Page:Murder on the Links - 1985.djvu/202

 going out then and there to Merlinville. I argued with her for all I was worth, but it wasn’t any good. She was all strung up and set upon having her own way. Well, I washed my hands of it. I’d done all I could! It was getting late. I went to a hotel, and Bella started for Merlinville. I still couldn’t shake off my feeling of what the books call "impending disaster.”

The next day camebut no Bella. She’d made a date with me to meet at the hotel, but she didn’t keep it. No sign of her all day. I got more and more anxious. Then came an evening paper with the news.

It was awful! I couldn’t be sure, of coursebut I was terribly afraid. I figured it out that Bella had met Papa Renauld and told him about her and Jack, and that he’d insulted her or something like that. We’ve both got terribly quick tempers.

Then all the masked foreigner business came out, and I began to feel more at ease. But it still worried me that Bella hadn’t kept her date with me.

By the next morning I was so rattled that I’d just got to go and see what I could. First thing, I ran up against you. You know all that. When I saw the dead man, looking so like Jack, and wearing Jack’s fancy overcoat, I knew! And there was the identical paper-knifewicked little thing!that Jack had given Bella! Ten to one it had her finger marks on it. I can’t hope to explain to you the sort of helpless horror of that moment. I only saw one thing clearlyI must get hold of that dagger, and get right away with it before they found out it was gone. I pretended to faint, and while you were away getting water I took the thing and hid it away in my dress.

I told you that I was staying at the Hôtel du Phare, but of course really I made a beeline back to Calais, and then on to England by the first boat. When we were in mid-Channel, I dropped that little devil of a dagger into the sea. Then I felt I could breathe again.

Bella was at our digs in London. She looked like nothing on God’s earth. I told her what I’d done, and that she was pretty safe for the time being. She stared at me, and then began laughinglaughinglaughingit was horrible to hear her! I felt that the best thing to do was to keep busy. She’d go mad if she had time to brood on what she’d done. Luckily we got an engagement at once.