was no sign of the devil.”

She made a little gesture of distaste.

“Don’t let us talk about him,” she said briefly and went on to talk of Dempsi.

“He has been simply splendid. Really I have had a pleasant shock: the only one of that variety he has ever given me. I shouldn’t have thought that a man of his excitable temperament could have taken the matter so calmly. But he is subdued. A little nervous, I think, about the shooting. He was very anxious to know if I had informed the police, but of course I hadn’t--so far as Mr. Superbus’ toe was concerned. He’s going to-day.”

“Not Dempsi?”

She nodded.

“He says he’ll wait for me for a thousand years,” she sighed. “I told him a hundred would be long enough--heigho! He hasn’t spoken otherwise about marriage all the morning. I almost like him for it.”

The subject of conversation strolled into the room a few minutes later. He was looking haggard, Bobbie thought, and remarkably unattractive.

“Good morning, Mr. Selsbury--you have not seen Aunt Lizzie? I wished to condole with her. It is terrible when lovers are parted--but how terrible for you! Double Dan, you say? It makes my flesh creep. Yet”--his admiring eyes beamed upon his hostess--“yet our little Diana did not fear! Ah, that was most wonderful. But tell me--who is Aunt Lizzie?”

“A friend of mine,” said Diana shortly.

Dempsi shook his head in sorrow.

“I shall never forgive myself for shooting Superbus--in the toe,” he said in a tone of bitter regret.

Bobbie laughed.

“You sound as though you’d like to have shot him through the head,” he said, and Mr. Dempsi recoiled before the bloodthirsty suggestion.

“I? Heaven forbid! I admire Superbus. He is to me most admirable.”

“He shouldn’t have slept,” said Diana. “He promised me that if he did fall off, he would have one eye open. Those were his words. I don’t know how he would manage, but he was so confident that I didn’t come down to look.”

She ran to the door. The tap, tap of a stick on the parquet floor of the hall announced the coming of the invalid, his right foot a picturesque cushion of white bandages. There was a crutch under one arm, and he heaved himself forward in jerks. To Diana he accorded a wan smile. Bobbie took one arm, Mr. Dempsi the other. They reached the sofa to the accompaniment of many grunts and “ughs.”

“You are feeling better, Mr. Superbus?”

He shook his head, being unwilling at this early stage to dispense with the anxiety, the care and the apprehension that was his due.

“Middling, ma’am, middling. Naturally, I’m a little bit shook up. I always get that way when I figure in a shooting affray--if I may use the term--and I’ve been in a few in my time. I’ll tell you about them one day, miss. But this, in a way, is the worst, and I admit I don’t feel up to the mark. What my good lady will say when she finds I’ve lost a toe----”

He shook his head mournfully. Diana tried to cheer him.

“I’m sure she won’t make a fuss, Mr. Superbus. Women are very brave in such moments of trial. And a toe more or less isn’t essential to married happiness.”

Mr. Superbus wasn’t so sure, being at that moment in his most sentimental mood. His eyes were moist.

“It’s a dreadful thing to think, ma’am,” he said, his lip a-tremble, “that only yesterday that little toe of mine was alive and well; to-day--where is it?”

Mr. Dempsi covered his eyes with his long, thin hand.

“And I did it,” he said, his bosom heaving.

“Don’t take on so, sir”--Julius had the air of a Christian martyr excusing the lions. “Why, it might have happened to any gentleman. I wish you’d shot him--or her.”

Diana’s eyes narrowed.

“Or her?” she repeated. “What makes you say that? Was the other person a woman?”

“It might have been.” Julius was not prepared to be more explicit. In truth, he wasn’t particularly sure himself, but being gifted by nature with the mystery novelist’s successful trick of passing on suspicion to the most unlikely quarters, he suggested a woman accomplice, if only to be the only person in the room who knew the truth. Which was that the second person was a man and used expressions that no lady could possibly employ.

“Whether it is one or the other I am unable to make a statement at present,” he said sombrely. “That will come out at the trial.”

“What really happened?” Bobbie put the question. He had still only a disjoined idea of what had occurred in the dark.

Julius fumbled in his pocket and found a massive notebook, opened it deliberately, and, after much searching, found the page he sought.

“At two A.M. on or about the fifteenth inst.,” he said sonorously and with complete relish, “I was aroused from my slumbers by an uneasy apprehension that trouble was abroad, viz: burglars or other bad characters. I proceeded at once to rise from my bed, which was twenty-five feet six inches from the window (I got Aunt Lizzie to measure it)” he explained in parenthesis. “The Study was in darkness, but I saw the figure of a man. As I darted forward to arrest him, there arose, seemingly from my feet, a person or persons unknown. Realising that danger threatened, I immediately grappled with them--I suppose you heard the sign of a struggle?” he asked anxiously.

Diana had heard nothing. Bobbie shook his head.

“I didn’t, but I wasn’t near enough,” he explained.

Mr. Dempsi, his hand behind him, his bearded chin on his waistcoat, did not look up.

“Suddenly,” resumed Superbus, “there was a shot and I knew no more.”

“But you say it might have been a woman?” Diana was not inclined to lose sight of that point.

“It might have been a man or a woman,” said Julius. “That will come out when I tell the secret story, so to speak. For the present I will describe it as a person or persons unknown. I don’t mind admitting,” he added, “that they was strangers to me, and I never want to see ’em again. Where’s Uncle Isaac? I haven’t seen him this morning.”

“But when you grappled, Mr. Superbus, you surely knew whether it was a man or a woman?” insisted Diana.

Julius inclined his head.

“Speaking as a married man,” he said discreetly, “I ought to know.”

“But you ‘grappled’?”

“In a sense,” said Mr. Superbus, “only in a sense. When a man grapples with--with--a problem, does he catch it by the ear, or punch it under the jaw? No, ma’am. When I say grappled, I’m speaking in a general way.”

“But you saw----”

Here Julius was on safer ground.

“Well, it looked like a man.... I’ll tell you the truth, it looked like Uncle Isaac. Don’t imagine for one second that it _was_ Uncle Isaac,” he warned them. “I cast no aspersions. He got through the door before I could properly see him.”

“You must have been mistaken, Mr. Superbus,” said Diana.

“I saw it slip past me and out of that door.” Julius pointed.

“You were mistaken,” said Diana. “The man went out of the window and from the window into the courtyard. And then over the wall. The window was found open.”

But Julius was really not interested in the escaping criminal. On the other hand, he was very much interested in his own emotions. For once he felt that the eyes of the world were on him.

“As I lay there,” he said, “the whole of my life flitted before me. I saw my old school and the schoolmaster waiting for me at the door with his cane behind his back. I saw the public-house what I used to use as a young man, and where I met my good lady, owing to taking her father home one night and helping the family to put him to bed----”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Bobbie, a little unkindly, “it must have been a dreadful experience. Now tell us how you came to be asleep whilst these people were breaking open the safe?”

Mr. Superbus raised his eyebrows and shut his eyes.

“Drugs,” he said. “The coffee must have been drugged last night. I’m a light sleeper. The slightest noise and I’m awake!”

Bobbie nodded.

“Oh, you _did_ hear the pistol then?” he said.

Diana thought his remark somewhat offensive.