Before the Fact by Francis Iles Page B

gone before. I’ll ring up the Dorchester police station to-day and report it.”
    “Oh, I shouldn’t do that,” Johnnie said.
    “Why ever not?”
    Johnnie’s reasons were vague but emphatic. Lina gathered that somehow it would offend Captain Melbeck extremely, and perhaps even imperil Johnnie’s job, if she rang up the Dorchester police.
    “Nonsense!” she said briskly. “The man was obviously a thief. Captain Melbeck must have been taken in by him as well as you.” But her mind did not contain quite so much decision as her words. The last thing she wanted to do was to imperil Johnnie’s job.
    Johnnie, however, did not know that. “Look here, Lina,” he said slowly, and Lina knew that something important was coming from the use of her name, which he hardly ever employed. “Look here, you mustn’t ring up the police.”
    “But I intend to. Why mustn’t I?”
    “Well, look here,” Johnnie said, with a desperate air, “he did give me the cheque.”
    “He did? Then why did you tell me he didn’t?”
    “Because I’d spent it.”
    “You’d spent it? Well, really, Johnnie! What on?”
    “I had to pay some debts,” Johnnie said with reluctance.
    “What debts? I didn’t know you had any debts. What debts?”
    “Oh, well, if you must know, racing debts. Look here, I know I oughtn’t to have done it, but the truth is that I was in a pretty tight corner. And then that American’s offer came like a godsend. I simply had to take it. I’m awfully sorry, monkeyface.”
    Lina knew that she ought to be angry, but Johnnie was looking so ashamed of himself that the wind was taken out of her sails.
    “Have you done any racing since then?”
    “No. Not a bet.”
    “If I forgive you, will you promise not to make any more bets?”
    “Not a one. Once bitten, twice shy.”
    “Never again? It’s a promise, Johnnie?”
    “I swear it. Monkeyface,” said Johnnie fervently, “you’re the dearest, sweetest, most wonderful woman ...”
    Lina knew it was worth the cheque.
5
    Just a fortnight later she was in Bournemouth again. Johnnie had not wanted her to go, but there were some things which could only be got there.
    She passed Marshall’s antique shop, in South Street. In the window was an undoubted Hepplewhite chair. Lina recognized the picture on it.
    She stood for quite five minutes staring at it before she went inside the shop.
    Mr. Marshall himself came forward and answered her questions.
    “Oh, yes, madam, it’s a Hepplewhite. Yes, I’ve got four of them. The other three are through here, if you’d care to see them.”
    Lina followed him and stared for a few moments at the other three, wondering how to get the information she wanted.
    “You have their pedigree, I suppose?” she said slowly at last. “Yes, yes; no doubt they’re quite genuine; but do you know where they came from?”
    Mr. Marshall rubbed his white-stubbled chin. “I could give you the information of course, madam, if you bought them. I do know where they came from. In fact, I negotiated the sale myself from the owner in whose family they’ve been since they were made by Hepplewhite himself. I can assure you their pedigree’s quite in order.”
    “I should like to know the name,” Lina said tonelessly.
    Mr. Marshall hesitated, and then gave way in an access of confidence. “Well, quite between ourselves, madam, it was a member of the Aysgarth family. You know the name, of course?”
    “Yes,” said Lina, “I know the name. Thank you. I’ll let you know if I want them.”
    She walked out of the shop.
    Lina never said a word to Johnnie about the incident.
    In any case, she had his promise.
6
    Janet Caldwell stiffened. “Surely that isn’t Johnnie already?”
    Lina wondered: Why does she dislike him so? How absurd she is.
    Undoubtedly it was Johnnie.
    His voice, raised to its merriest tones, came flooding through the drawing-room door as he rallied the grenadier-like parlourmaid, Ella’s less prepossessing and more permanent