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Page 115
Freddie's sensation, on perceiving him, was one of relief. He had
been half afraid it was the bishop. He recognized Ashe as the
valet chappie who had helped him to bed on the occasion of his
accident. It might be that he had come in a respectful way to
make inquiries, but he was not likely to stop long. He nodded and
went on reading. And then, glancing up, he perceived Ashe
standing beside the bed, fixing him with a piercing stare.
The Honorable Freddie hated piercing stares. One of the reasons
why he objected to being left alone with his future
father-in-law, Mr. J. Preston Peters, was that Nature had given
the millionaire a penetrating pair of eyes, and the stress of
business life in New York had developed in him a habit of boring
holes in people with them. A young man had to have a stronger
nerve and a clearer conscience than the Honorable Freddie to
enjoy a tete-a-tete with Mr. Peters.
Though he accepted Aline's father as a necessary evil and
recognized that his position entitled him to look at people as
sharply as he liked, whatever their feelings, he would be hanged
if he was going to extend this privilege to Mr. Peters' valet.
This man standing beside him was giving him a look that seemed to
his sensitive imagination to have been fired red-hot from a gun;
and this annoyed and exasperated Freddie.
"What do you want?" he said querulously. "What are you staring at
me like that for?"
Ashe sat down, leaned his elbows on the bed, and applied the look
again from a lower elevation.
"Ah!" he said.
Whatever may have been Ashe's defects, so far as the handling of
the inductive-reasoning side of Gridley Quayle's character was
concerned, there was one scene in each of his stories in which he
never failed. That was the scene in the last chapter where
Quayle, confronting his quarry, unmasked him. Quayle might have
floundered in the earlier part of the story, but in his big scene
he was exactly right. He was curt, crisp and mercilessly
compelling.
Ashe, rehearsing this interview in the passage before his entry,
had decided that he could hardly do better than model himself on
the detective. So he began to be curt, crisp and mercilessly
compelling to Freddie; and after the first few sentences he had
that youth gasping for air.
"I will tell you," he said. "If you can spare me a few moments of
your valuable time I will put the facts before you. Yes; press
that bell if you wish--and I will put them before witnesses. Lord
Emsworth will no doubt be pleased to learn that his son, whom he
trusted, is a thief!"
Freddie's hand fell limply. The bell remained un-touched. His
mouth opened to its fullest extent. In the midst of his panic he
had a curious feeling that he had heard or read that last
sentence somewhere before. Then he remembered. Those very words
occurred in Gridley Quayle, Investigator--The Adventure of the
Blue Ruby.
"What--what do you mean?" he stammered.
"I will tell you what I mean. On Saturday night a valuable scarab
was stolen from Lord Emsworth's private museum. The case was put
into my hands----"
"Great Scott! Are you a detective?"
"Ah!" said Ashe.
Life, as many a worthy writer has pointed out, is full of
ironies. It seemed to Freddie that here was a supreme example of
this fact. All these years he had wanted to meet a detective; and
now that his wish had been gratified the detective was detecting
him!
"The case," continued Ashe severely, "was placed in my hands. I
investigated it. I discovered that you were in urgent and
immediate need of money."
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