Percival Christopher Wren

“ It would be something important that would make him risk giving Aunt Patricia cause to think that he had been guilty of an ungentlemanly disobedience to her request.
I drank my coffee in silence, and in silence departed from the room. I could not forgive Gussie for being innocent and forcing Michael to suspect Claudia, Digby, or me; me to suspect Claudia, Digby, or Michael; and Digby to suspect Claudia, Michael, or me.
Most unjust of me, but most human, I fear.
In the drawing-room Isobel was at the piano, playing softly to herself, and Claudia sat staring into the fire. ”

“ The huge room—with its long windows, looking on two sides to the loveliest view in Devon; its great warm-tinted Turkey carpet hiding most of the ancient oak floor; its beautifully appointed table, flooded with sunshine; its panelled walls and arched ceiling—was a picture of solid, settled comfort, established and secure.
Digby was wandering about the room, a plate of porridge in one hand, and a busy spoon in the other. ”

“ Meanwhile, no ass of a detective will be suspecting you or Claudia, or poor innocent Gussie, since obviously one of the absconding three (or all of them) must be the thief. Aunt will go to the police about it of course, and they will soon be on our track, and trouble no one at Brandon Abbas.
And now, darling Isobel, darling Faithful Hound, I am not going to try to tell you how much I love you—I am going to do it before you get this. But everything is different since last night. The world is a perfectly glorious place, and life is a perfectly glorious thing. ”

“ But when two loving people part, one going on a journey, it is always the departing one who suffers the less.
It is inevitable that the distractions of travel, movement, change, shall drug the pain to which the other is equally exposed without the amelioration of mental and bodily occupation.
So, between my mind and the agony of separation from Isobel came the deadening and protecting cloak of action and of the competing thoughts of other matters—journey's end, the future, money, Paris, Algeria, the probabilities of finding Michael and Digby. ... ”

“ We went downstairs and made our way to the smoking-room. The brass box caught my eye, and an idea also struck me with some violence, as I noticed that the lid and front seemed brighter than the rest of it.
"Don't expose me yet, John," said Michael as we crossed the hall.
"John been catching you out?" asked Digby.
"Caught me last night, didn't you, John?" replied Michael.
"Red-handed," said I.
"It's blue-handed that Aunt wants to cop someone," said Digby, opening the door of the smoking-room. "Sapphire-blue."
Isobel was sitting by the fire looking tearful and depressed. ”

“ I have met few men to equal Michael and Digby in beauty, physical strength, courage, and intelligence; but I was, in spite of being an equally incurably romantic, "longer-headed" than they, and even more muscular and powerful. ”

“ When thinking of Michael, and seeing mental pictures of him in the setting of Brandon Abbas, our "Prep." school, Eton and Oxford, one of the clearest of these dissolving views had been of a group of us in the Bower, at the feet of a smart and debonair young French officer, who had thrilled us with dramatic tales of Algeria, Morocco, and the Sahara; tales of Spahis, Turcos, Zouaves, Chasseurs d'Afrique, and the French Foreign Legion of Mercenaries; tales of hot life and brave death, of battle and of bivouac. ”

“ How I envy the grasp and logic of those great minds that can easily reconcile "unto the third and fourth generation," for example, with this comfortable doctrine!
On this fine autumn evening, so ordinary, so secure and comfortable, so fateful and momentous, we sat in the great drawing-room of Brandon Abbas, after dinner, all together for what proved to be the last time. There were present Aunt Patricia, the Chaplain, Claudia, Isobel, Michael, Digby, Augustus Brandon, and myself. ”

“ Michael and I once again looked at each other, Michael's face being perfectly expressionless.
"I think of bolting with it, as I told Isobel just now," said Michael.
"John going with his half too?" asked Digby.
"No," replied Michael for me. "I'm taking it all."
"Well, old horse," said Digby, looking at his watch, "could you go soon after lunch? I want to run up to town to see a man about a dog, and Aunt seems to have other views for us—until the matter is cleared up." ”

“ Of course—that idiotic affair of last night, and Michael's heavy fall from his pedestal. Well, there are spots on the sun, and no man is always himself. Why dwell on one fault rather than on a hundred virtues? But it was unlike Michael to tell such silly pointless lies to cover a silly pointless trick.
I dressed and went downstairs, taking a mashie and a ball from the glory-hole, a small room or large cupboard off the corridor that leads to the smoking-room. I would do a few approach-shots from the tennis-courts to the paddock and back, before the breakfast-gong went at half-past eight. ”

“ I expected to see him promptly suffer grief and pain at their hands, but Michael did the unexpected, as usual.
"Why, I believe the little man's innocent after all," he said quite kindly.
"You know I am, you damned hypocrite," shouted Augustus. "Weren't you and John fumbling at the cover when she turned the light on—you cowardly blackguards."
Digby's hand closed on the scruff of the boy's neck.
"If I have accused you wrongly, Gussie, I'll humbly apologise and make it up to you," said he. "But if we find you did do it—oh, my little Gussie ... !" ”

“ THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE "BLUE WATER"
AND then, one autumn evening, the face of life changed as utterly and suddenly as unexpectedly. The act of one person altered the lives of all of us, and brought suffering, exile, and death in its train. ”

“ I was thinking more particularly of Isobel.
"Let's go and beat young Gussie," said Digby.
"Gussie doesn't know a thing about it," said Michael. "Nothing but genuine injured innocence would have given him the pluck to call us 'Filthy liars,' and 'Damned hypocrites.' You know, if he'd been guilty, he'd have been conciliatory, voluble, and tearful—oh, altogether different. A much more humble parishioner."
"Believe you're right, Beau," agreed Digby. "Nothing like a sense of injustice to put you up on the bough. ... 'Sides, young Gus hasn't the guts to pinch anything really valuable. ... ”

