IV The service of his meal, which had the charm of a picnic, was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, whose report on the invalid¹, however, was so favourable² that Louis could quite dismiss the possibly homicidal aspect of his dealings with the bank-notes. The shock of the complete disappearance³ of the vast sum had perhaps brought Mrs. Maldon to the brink⁴ of death, but she had edged safely away again, in accordance with her own calm prophecy that very morning. When the doctor had gone, and the patient was indulged in her desire to be left alone for sleep, Louis very slowly and luxuriously⁵ finished his repast, with Rachel sitting opposite to him, in Mrs. Maldon's place, at the dining-table. He lit a cigarette and, gracefully⁶ leaning his elbows on the table, gazed at her through the beautiful grey smoke-veil, which was like the clouds of Paradise.
 
What thrilled Louis was the obvious fact that he fascinated her. She was transformed under his glance. How her eyes shone! How her cheek flushed and paled! What passionate⁷ vitality⁸ found vent⁹ in her little gestures! But in the midst of this transformation¹⁰ her honesty, her loyalty¹¹, her exquisite¹² ingenuousness¹³, her superb dependability remained. She was no light creature, no flirt¹⁴ nor seeker after dubious¹⁵ sensations. He felt that at last he was appreciated by one whose appreciation¹⁶ was tremendously worth having. He was confirmed in that private opinion of himself that no mistakes hitherto made in his career had been able to destroy. He felt happy and confident as never before.
 
Luck, of course; but luck deserved! He could marry this unique creature and be idolized and cherished for the rest of his life. In an instant, from being a scorner of conjugal¹⁷ domesticity, he became a scorner of the bachelor's existence, with its immeasurable secret ennui¹⁸ hidden beneath the jaunty¹⁹ cloak of a specious²⁰ freedom—freedom to be bored, freedom to fret²¹, and long and envy, freedom to eat ashes and masticate²² dust! He would marry her. Yes, he was saved, because he was loved. And he meant to be worthy²³ of his regenerate²⁴ destiny. All the best part of his character came to the surface and showed in his face. But he did not ask his heart whether he was or was not in love with Rachel. The point did not present itself. He certainly never doubted that he was seeing her with a quite normal vision.
 
Their talk went through and through the enormous topic of the night and day, arriving at no conclusion whatever, except that there was no conclusion—not even a theory of a conclusion. (And the Louis who now discussed the case was an innocent, reborn Louis, quite unconnected with the Louis of the previous evening; he knew no more of the inwardness of the affair than Rachel did. Of such singular feats²⁵ of doubling the personality is the self-deceiving mind capable.) After a time it became implicit²⁶ in the tone of their conversation that the mysterious disappearance in a small, ordinary house of even so colossal²⁷ a sum as nine hundred and sixty-five pounds did not mean the end of the world. That is to say, they grew accustomed to the situation. Louis, indeed, permitted himself to suggest, as a man of the large, still-existing world, that Rachel should guard against over-estimating the importance of the sum. True, as he had several times reflected, it did represent an income of about a pound a week! But, after all, what was a pound a week, viewed in a proper perspective?...
 
Louis somehow glided²⁸ from the enormous topic to the topic of the newest cinema—Rachel had never seen a cinema, except a very primitive²⁹ one, years earlier—and old Batchgrew was mentioned, he being notoriously a cinema magnate. "I cannot stand that man," said Rachel with a candour that showed to what intimacy³¹ their talk had developed. Louis was delighted by the explosion, and they both fell violently upon Thomas Batchgrew and found intense pleasure in destroying him. And Louis was saying to himself, enthusiastically, "How well she understands human nature!"
 
So that when old Batchgrew, without any warning or preliminary sound, stalked pompously³² into the room their young confusion was excessive. They felt themselves suddenly in the presence of not merely a personal adversary³⁴, but of an enemy of youth and of love and of joy—of a being mysterious and malevolent³⁵ who neither would nor could comprehend them. And they were at once resentful and intimidated³⁶.
 
During the morning Councillor Batchgrew had provided himself—doubtless by purchase, since he had not been home—with a dandiacal spotted³⁷ white waistcoat in honour of the warm and sunny weather. This waistcoat by its sprightly³⁸ unsuitability to his aged³⁹ uncouthness⁴⁰, somehow intensified⁴¹ the sinister⁴² quality of his appearance.
 
