Simon/Chapter 18
XVIII
£1200
NEd Cromarty had returned home and was going upstairs, when he heard a voice cry:
"Ned!"
The ancient stone stair, spiralling up round the time-worn pillar that seemed to have no beginning or end, gave at intervals on to doors which looked like apertures in a cliff. Through one of these he turned and at the end of a brief passage came to his sister's sitting room. In that mediæval setting of ponderous stone, it looked almost fantastic in its daintiness. It was a small room of many cushions and many colours, its floor covered with the softest rugs and its walls with innumerable photographs, largely of country houses where Miss Cromarty had visited.
Evidently she was a lady accustomed to a comfortable life in her roving days, and her sitting room seemed to indicate very distinctly that she proposed to live up to this high standard permanently.
"Oh Neddy dear, I want to talk to you about something," she began in her brisk way and with her brightest smile.
Her brother, though of a simple nature, was by this time aware that when he was termed "Neddy dear" the conversation was apt to turn on Miss Cromarty's requirements.
"Well," said he, "how much is the cheque to be this time?"
"How clever you're getting!" she laughed. "But it isn't a cheque I want this time. It's only a motor car."
He looked at her doubtfully for a moment.
"Pulling my leg; or a real car?"
"Real car of course—nice one too!"
"But, my dear girl, we've just put down our car. You agreed it was necessary."
"I agreed then; but it isn't necessary now."
"Have you come into a fortune? I haven't!"
"You've come into £1200."
Again he looked at her, and this time his expression changed.
"That's only a debt wiped out."
"Well, and your great argument for economy was that you had to pay back that debt. Now you haven't. See, Neddy dear?"
Her brother began to shake his head, and her smile became a little less bright.
"I don't want to get my affairs into a tangle again just yet."
"But they weren't in a bad tangle. Cancelling that debt makes us absolutely all right again. It's absurd for people like us not to have a car! Look at the distances from our neighbours! One can't go anywhere. I'll undertake to keep down the household expenses if you get the car."
Her brother frowned out of the window.
"No," he said, "it's too soon to get a car again."
"But you told me you had got part of that £1200 in hand and hoped to make up the rest very soon. What are you going to do with the money now?"
He glanced at her over his shoulder for an instant and then his mouth assumed a grim and obstinate look she knew too well.
"I may need the money," he said briefly. "And I'm not much in the mood at this moment for buying things."
Behind his back Lilian made a little grimace. Then in a tone of sisterly expostulation she said:
"You are worrying too much over this affair, Ned. You've done all you can—"
He interrupted her brusquely:
"And it's dashed little! What have I actually done? Nothing! One needs a better man than me."
"Well, there's your friend Silent Simon, and all the police—"
"A fat lot of good they are!" said Ned.
His sister looked a little surprised at his unusual shortness of temper. To her he was very rarely like this.
"You need a good day's shooting to take your mind off it for a little," she suggested.
He turned upon her hotly.
"Do you know the story that's going about, Lilian?"
"Sir Malcolm and the Farmond girl? Oh, rather," she nodded.
"Is that how it strikes you?"
Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her brother's voice.
"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly. I didn't say I believed the story."
"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"
"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do I know whether it's a slander?"
"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"
She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.
"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty—a conceited little jackanapes. He hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."
It was his turn to start.
"Was he?"
"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."
"But such a crime as that!"
"A man with ties and hair like his is capable of anything. You know quite well yourself he is a rotter."
"Anyhow you can't believe Cicely Farmond had anything to do with it?"
Again she shrugged her shoulders.
"My dear Ned, I'm not a detective. A pretty face is no proof a woman is a saint. I told you before that there was generally something in the blood in those cases."
As he stared at her, it seemed as though her words had indeed rushed back to his memory, and that they hit him hard.
"People don't say that, do they?" he asked in a low voice.
"Really, Ned, I don't know everything people say: but they are not likely to overlook much in such a case."
He stood for a moment in silence.
"She—I mean they've both got to be cleared!" he said, and strode out of the room.