“Come round and have a jolly little evening to-morrow night. I've got some more of that harpsichord music. And I'm dying to see you. Don't you understand?”
Further lies. “Look here,” said Benham, “can you come and have a talk in Kensington Gardens? You know the place, near that Chinese garden. Paddington Gate....”
The lady's voice fell to flatness. She agreed. “But why not come to see me HERE?” she asked.
He walked slowly back to his study. “Phew!” he whispered to himself. It was like hitting her in the face. He didn't want to be a brute, but short of being a brute there was no way out for him from this entanglement. Why, oh! why the devil had he gone there to lunch?...
He resumed his examination of the waiting letters with a ruffled mind. The most urgent thing about them was the clear evidence of gathering anger on the part of his mother. He had missed a lunch party at Sir Godfrey's on Tuesday and a dinner engagement at Philip Magnet's, quite an important dinner in its way, with various promising young Liberals, on Wednesday evening. And she was furious at “this stupid mystery. Of course you're bound to be found out, and of course there will be a scandal.”... He perceived that this last note was written on his own paper. “Merkle!” he cried sharply.
“Did my mother write any of these notes here?” he asked.
“Two, sir. Her ladyship was round here three times, sir.”
“Not the telephone calls, sir. I 'ad put them on one side. But.... It's a little thing, sir.”
He paused and came a step nearer. “You see, sir,” he explained with the faintest flavour of the confidential softening his mechanical respect, “yesterday, when 'er ladyship was 'ere, sir, some one rang up on the telephone--”
“Exactly, sir. But 'er ladyship said 'I'LL go to that, Merkle,' and just for a moment I couldn't exactly think 'ow I could manage it, sir, and there 'er ladyship was, at the telephone. What passed, sir, I couldn't 'ear. I 'eard her say, 'Any message?' And I FANCY, sir, I 'eard 'er say, 'I'm the 'ousemaid,' but that, sir, I think must have been a mistake, sir.”
“Must have been,” said Benham. “Certainly--must have been. And the call you think came from--?”
“There again, sir, I'm quite in the dark. But of course, sir, it's usually Mrs. Skelmersdale, sir. Just about her time in the afternoon. On an average, sir....”