"Found it?" he demanded tersely⁴³.
 
Rachel, strangely at a loss, hesitated and glanced at Louis as if for succour.
 
"No, I haven't, Mr. Batchgrew," she said. "I haven't, I'm sure. And I've turned over every possible thing likely or unlikely."
 
Mr. Batchgrew growled—
 
"From th' look of ye I made sure that th' money had turned up all right—ye were that comfortable and cosy⁴⁴! Who'd guess as nigh on a thousand pound's missing out of this house since last night!"
 
The heavy voice rolled over them brutally⁴⁵. Louis attempted to withstand Mr. Batchgrew's glare, but failed. He was sure of the absolute impregnability of his own position; but the clear memory of at least one humiliating and disastrous⁴⁶ interview with Thomas Batchgrew in the past robbed Louis' eye of its composure. The circumstances under which he had left the councillor's employ some years ago were historic and unforgettable.
 
"I came in back way instead of front way," said Thomas Batchgrew, "because I thought I'd have a look at that scullery door. Kitchen's empty."
 
"What about the scullery door?" Louis lightly demanded.
 
Rachel murmured—
 
"I forgot to tell you; it was open when I came down in the middle of the night." And then she added: "Wide open."
 
"Upon my soul!" said Louis slowly, with marked constraint⁴⁷. "I really forget whether I looked at that door before I went to bed. I know I looked at all the others."
 
"I'd looked at it, anyway," said Rachel defiantly⁴⁸, gazing at the table.
 
"And when you found it open, miss," pursued Thomas Batchgrew, "what did ye do?"
 
"I shut it and locked it."
 
"Where was the key?"
 
"In the door."
 
"Lock in order?"
 
"Yes."
 
"Well, then, how could it have been opened from the outside? There isn't a mark on the door, outside or in."
 
"As far as that goes, Mr. Batchgrew," said Rachel, "only last week the key fell out of the lock on the inside and slid down the brick floor to the outside—you know there's a slope. And I had to go out of the house by the front and the lamplighter climbed over the back gate for me and let me into the yard so that I could get the key again. That might have happened last night. Some one might have shaken the key out, and pulled it under the door with a bit of wire or something."
 
"That won't do," Thomas Batchgrew stopped her. "You said the key was in the door on the inside."
 
"Well, when they'd once opened the door from the outside, couldn't they have put the key on the inside again?"
 
"They? Who?"
 
"Burglars."
 
Thomas Batchgrew repeated sarcastically—
 
"Burglars! Burglars!" and snorted.
 
"Well, Mr. Batchgrew, either burglars must have been at work," said Louis, who was fascinated by Rachel's surprising news and equally surprising theory—"either burglars must have been at work," he repeated impressively, "or—the money is still in the house. That's evident."
 
"Is it?" snarled⁴⁹ Batchgrew. "Look here, miss, and you, young Fores, I didn't make much o' this this morning, because I thought th' money 'ud happen be found. But seeing as it isn't, and as we're talking about it, what time was the rumpus last night?"
 
"What time?" Rachel muttered. "What time was it, Mr. Fores?"
 
"I dun'no'," said Louis. "Perhaps the doctor would know."
 
"Oh!" said Rachel, "Mrs. Tams said the hall clock had stopped; that must have been when Mrs. Maldon knocked up against it."
 
She went to the parlour door and opened it, displaying the hall clock, which showed twenty-five minutes past twelve. Louis had crept up behind Mr. Batchgrew, who in his inapposite white waistcoat stood between the two lovers, stertorous⁵⁰ with vague anathema⁵¹.
 
"So that was the time," said he. "And th' burglars must ha' been and gone afore that. A likely thing burglars coming at twelve o'clock at night, isn't it? And I'll tell ye summat else. Them burglars was copped last night at Knype at eleven o'clock when th' pubs closed, if ye want to know—the whole gang of three on 'em."
 
"Then what about that burglary last night down the Lane?" Rachel asked sharply.
 
"Oh!" exclaimed Louis. "Was there a burglary down the Lane last night? I didn't know that."
 
