NORMAL girl is neither wholly saint nor wholly materialist. Bread and butter and the comfort of a bed are indispensable requisites for the Joans of Arc and the Guineveres who have existence in a world largely dominated by its animal needs; and the first thought of Mary Lenley when she awoke in the morning was not of the paper photograph, not even of the dainty lady who had so impertinently obtruded herself into her life, but the most important fact that she had returned home too late on the previous night to buy butter. There was a shopping centre in the Lewisham High Road, and she left the kettle over a low-burning gas-ring and hurried out to replenish her larder.
It was eight o'clock, and few of the shops were open. Weary-looking youths were polishing the window of the big outfitters on the hill, and shapeless women in nondescript attire were emptying the débris of the previous day into the huge zinc barrels that stood at the side of the road waiting for the leisurely dustman. The dairies, however, had been open for hours, and she made her purchase and was turning back (her mind on the heating qualities of a low-turned gas-stove) when she saw two men approaching her. The first she recognised at once as Alan, and, for no reason that she could fathom, she went red. The second man looked what he was—a doctor, a dapper man, grey at the temples, with a ridiculous little beard, who gesticulated violently as he talked. A doctor he must be—no other excuse existed for his glossy hat and his well-fitting frock-coat.
Alan saw her and checked his pace, but she had a pound of butter in one hand and a paper bag full of eggs in the other, and she was suddenly panic-stricken at the thought that, in the hurry of dressing, she had left untied that which ought to have been tied, and with a hurried "Good-morning," she passed them.
Even Dr. Lomond, Acting Divisional Surgeon, absorbed as he was in the exposition of his theories, was sufficiently interested to turn and look after her.
"That's a pretty girl," he said. "Who is she?"
"Miss Lenley," said Alan shortly. "You were saying"
"Lenley? Is that one of the Warwickshire Lenleys?"
The doctor, when he was not argumentative and not pursuing his inquiries into the delightful sphere in which he accidentally found himself, was inclined to be a fervent investigator of family trees.
"I knew a John Lenley of Leamington, and there are some Lenleys who have a place near Banbury."
"I don't think she is any of these," said Alan, a little impatiently. He was inwardly cursing the presence of the doctor, which prevented his turning round and accompanying the girl the rest of her way.
"Then probably she's a Sussex Lenley. There was a Felix Lenley who had a big house at Petworth and a shoot in Suffolk, fifteen—twenty years ago. Dear me! How time flies! Yes, a very pretty girl. One of the loveliest I've seen."
"You were offering me your valuable views on police work, doctor," said Alan, a thought resentfully.
It is a fact characteristic of large-minded men that they are susceptible to the minor irritations of life. Alan Wembury possessed a breadth of vision which marked him out as a man destined to hold a high place in his profession. In justice to him it may be said that it was a long time before Dr. Lomond's "but whys?" began to get on his nerves. Some people stop learning at an early stage, but Dr. Lomond was apparently one of those enthusiasts who never passed a new discovery without turning it over with his stick. Moreover, he was full of information, for he took his duties as police surgeon very seriously.
"You say there is no romance in police work," he said. "Well, I'll give you an incident that stimulated my imagination more than anything I can remember. I was passing the Sports Club the other afternoon," he went on, "when I saw one of the loveliest girls—in a sense as pretty as Miss—what's her name again?—Miss Lenley—coming out of that wretched shebeen! I intended telling you before; I think you ought to know this. Probably I see a whole lot of things that never come under your notice. We doctors are observant people. What is more—I hope you won't mind my saying this—we have a mind better trained to the great essentials than the average policeman."
He stopped to take breath, and Alan seized the opportunity.
"Untrained and deficient in mentality as I am, I know
Mrs. Milton was at the Sports Club on Thursday afternoon," he said dryly, "partly because I spoke to her there, being on the premises myself, and partly but any further explanation is unnecessary."
The doctor's cherubic face fell for a moment, then suddenly he brightened up.