There was a short silence.
Each man watched in his mind that boat's journey down the misty river, out to the many-lighted estuary, and along the many-lighted coast. One little town after another, from flaring dockyard lights among the flats to twinkling villa lights among the cliffs, must have lit that progress. But later, there must have been darkness; complete darkness and silence, as the summer fog pressed down on the water. What had her thoughts been, in that time of waiting? Alone, with time to reflect. And with no stars to remind her of her greatness. Or was her madness even then so sure that she had no doubts?
And afterwards — each man watched that, too. The surprise. The friendly greeting. Chris's green cap bobbing alongside the gray hull — the cap that had never been found. The woman leaning over to talk to her. And then —
Grant remembered those broken nails on Christine's hands. It had not been so easy, then.
"That finishes the case, sir, but it was really something else that brought me to see you. Another case altogether."
"Yes? Here's tea. You needn't wait, Binns. Sugar, Inspector?"
"I want to know where you took Rimnik."
Champneis paused with the sugar poised. He looked both surprised and amused and — somehow — admiring.
"He is with friends of Harmer's, near Tunbridge Wells."
"May I have the exact address?"
Champneis gave it, and also gave Grant his tea. "Why do you want Rimnik?"
"Because he is in this country without a passport — thanks to you!"
"He was. The office issued him a landing permit this morning. It took a lot of eloquence — Britain the lover of justice, the defender of the persecuted, the home of the righteous homeless: all that stuff — but it worked. Chests still swell in Whitehall, do you know? They were like a collection of pouter pigeons when I finished."
He looked at the Inspector's disapproving face. "I didn't know that that little business had been a worry to you."
"Worry!" Grant burst out. "It nearly ruined everything. You and Harmer both lying about what you had done that night — " He found that he was treading on delicate ground and pulled himself up.
But Champneis had understood. "I really am sorry, Inspector. Are you going to arrest me? Can one be arrested retrospectively, so to speak?"
"I don't think so. I shall have to inquire about it. It would give me great pleasure." Grant had recovered his temper.
"All right. Let's postpone the arrest. But tell me how you found out? I thought we'd been so clever."
"I might never have found out if it hadn't been for a good bit of work by a young officer — Rimell — at Dover."
"I must meet Rimell."
"He found that you and Harmer had met that night and had been worried about the Customs."
"Yes. Rimnik was in a cupboard in my cabin. It was an exciting half hour. But the Customs and Harbor Masters are only human."
This Grant took to mean that they knocked off the Champneis pegs and lacked the nerve to knock on the bulkheads. "It was then I began to feel that if I could remember something you had said just before — you misled me about the time of your arrival in Dover, I would have the key to everything. And I remembered it! You said that Galeria's only hope was Rimnik, and that Rimnik would turn up again when his party was ready. But the big stumbling block was in seeing the connection between you and Harmer. It was so simple and so obvious I couldn't find it. You liked and admired one another immediately when your wife introduced you. I must say he did a beautiful job of throwing dust in my eyes, putting on that resentful, underprivileged classes act. I should have thought more about my recognition of your —»
"My what?"
"Unorthodoxy." Both men smiled. "Once I groped my way through that difficulty, the rest was easy. The Special Branch knew all about Rimnik's disappearance, his being refused a passport, and Britain's refusal to have him here. They even knew that he was supposed to be in England, but had no confirmation of it. So the motorboat came ashore a second time?"
"That night, you mean? Yes. Harmer drove us over to his friend's place. He has guts; he was scared stiff, I think, but he went through with it. I see Tisdall has turned up," he said as Grant rose to go. "That must be an enormous relief to you. Is he ill?"
"No. He has a chill, and he's overwrought, of course. But I hope he's going to be all right."
"In the midday edition I bought at York, I read a harrowing description of his sufferings. Knowing the Press, I believed with confidence that not a word of it was true."
"Not a word. That was just Jammy Hopkins."
"Who is Jammy Hopkins?"
"Who is — " Words failed the Inspector. He looked enviously at Champneis. "Now I know," he said, "why men go out into the waste places of the earth!"
Chapter 27
Herbert Gotobed left England about a month later on his way to explain to the inquisitive police of Nashville, Tennessee, what he had done with the two thousand dollars old Mrs. Kinsley had given him to build a church with.
And on the day that he sailed — although neither party knew of the other's activities — Erica had a dinner party at Steynes "to take the taste of the last one away," as she said bluntly to Grant when she invited him. The only addition to the original personnel was Robin Tisdall, and Grant found himself ridiculously relieved to find that her small nose was still as casually powdered, and her frock still as childish as on the first occasion. He was afraid that contact with anyone as good-looking and ill-used as Robin Tisdall would have bred a self-awareness that would be the end of her girlhood. But it seemed as if nothing could make Erica self-conscious. She treated Tisdall with the same grave matter-of-factness she had used when she had told him that his shirt collar was too tight. Grant saw Sir George's eyes going from one to the other in glad amusement. Their glances met, and moved by a common impulse the two men raised their glasses in a small gesture of mutual congratulation.
"Are you drinking a toast?" Erica asked. "I'll give you one. To Robin's success in California!"
They drank it with a will.
"If you don't like the ranch," Erica said, "wait till I am twenty-one and I'll buy it from you."
"Would you like that sort of life?" His tone was eager.
"Of course I should." She turned to Grant, beginning to say something.
"You'll have to come out and see it long before you're twenty-one," Robin persisted.
"Yes, that would be nice." She was sincere but inattentive. "Mr. Grant" (for some reason she never called him Inspector) "if I get those tickets from Mr. Mills myself will you come with me to the Circus at Christmas?"
She was very faintly pink, as if she had asked a forward thing. A phenomenon in Erica, who was forward by nature and never knew it.
"Of course I will," Grant said, "with the greatest pleasure."
"All right," she said. "That's a promise." She lifted her glass. "To Olympia, at Christmas!"
"To Olympia at Christmas!" Grant said.
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