"No, there wasn't," said Batchgrew ruthlessly. "That burglary was a practical joke, and it's all over the town. Denry Machin had a hand in that affair, and by now I dare say he wishes he hadn't."
 
"Still, Mr. Batchgrew," Louis argued superiorly, with the philosophic⁵² impartiality⁵³ of a man well accustomed to the calm unravelling⁵⁴ of crime, "there may be other burglars in the land beside just those three." He would not willingly allow the theory of burglars to crumble⁵⁵. Its attractiveness increased every moment.
 
"There may and there mayn't, young Fores," said Thomas Batchgrew. "Did you hear anything of 'em?"
 
"No, I didn't," Louis replied restively⁵⁷.
 
"And yet you ought to have been listening out for 'em."
 
"Why ought I to have been listening out for them?"
 
"Knowing there was all that money in th' house."
 
"Mr. Fores didn't know," said Rachel.
 
Louis felt himself unjustly smirched.
 
"It's scarcely an hour ago," said he, "that I heard about this money for the first time." And he felt as innocent and aggrieved⁵⁸ as he looked.
 
Mr. Batchgrew smacked⁵⁹ his lips loudly.
 
"Then," he announced, "I'm going down to th' police-station, to put it i' Snow's hands."
 
Rachel straightened herself.
 
"But surely not without telling Mrs. Maldon?"
 
Mr. Batchgrew fingered his immense whiskers.
 
"Is she better?" he inquired threateningly. This was his first sign of interest in Mrs. Maldon's condition.
 
"Oh, yes; much. She's going on very well. The doctor's just been."
 
"Is she asleep?"
 
"She's resting. She may be asleep."
 
"Did ye tell her ye hadn't found her money?"
 
"Yes."
 
"What did she say?"
 
"She didn't say anything."
 
"It might be municipal money, for all she seems to care!" remarked Thomas Batchgrew, with a short, bitter grin. "Well, I'll be moving to th' police-station. I've never come across aught like this before, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
 
Rachel slipped out of the door into the hall.
 
"Please wait a moment, Mr. Batchgrew," she whispered timidly.
 
"What for?"
 
"Till I've told Mrs. Maldon."
 
"But if her's asleep?"
 
"I must waken her. I couldn't think of letting you go to the police-station without letting her know—after what she said this morning."
 
Rachel waited. Mr. Batchgrew glanced aside.
 
"Here! Come here!" said Mr. Batchgrew in a different tone. The fact was that, put to the proof, he dared not, for all his autocratic habit, openly disobey the injunction of the benignant, indifferent, helpless Mrs. Maldon. "Come here!" he repeated coarsely. Rachel obeyed, shamefaced despite herself. Batchgrew shut the door. "Now," he said grimly, "what's your secret? Out with it. I know you and her's got a secret. What is it?"
 
Rachel sat down on the sofa, hid her face in her hands, and startled both men by a sob⁶⁰. She wept with violence. And then through her tears, and half looking up, she cried out passionately⁶¹: "It's all your fault. Why did you leave the money in the house at all? You know you'd no right to do it, Mr. Batchgrew!"
 
The councillor was shaken out of his dignity by the incredible impudence⁶² of this indictment⁶³ from a chit like Rachel. Similar experiences, however, had happened to him before; for, though as a rule people most curiously⁶⁴ conspired⁶⁵ with him to keep up the fiction that he was sacred, at rare intervals⁶⁶ somebody's self-control would break down, and bitter, inconvenient⁶⁷ home truths would resound⁶⁸ in the ear of Thomas Batchgrew. But he would recover himself in a few moments, and usually some diversion would occur to save him—he was nearly always lucky. A diversion occurred now, of the least expected kind. The cajoling tones of Mrs. Tams were heard on the staircase.
 
"Nay⁶⁹, ma'am! Nay, ma'am! This'll never do. Must I go on my bended knees to ye?"
 
And then the firm but soft voice of Mrs. Maldon—
 
"I must speak to Mr. Batchgrew. I must have Mr. Batchgrew here at once. Didn't you hear me call and call to you?"
 
"That I didn't, ma'am! I was beating the feather bed in the back bedroom. Nay, not a step lower do y............