Chapter 17 Irene Can Change Her Mind
GUSTAV KNOCKED AT the door of the Thurlows' flat, and found that the ambassador was alone. "Can I speak to. Miss Thurlow?" he asked, having decided that he would do better with her. Irene was packing in her own room.
Her father said curtly: "She is busy now. What do you want?"
Gustav saw that it would be impolitic to appear unwilling to give a frank answer. He said: "It is a message from Mr. Kindell. He asked if you would be kind enough to convey this valise to London on his behalf, if he should be detained here."
"Detained by the police?"
"That was how I understood it to be."
"Why did he not come himself?"
"How can he come, he being under arrest?"
That was news to Mr. Thurlow. Irene and he, having been occupied in packing in their own rooms, may have been the only people in the hotel who were not already aware that Kindell had been removed in the escort of the police.
"Has he been arrested? Is he still in the hotel?"
"He was taken away about an hour ago."
As Gustav answered he observed that Irene had entered the room from its opposite door. Seeing him, and hearing what was I said, she stood still.
Her father's questions continued sharply. "Then do the police know of this? Did you bring it with their consent?"
"He gave it to my charge before they had arrived."
"Then you must tell him that it is a matter with which I can have nothing to do."
"How can I do that, now that he is gone? It is very awkward for me."
"Then you should hand it to the police."
"Mr. Kindell said that it was so small a thing that he was sure mademoiselle would not refuse."
This was Gustav's last effort, for the programme of surrendering it to the police was one which even with Professor Blinkwell's permission, he was reluctant to adopt, and it had an immediate effect.
Irene came forward, so that her father became aware of her presence. She asked, "Did you bring a message to me?"
"It was you whom I was instructed to see."
"And Mr. Kindell really has been arrested?"
"Yes. He has been removed by the police."
"Then you can leave the valise here."
"Irene," her father said sharply, "I forbid you to have anything to do with that young man's baggage."
But Gustav had laid the valise down already, and left the room. He thought that the probability that the valise would be delivered in London had become very great.
So it had. Irene had had a miserable hour, being unsure of several things she was anxious to know, but having become aware of one - that she had been both unkind and unfair. Being miserable, she was in a mood to quarrel with someone, and here was an opportunity put into her hand, and her father would suit her requirements better than a stranger could have been expected to do.
"He's our cousin," she said. "We're surely not going to let him down over a small thing like that."
"It mayn't be a small thing at all. I don't trust him: He wouldn't just us, and he can't expect that we should."
"Isn't he trusting us now? You talk as though that may be where he's going wrong."
"He's beginning a bit late."
&nbs`; ? ? ? "Haven't you thought that we may have got him all wrong? He's in some kind of a mess over this murder. That's plain enough. But he didn't do it. Nobody'd make me believe that. And if he wouldn't say more to us, it may have been because he didn't want to get us in with him. And if that's how it is, he wouldn't have asked us to do this if it would mean any real risk for you."
"It's no use saying that, Rene. He thought he would be arrested, and he's trying to get rid of something he doesn't want the police to see."
"Of course he is. But that doesn't mean it's anything wrong If I were going to be arrested, I've got lots of things I shouldn't want to be pawed over by them Or talked over in court more likely than not. And you'd feel just the same. . . . How can you think of playing that man Samuel's game after his rudeness to you! I should say we'd be the two meanest skunks - - "
Irene left the sentence unfinished, for she saw, with experienced eyes, that she was chastizing a beaten man.
"Well," her father said wearily, "if you look at it like that! But I don't want to know anything about it, whatever happens."
"Well, why should you? The message was meant for me."
Irene had now picked up the valise, and concealed her surprise at its weight. Was it solid gold? Well, it was no business of hers! She had chosen her part, and felt that her honour and her cousin's forgiveness were alike staked upon getting it safely to the address which was - curiously enough, as she was aware, but she was not in the mood for critical comment - written upon a tie-on label in an obviously foreign hand. And there was no name! But might that not be a reasonable precaution? Obviously, he would give them the address to which he would wish it to be forwarded after its arrival in England. It might be considered equally obvious that he would not put his own name on an article of luggage which was to be carried by them. That would be to give its secret away even before it had left the hotel, it being of a weight which required that it should be left to the porter's hands.
Thinking this, and with a sense of comradeship in outwitting the police which was much more pleasant to feel than the previous anger, Irene took off the label, put it into an inner pocket of her handbag, and substituted another on which she wrote, not her own name, but that of her father, with full assertion of his ambassadorial office, and an injunction that it was to be treated with special care.
Having completed this lawless work, she continued her own packing with a happier mind than she had had previously, in spite of some natural anxiety as to her cousin's position. She thought with satisfaction that he had had sense enough to know who his real friends were. Had he preferred to trust the uncle of that unwieldy Jewess, it would have been very hard to forgive!