Part 16 (1/2)
He broke off as he heard a footstep, and seemed to move a little apart from the chair where Cicely was sitting.
The two young people greeted their visitor, Cicely in a voice so low that it was scarcely audible, but with a smile that seemed, he thought, to welcome him; Sir Malcolm with a tragic solemnity which no doubt was quite appropriate to a bereaved baronet. The appearance of a third party seemed, however, to afford him no particular gratification, and after exchanging a sentence or two, he begged, in a very serious tone, to be excused, and retired, walking softly and mournfully. Ned noticed then that his face was extraordinarily pale and his eye disturbed.
”I was afraid of disturbing you,” said Ned. He was embarra.s.sed, a rare condition with him, which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an impression of intimidating truculence.
Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.
”Oh no!” she said shyly.
”I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you--well, you've only to let me know.”
”It's awfully kind of you,” she murmured.
There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his embarra.s.sment forthwith left him.
”Thank Heaven!” he said after his outspoken habit. ”I was afraid I was putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a minute or two, I'd just like to say----”
He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.
”Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?”
She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it was, he knew she understood and appreciated.
Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.
”I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened,” he said in a moment. ”Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!”
He had said exactly the right thing now.
”He certainly was mine!” she said.
”And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess we'll never see his like again!”
His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It pa.s.sed swiftly and she said:
”_I_ can't believe it yet.”
Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:
”It's little wonder you can't believe it. The thing is so extraordinary.
It's incredible. A man without an enemy in the world--no robbery attempted--sitting in his own library--in just about the most peaceful and out of the way county in Scotland--not a sound heard by anybody--not a reason that one can possibly imagine--and yet murdered!”
”But it must have been a robber surely!”
”Why didn't he rob something then?”
”But how else----?”
”How indeed! You've not a suspicion of any one yourself, Miss Farmond?