Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/168

 I’ve ever seen you ruffled. Well, do you want to hear the whole story?”

“If you please, Mr. Cade.”

Anthony pulled up two of the chairs, both men sat down, and Anthony recounted the events of the preceding Thursday night.

Battle listened immovably. There was a far-off twinkle in his eyes as Anthony finished.

“You know, sir,” he said, “you’ll get into trouble one of these days.”

“Then, for the second time, I’m not to be taken into custody?”

“We always like to give a man plenty of rope,” said Superintendent Battle.

“Very delicately put,” said Anthony. “Without unduly stressing the end of the proverb.”

“What I can’t quite make out, sir,” said Battle, “is why you decided to come across with this now.”

“It’s rather difficult to explain,” said Anthony. “You see, Battle, I’ve come to have really a very high opinion of your abilities. When the moment comes, you’re always there. Look at to-night. And it occurred to me that, in withholding this knowledge of mine, I was seriously cramping your style. You deserve to have access to all the facts. I’ve done what I could, and up to now I’ve made a mess of things. Until to-night, I couldn’t speak for Mrs. Revel’s sake. But now that those letters have been definitely proved to have nothing whatever to do with her, any idea of her complicity becomes absurd. Perhaps I advised her badly in the first place, but it struck me that her statement of having paid this man money to suppress the letters, simply as a whim, might take a bit of believing.”

“It might, by a jury,” agreed Battle. “Juries never have any imagination.”

“But you accept it quite easily?” said Anthony, looking curiously at him.

“Well, you see, Mr. Cade, most of my work has lain amongst these people. What they call the upper classes, I mean. You see, the majority of people are always wondering what the neighbours will think. But tramps and aristocrats don’t—they just do the first thing that comes into their heads, and they don’t bother to think what anyone thinks of them.