Part 13 (1/2)
”Exactly. I expected that. Were these two young people of the same way of thinking?”
”They were friendly, sir, but more like brother and sister. You see, they were reared together. It often happens that way when a young gentleman and young lady grow up from childhood in each other's company. They never think of marriage, whereas the same young gentleman would probably fall head over heels in love with the same young lady if he met her elsewhere.”
”Good!” broke in Furneaux. ”Tomlinson, do you drink port?”
The butler looked his astonishment, but answered readily enough--
”My favorite wine, sir.”
”I thought so. Taken in moderation, port induces sound reasoning. I have some Alto Douro of '61. I'll bring you a bottle.”
Tomlinson was mystified, a trifle scandalized perhaps; but he bowed his acknowledgments.
”Sir, I will appreciate it greatly.”
”I know you will. My Alto Douro goes down no gullet but a connoisseur's.”
Even in his agitation, Tomlinson smiled.
What a queer little man this undersized detective was, to be sure, and how oddly he expressed himself!
”I ask this just as a matter of form, but did Mr. Robert Fenley take his .450 Express rifle when he went away on Sat.u.r.day?” said Winter.
”No, sir. He had only a valise strapped to the carrier. But I do happen to know that the gun was in his room on Friday, because Friday is my day for house inspection.”
”Any cartridges?”
”I can't say, sir. They would be in a drawer, or, more likely, in the gun room.”
”Where is this gun room?”
”Next to the harness room, sir--second door to the right in the courtyard.”
”Speaking absolutely in confidence, have you formed a theory as to this murder?”
”No, sir. But if any sort of evidence is piled up against Mr. Robert I shall not credit it. No power on earth could make me believe that he would kill his father in cold blood. He respected his father, sir.
He's a bit wild, as young men with too much money are apt to be, but he was good-hearted and genuine.”
”Yet he did speak of blowing his own brains out, and his father's.”
”That was his silly way of talking, sir. He would say, 'Tomlinson, if you tell the pater what time I came home last night I'll stab you to the heart.' When there was a bit of a family squabble he would threaten to mix a gallon of weed-killer and drink every drop.
Everything was rotten, or beastly, or awfully ripping. He was not so well educated as he ought to have been--Mrs. Fenley's fault entirely; and he hadn't the--the words----”
”The vocabulary.”
”That's it, sir. I see you understand.”
”Tomlinson,” interrupted Furneaux, ”a famous American writer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, described adjectives of that cla.s.s as the blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy. You have hit on the same great thought.”
The butler smiled again. He was beginning to like Furneaux.