The Thousandth Woman Part 18

"Wait!"

It was Scruton's raven croak; he had tottered to his feet.

"Sure," said Toye, "if you've anything you want to say as an interested party."

"Only this--he's told the truth!"

"Well, can he prove it?"

"I don't know," said Scruton. "But I can!"

"You?" Blanche chimed in there.

"Yes, I'd like that drink first, if you don't mind, Cazalet." It was Blanche who got it for him, in an instant. "Thank you! I'd say more if my blessing was worth having--but here's something that is. Listen to this, you American gentleman: I was the man who wrote to him in Naples.

Leave it at that a minute; it was my second letter to him; the first was to Australia, in answer to one from him. It was the full history of my downfall. I got a warder to smuggle it out. That letter was my one chance."

"I know it by heart," said Cazalet. "It was that and nothing else that made me leave before the shearing."

"To meet me when I came out!" Scruton explained in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"To--to keep me from going straight to that man, as I'd told him I should in my first letter! But you can't hit these things off to the day or the week; he'd told me where to write to him on his voyage, and I wrote to Naples, but that letter did not get smuggled out. My warder friend had got the sack. I had to put what I'd got to say so that you could read it two ways. So I told you, Cazalet, I was going straight up the river for a row--and you can p.r.o.nounce that two ways. And I said I hoped I shouldn't break a scull--but there's another way of spelling that, and it was the other way I meant!" He chuckled grimly. "I wanted you to lie low and let _me_ lie low if that happened. I wanted just one man in the world to know I'd done it. But that's how we came to miss each other, for you timed it to a tick, if you hadn't misread me about the river."

He drank again, stood straighter, and found a fuller voice.

"Yet I never meant to do it unless he made me, and at the back of my brain I never thought he would. I thought he'd do something for me, after all he'd done before! Shall I tell you what he did?"

"Got out his revolver!" cried Cazalet in a voice that was his own justification as well.

"Pretending it was going to be his check-book!" said Scruton through his teeth. "But I heard him trying to c.o.c.k it inside his drawer. There was his special constable's truncheon hanging on the wall--silver mounted, for all the world to know how he'd stood up for law and order in the sight of men! I tell you it was a joy to feel the weight of that truncheon, and to see the hero of Trafalgar Square fumbling with a thing he didn't understand! I hit him as hard as G.o.d would let me--and the rest you know--except that I nearly did trip over the man who swore it was broad daylight at the time!"

He tottered to the folding-doors, and stood there a moment, pointing to Cazalet with a hand that twitched as terribly as his dreadful face.

"No--the rest you did--the rest you did to save what wasn't worth saving! But--I think--I'll hold out long enough to thank you--just a little!" He was gone with a gibbering smile.

Cazalet turned straight to Toye at the other door. "Well? Aren't you going, too? You were near enough, you see! I'm an accessory all right"--he dropped his voice--"but I'd be princ.i.p.al if I could instead of _him_!"

But Toye had come back into the room, twinkling with triumph, even rubbing his hands. "You didn't see? You didn't see? I never meant to go at all; it was a bit of bluff to make him own up, and it did, too, bully!"

The couple gasped.

"You mean to tell me," cried Cazalet, "that you believed my story all the time?"

"Why, I didn't have a moment's doubt about it!"

Cazalet drew away from the chuckling creature and his crafty glee. But Blanche came forward and held out her hand.

"Will you forgive me, Mr. Toye?"

"Sure, if I had anything to forgive. It's the other way around, I guess, and about time I did something to help." He edged up to the folding-door. "This is a two-man job, Cazalet, the way I make it out.

Guess it's my watch on deck!"

"The other's the way to the police station," said Cazalet densely.

Toye turned solemn on the word. "It's the way to h.e.l.l, if Miss Blanche will forgive me! This is more like the other place, thanks to you folks.

Guess I'll leave the angels in charge!"

Angelic or not, the pair were alone at last; and through the doors they heard a quavering croak of welcome to the rather human G.o.d from the American machine.

"I'm afraid he'll never go back with you to the bush," whispered Blanche.

"Scruton?"

"Yes."

"I'm afraid, too. But I wanted to take somebody else out, too. I was trying to say so over a week ago, when we were talking about old Venus Potts. Blanchie, will you come?"

THE END