"Excuse me, Mr. Bangs," said the vicar, blushing despite his late a.s.sertions of independence. "You find me trying to keep cool under adverse conditions. Had I known----"
"The weather is very sultry, is it not?" said Mrs. Peters, with a glare that said, "I told you so!"
Robert surveyed them with a wild and unreceptive eye. He looked, so thought the vicar"s wife, like a man dogged by the officers of the law.
"I called," he said quickly, "because I wanted your advice and help."
"Certainly, if I can be of any use," replied the vicar. "Clara, my love----?"
His tone indicated a request that she would leave them. To the vicar"s intense surprise, his love made no sign of compliance. "Perhaps I had better stay, Charles," she said grimly.
"But, Clara----"
"I--I should like to speak to your husband alone," said Robert, nervous but determined. "You see, it is very private----"
"Of course, Mr. Bangs. I quite understand. Perfectly natural. My dear----"
"I think not, Charles. Mr. _Bangs_ will understand why."
"I don"t at all," said Robert, dismayed and puzzled. "I have come here for advice and help. As a matter of fact, I have to make a confession----"
The vicar shrank.
"I do not hear confessions," he said. "I do not approve----"
"Evangelical," snapped Clara. (Yes: there are vicar"s wives who snap, and she was one.)
"I don"t understand," repeated Robert wearily. Then suddenly a light broke on him, and he laughed. It was his first laugh for five days. "Oh, I see! I don"t mean _that_ kind of confession. This is purely a personal matter--man to man."
"In that case, my love, I think----"
"No," said the resolute woman. "I am determined that you shall not be imposed on any longer. I have kept silence, perhaps too long. Mr.
_Bangs_, yesterday I telephoned to Bloomsbury 843B."
"_What!_" said Robert with a moan. "You telephoned _there_!"
CHAPTER XXIII
STILL RUNNING
With a glance of triumphant contempt at the bladder she had p.r.i.c.ked so easily, Mrs. Peters turned to her husband. "I think, Charles, that I can safely leave you now to hear Mr. Hedderwick"s explanation. I have no wish to be present during a painful scene; besides, I am wanted in the larder."
"_Mr. Hedderwick!_" repeated the vicar blankly. "What do you mean, Clara? I can not understand--I have no idea--you must----"
"He will tell you," said the lady, vouchsafing nothing further. After all, she had had a fair share of the lime-light, and there was no need to risk an anticlimax. "If you had only listened to me when I warned you ... but there! men are all alike."
She swept from the room, and the bewildered clergyman appealed to the heap in the chair.
"Mr. Bangs--Mr. Hedderwick, perhaps I ought to say--will you be kind enough to tell me what it all means?"
Robert raised a stricken head.
"I thought, Mr. Peters, that things were bad enough when I came. Your wife"s news proves to me that I am wrong. My name is not Bangs, but Hedderwick."
"So I gathered," said the vicar uncomfortably. "I think you owe me an explanation of your reasons for adopting a false name."
Robert glanced wildly at the clock.
"There is no time to go into details now. She may be here at any minute.
But for the moment, Mr. Peters, please accept my word that I am involved in no disgrace--no shameful action. I am a churchwarden----"
"You really are?" There was excuse for the implied doubt.
"I really am, and innocent. My fault is an excessive love for romance and a temporary desertion of my wife. Oh! do not misunderstand me!" he begged, as he noticed an ecclesiastical stiffening. "I simply ran away for a short holiday--I meant to go back very soon! Surely, surely, you can understand! You are married--I mean, a clergyman in the exercise of his duties must have a wide knowledge of the world--a certain sympathy...."
"I can understand," said the vicar thoughtfully, perhaps flattered at the tribute to his worldly knowledge. "I can not praise--possibly can not sympathize; but at least I may fairly claim to understand."
"Thank you--thank you! Well, to be as brief as I can (and every minute is precious!), my friend and I had reason to suspect the occupants of The Quiet House----"
"Ha!" The vicar p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Certain hints and whisperings have drifted round to me in the course of my parochial visiting, but----"
"Please, _please_, don"t interrupt. You forget the London train! Mr.
Wild and I entered The Quiet House garden by night to watch----"
"Surely that----"
"Yes--yes--yes! Most reprehensible, but you do not know all. We watched, were discovered, and in making our escape Mr. Wild was captured. I have not seen him since."
"What!"
"For five days I have been alone, miserable, in doubt and anguish. I have wondered, waited, made cautious inquiries. Nothing has happened.
What am I to do?"
"You suspect----?" queried the vicar in delightful horror. He felt his hair bristling in antic.i.p.ation.
"I do not know ... I can not guess. They say it is high politics--the Turkish government.... A spy.... I do not know what to believe. What can I do?"
The vicar, who prided himself on being a business man, mused for a moment, chin on hand.
"Suppose," he said brightly, "that Mott, the local policeman, applied for a search-warrant?"
"I would rather not invoke the aid of the police, if possible. There may be nothing serious after all, and in that case we should look ridiculous. Besides ... I wondered if you could call?"
The vicar seemed pleased, but apprehensive.