Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Chapter XLVIII Secret Council

Even Gillespie’s absence could not depress Tommy’s triumph. As soon as they were in the morning room where lunch was laid, he ignored the food, and seizing Delia waltzed her frantically round the table, letting go all the pent up emotion with which he had been bursting for half an hour past. They were interrupted by the entrance of Janet McQuoid.

“Hae ye gone gyte, the pair o’ you?” she inquired.

“Yes. Stark, raving mad. Crazed with joy and relief and — and what not — greatest day of my life, Janet! Here, we’ll have Mrs. Susan in — she’s got to lunch here. She’s a peach!”

He rushed off in search of her. But his blandishments were wasted; Susan Harding was adamant. She refused pointblank to join the lunch party, and insisted on taking her dinner in the steward’s room, even if she took it alone. Tommy retired defeated, to find Delia at table with Janet, to whom she had already explained the Harding marriage.

“Weel, yon’s good news, Tam,” said Janet calmly, “but d’ye think ye’re out o’ the wood yet? There’s the policeman to reckon with.”

“Haven’t had time to think of anything yet. The title to the estate’s clear anyway! My foot’s on my native heath, and my name’s McKellar!”

“I’d be the less surprised if it was Renée that had been getting herself married too often. The wumman is capable of anything. What she needed was a husband wha’d gie her a good beatin’.”

“That’s the score of being a vamp,” said Tommy, “she’s too beautiful to beat.”

“I’m not for it as a general thing,” grunted Janet, “but there’s times when it’s a good auld-fashioned remedy. I thocht ye were doing it to Delia when I cam’ in and found ye rampin’ around the table.”

“The man who’d lay hands on a woman—”

“He wouldn’t go as far as that. I’d like to see him try!” interrupted Delia. “Though he certainly shook me, once. And did it properly.”

“I hae nae doubt ye deserved it.”

“Chuck it, Delia!” pleaded Tommy, growing crimson.

“Well, I did,” said Delia. “I was trying how mad I could make Tommy. To exasperate cocksure young men is every girl’s duty sometimes, and I was tired of that easy temper of his; I went the limit. He stood for it like a lamb till I said things to him that any one else would have killed me for, and at last Tommy’s Highland blood got all wrought up and he took me by the shoulders and shook me. He shook me till my teeth rattled, poor boy.”

“What did ye do?” asked Janet.

“Laughed. The more I laughed the more he shook me, and the more he shook me the more I laughed. It did us more good than two rounds of golf. But he made it up very nicely afterward, and I can always bring it up against him when I want to.”

The lunch grew cold while Tommy and Delia discussed the morning’s triumph. Janet attended steadily to her food, and presently they left her to it and went down into the hall. There they found the missing partner had returned.

Gillespie was sitting in an armchair, his head slightly bowed, staring into the fire of pine logs on the open hearth. Seeing the two coming toward him, he rose hurriedly.

His face was strangely gray and drawn, there was a blue tint about his mouth, and he swayed on his feet. Tommy darted forward and put an arm round him.

“What’s wrong, old chap!” he exclaimed anxiously.

Gillespie murmured something inaudible and sank back into the chair. Delia knelt beside him, one cool hand supporting his head, while the other quickly loosened his collar and his prim little black tie, looking at him pitifully, for at the moment his appearance was disquieting; he looked really ill. But he smiled at her faintly.

“It’s nothing, madam,” he said. “A little over tired — that’s all. Thank you so much.”

Tommy came back with a glass of brandy: they put it to his lips. In a minute or less the color returned to his face and his strength seemed to come back to him.

“Thank you,” he said, “better, sir, much better. Perhaps I’ve been rather overdoing things. Came over me suddenly. I am very sorry to have given you this trouble. You were asking for me, sir, weren’t you?”

Tommy was through. He had all he could bear.

“Uncle Paradine!” he said, “dear old fellow — we know what you’ve done for us, and you know we know. No need to keep this up now. I can’t stand any more of it!”

The old man pressed his arm and looked into his face.

“Tommy, my boy,” he said, “thank goodness there’s an end of it! We needn’t keep it up now, but it will just rest between us three till to-night — that’s all. And I have one or two things to say to you, which you may as well hear at once. And — I’m a little afraid of telling you.”

He stood up.

“We can’t talk here. Shall we go into your library?” he said.

“Not yet! Are you fit to talk about it?”

“Quite... quite! The sooner the better.”

“I’m not coming,” said Delia quickly. “You won’t want me.”

The old man caught her hand and pressed it, and a rush of moisture came into his eyes.

“Of course I want you,” he said. “My dear Delia, I want you, just as I want this lucky young fellow here. Come along.”