• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 556 0

Lady Isobel. Then her voice changed. “I thought it peculiar that Mr. O’Hagan denied knowing Strangways, when both of them had been associated with the American society. That wasn’t necessarily damning evidence; but surely it was obvious that if you were harboring a cuckoo in the nest, it had to be Mr. O’Hagan. He is the only person who is not known by sight to any of you. The moustache was too good to be true; his other features are unmistakably those of the man in the photograph. If you are trying to identify someone, you look at the facial bones—nose, jaw and cheekbones, the setting of the eyes.”

“Most people don’t, though,” Strangways said coolly.

“His hair…” Thomas began.

“Turned white overnight when I learned the terrible truth about Richard the Third,” said Strangways.

He ducked, suddenly, as a fist brushed his jaw. Thomas, now completely sober, grabbed Kent just in time to prevent a second attack. The general’s face was purple with rage. His arm felt like a steel bar, and he did not subside until Frank had added his weight to Thomas’s. Kent began to swear. He was panting so hard that most of the words were obscured, but a few of the riper military adjectives came through intact: Lady Isobel squealed and put her hands over her shell-like ears.

“Let me at the bastard,” Kent said, still wheezing. “Just let me knock that superior smile off his treacherous face. After all he’s done to you…and you…” His head bobbed from one side to the other, indicating Thomas and Frank, who were still holding him.

Frank looked at Thomas. The younger man’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes shone with amusement.

“Now then,” he said soothingly. “No harm’s been done. Actually, I’m rather relieved to find that Mr. Strangways is our mysterious comedian. It makes the whole thing less disturbing.”

Again his eyes met those of Thomas, and the latter nodded vigorously. “Quite right, Frank. If you and I don’t choose to chastise Mr. Strangways, I don’t see why anyone else should be vindictive. Let’s all cool off and talk rationally.”

Strangways was no longer smiling. “Just a minute,” he said. “There’s no reason why you should take my word for it, but for your own sakes you had better do so. I didn’t play those damned jokes.”

Against his will Thomas found the avowal convincing. He was still trying to adjust to the transformation. He found Mr. Hyde much more attractive than the former personality. Strangways looked younger and tougher than the false O’Hagan; his eyes were direct and honest.

Then Strangways spoiled the effect by adding, “I don’t need to make fools of you. You’re about to do it with no help from me.”

Another roar from Kent alerted Thomas; he wound both arms about the general’s writhing body.

Then Weldon’s voice cut through the uproar like the lash of a whip.

“Stop it! We’ve had enough of this, Kent,” he said. “Let him go, Thomas. Let go, I say.”

Thomas did so. Kent stood still, his color fading.

“Now,” Weldon went on, “let us disprove Mr. Strangway’s opinion of us by acting rationally. I don’t mean to hold an inquest into the jokes—if you want to call them that. Unless Mr. Strangways can prove an alibi…”

Strangways was more cowed by his icy courtesy than he had been by Kent’s attempted assault. He shook his head. “How can I? Everyone was coming and going.”

“Precisely. The same thing applies to the rest of us,” Weldon continued with scrupulous fairness. “Since, as Frank says, no harm was done, I propose to forget what has happened. A more pertinent question is—what do we do with Mr. Strangways?”

“Throw him out,” Kent growled. “Kick him out the doors.”

“It is one thirty in the morning,” Weldon said. “There is not a room to be had in the village, and it is beginning to rain again. Because Mr. Strangways has behaved badly is no reason why I should emulate him.”

“Imprison the miscreant,” said Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones angrily. “Fling him into a dungeon!”

“Don’t be absurd,” Liz said sharply. She moved forward, her green skirts swaying, and eyed Strangways with cool appraisal. “Perhaps you’d like us to load him with rusty chains,