"But of course you'll go back to Oakley Street," he said. "You're there for three days yet, aren't you? It will be all right by that time. It's just a little bit of a complication we're in. It won't be long now. Then you'll get married and come along here, of course. Pull yourself together, my dear. It's all right. There, you're feeling better now, aren't you?" He felt a perfect brute, he says, but he didn't see what else he could do. Even if he had had the right, he doesn't see that it would have helped to tell her that, after tying herself up with a drunkard, she was now going to make a second experiment with a man who had no more sense than to go and get himself mixed up in an affair that might bring the police round at any moment. He had no such right. Just as before he had been unable to explain to Hubbard and myself until he had spoken to Monty, so now he couldn't take any further step till he had seen Chummy Smith. It might be hard on Joan and Mrs. Cunningham, not to mention his wife, but what other course could he take? When you set about to burke inquiry into a capital Case the fewer people you take into your confidence the better. Besides, who knew yet that it was a capital Case? Suppose twenty words from Chummy should somehow explain it all? Suppose some ridiculous mistake had been made? Suppose our elaborate pretenses to ourselves were in reality no pretenses at all, and that the thing really was what it seemed--just an aeroplane accident with nothing more to be said about it? Yes, in spite of all the evidence, he would have been glad at the moment to have believed that. "Look here, Audrey," he said at last, "I feel absolutely rotten about all this. I know I'm in the way and I oughtn't to be here at all. When I turned over this place to you I hadn't the faintest idea of stopping on like this. I'd go straight into rooms now if I could, but that wouldn't do. Don't ask me why, there's a dear. For one thing I've got to see Smith. They tell me he can be seen in a few days now. Then I'll just stop for the wedding and clear right out afterwards. Whats the matter with that?" The matter with that appeared in Audrey Cunningham's next words, which she spoke slowly and with her eyes on the floor. "It isn't just you. It's Monty as well. He could tell me if he wanted, but he doesn't want. I don't think I want to get married," she said. X The letter she wrote crossed Mollie Esdaile's Sunday morning one. It was written on Saturday, and missed the Santon Sunday morning delivery by a post, arriving there on Monday. "Please don't think me ungrateful," Mollie read, "but all sorts of things seem to be happening, and I'm so afraid of hurting you after all your kindness. Perhaps I'd better come to the point straight away and explain afterwards. I don't think I can accept your offer of Lennox Street for Monty and myself after all."