Part 14

WILLIS: ‘But if you think I’m going to give myself away—’

LAWTON: ‘If you suppose I’m going to take you at your own figure—’ They walk up the room together, and return as before.

WILLIS: ‘Mrs. Bemis, what is this unnatural parent of yours after?’

MRS. BEMIS, tittering: ‘Oh, I’m sure I can’t tell.’

WILLIS: ‘Aunt Mary, you used to be a friend of mine. Can’t you give me some sort of clue?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I should be ashamed of you, Willis, if you accepted anybody’s help.’

WILLIS, sighing: ‘Well, this is pretty hard on an orphan. Here I come to join a company of friends at the fireside of a burgled brother-in-law, and I find myself in a nest of conspirators.’ Suddenly, after a moment: ‘Oh, I understand. Why, I ought to have seen at once. But no matter—it’s just as well. I’m sure that we shall hear Dr. Lawton leniently, and make allowance for his well-known foible. Roberts is bound by the laws of hospitality, and Mr. Bemis is the father-in-law of his daughter.’

MRS. BEMIS, in serious dismay: ‘Why, Mr. Campbell, what do you mean?’

WILLIS: ‘Simply that the mystery is solved—the double garotter is discovered. I’m sorry for you, Mrs. Bemis; and no one will wish to deal harshly with your father when he confesses that it was he who robbed Mr. Roberts and Mr. Bemis. All that they ask is to have their watches back. Go on, Doctor! How will that do, Aunt Mary, for a little flyer?’

MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis, I declare I never saw anybody like you!’ She embraces him with joyous pride.

ROBERTS, coming forward anxiously: ‘But, my dear Willis—’

WILLIS, clapping his hand over his mouth, and leading him back to his place: ‘We can’t let you talk now. I’ve no doubt you’ll be considerate, and all that, but Dr. Lawton has the floor. Go on, Doctor! Free your mind! Don’t be afraid of telling the whole truth! It will be better for you in the end.’ He rubs his hands gleefully, and then thrusting the points of them into his waistcoat pockets, stands beaming triumphantly upon Lawton.

LAWTON: ‘Do you think so?’ With well-affected trepidation ‘Well, friends, if I must confess this—this—’

WILLIS: ‘High-handed outrage. Go on.’

LAWTON: ‘I suppose I must. I shall not expect mercy for myself; perhaps you’ll say that, as an old and hardened offender, I don’t deserve it. But I had an accomplice—a young man very respectably connected, and who, whatever his previous life may have been, had managed to keep a good reputation; a young man a little apt to be misled by overweening vanity and the ill-advised flattery of his friends; but I hope that neither of you gentlemen will be hard upon him, but will consider his youth, and perhaps his congenital moral and intellectual deficiencies, even when you find your watches—on Mr. Campbell’s person.’ He leans forward, rubbing his hands, and smiling upon Campbell, ‘How will that do, Mr. Campbell, for a flyer?’

WILLIS, turning to Mrs. Crashaw: ‘One ahead, Aunt Mary?’

LAWTON, clasping him by the hand: ‘No, generous youth—even!’ They shake hands, clapping each other on the back with their lefts, and joining in the general laugh.

BEMIS, coming forward jovially: ‘Well, now, I gladly forgive you both—or whoever did rob me—if you’ll only give me back my watch.’

WILLIS: ‘I haven’t got your watch.’

LAWTON: ‘Nor I.’

ROBERTS, rather faintly, and coming reluctantly forward: ‘I—I have it, Mr. Bemis.’ He produces it from one waistcoat pocket and hands it to Bemis. Then, visiting the other: ‘And what’s worse, I have my own. I don’t know how I can ever explain it, or atone to you for my extraordinary behaviour. Willis thought you might finally see it as a joke, and I’ve done my best to pass it off lightly—’

WILLIS: ‘And you succeeded. You had all the lightness of a sick hippopotamus.’

ROBERTS: ‘I’m afraid so. I’ll have the chain mended, of course. But when I went out this evening I left my watch on my dressing-table, and when you struck against me in the Common I missed it, and supposed I had been robbed, and I ran after you and took yours—’

WILLIS: ‘Being a man of the most violent temper and the most desperate courage—’

ROBERTS: ‘But I hope, my dear sir, that I didn’t hurt you seriously?’

BEMIS: ‘Not at all—not the least.’ Shaking him cordially by both hands: ‘I’m all right. Mrs. Roberts has healed all my wounds with her skilful needle; I’ve got on one of your best neckties, and this lace handkerchief of your wife’s, which I’m going to keep for a souvenir of the most extraordinary adventure of my life—’

LAWTON: ‘Oh, it’s an old newspaper story, Bemis, I tell you.’

WILLIS: ‘Well, Aunt Mary, I wish Agnes were here now to see Roberts in his character of moral hero. He ‘done’ it with his little hatchet, but he waited to make sure that Bushrod was all right before he owned up.’