“ Until, of course, the police-court reporters have the story, and the newspapers are adorned with the portrait of one of your faces."
Once again her scornful glance swept us in turn, this time beginning with Michael and going on to Augustus.
"Very well, then," she went on. "No one leaves the house, and no one breathes a word of this to anyone but the eight people who already know of it ..."
"Except to a detective or the police, of course," she added, with an ominous note and a disdainful edge to her voice. "The Chaplain is ill," she concluded, "and I don't wonder at it." ”

“ From the moment I had caught him in the act of trying to return the jewel secretly, I had felt sick with indignation, and literally and physically sick when, his effort frustrated by me, he had pretended innocence and held on for another opportunity of returning the thing unseen. ”

“ Before you go to bed to-night, everything will be as clear as crystal."
"Or as blue as sapphire," said Digby, and added, "By Jove! I've got an idea! A theory! ... My dog Joss got alarmed at the sudden darkness, jumped on a chair to avoid the crush, wagged his tail to show faith and hope, knocked over the cover, reversed his engine, and smelt round to see what he'd done, found nothing and yawned in boredom—and inhaled the 'Blue Water.'"
"Perhaps he was thirsty and drank the 'Blue Water'?" amended Isobel.
"Both very sound theories. Sounder still if Joss had been in the room," said Michael. ”

“ The thief shall pay a thief's penalty—whoever it may be."
She paused and fixed her coldly angry gaze on me, on Augustus, on Michael, on Digby, on Isobel, on Claudia.
No one spoke or moved, and for a full minute Lady Brandon waited.
"Ah!" said she at last, and then, "One other thing please note very carefully. The servants know nothing of this, and they are to know nothing. We will keep it to ourselves—as long as possible, of course—that one of you six is a treacherous, ungrateful lying thief."
And then Michael spoke:
"Say one of us four, please, Aunt Patricia." ”

“ When I had dressed, I put my brushes and shaving-tackle into an attaché-case, and crammed in a shirt, collars, and socks, and then went down to the smoking-room, and, after some unsatisfactory efforts, wrote to Isobel:
"My darling beautiful Sweetheart,
I had a letter from Digby last night. He has bolted because he thinks that Michael has shouldered the blame and disgrace of this theft in order to protect the innocent and shield the guilty person (who must appear to him to be Claudia, Digby, or myself, as it is not you nor Gussie) . ”

“ There were my finger-prints, anyhow, if she had really thought of this plan! And there they were if it occurred to her later, in the event of the sapphire not being restored. I re-entered the central hall—not more than half a minute later than I had left it—and saw someone coming toward me. He, or she, carried no light, and, of course, could identify me, the candle being just in front of my face.
"Well, Gussie," said I. "Cold morning."
"Well, John. Looking for the key?" said the voice of my brother Michael.
"Yes, Beau," I answered. "It's not there."
"No, John," said Michael quietly. ”

“ It would be inexpressibly unpleasant and degrading. I imagined the questioning, the searching, the loathsome sense of being under suspicion—even Isobel and Claudia. At four o'clock in the morning the whole affair looked unutterably beastly.
And then I pulled myself together. Of course it would be all right. The idiot who had played the fool trick, and been too feeble to own up, would have replaced the jewel. Probably it was there now. The said idiot would have been only too anxious to get rid of it as soon as Aunt Patricia had put the key in the brass box. ... Why not go and make sure? ”

“ I thought I'd tell you three before I told Aunt."
"Well—what is it, Faithful Hound?" asked Michael.
"Why, when the light went out—you know I said, ‘Ghosts and goblins and skeleton hands,' or something? Well, I half frightened myself and half pretended, and I clutched somebody's arm. When the light went up I found it was Augustus I was hugging—and let go so quickly that nobody noticed, I suppose."
"That settles it," said Digby. "It wasn't poor Gussie." "Couldn't have been," he added, "unless those two were one and did it together." ”

“ I agreed, and again we stared at each other.
"I did not take the 'Blue Water,' Beau," I said.
"Nor did I, John," said Michael.
"Then there's a mis-deal somewhere," remarked Digby, "and Gussie must have done it. Anyhow—it'll be put back in the night. Must be."
"What do you say to our sitting here until we hear somebody come down to the hall? That door always makes a frightful row," I suggested.
"Certainly not," said Michael sharply. ”

“ I am neither a student nor a philosopher, but I would like some convinced exponent of the doctrine of Free Will to explain how we are anything but the helpless victims of the consequences of the acts of other people. ”

“ On hearing his last words, my aunt sat and stared at Michael. The silence grew horrible. At length she began to speak in a low frozen voice.
"This is inexpressibly vulgar and disgusting," she began. "One of half a dozen boys and girls, who have practically grown up here, is a despicable liar and, apparently, a common thief—or an uncommon one. I am still unable to think the latter. ... Listen. ... I shall leave the cover where it is and I shall lock the doors of this room at midnight and keep the keys, except the key of that one. Bring it to me, Digby. ... Thank you. ”

“ Play up and don't forget you've got to stand by me and make people realise the truth that I actually am the thief—or suspicion still rests on Claudia (since Isobel and Gussie are out of it) , if we three do not provide the criminal amongst us. And, of course, I can't let Beau suffer for me. ”

“ There is no more harm in my knowing than in your knowing, and there may be some good. I am not asking you to tell Aunt, or the police, am I, bun-head?"
This was true enough. No harm could result from Digby's knowing all that I knew.
Moreover, if, as Digby assumed, Michael were shielding somebody else, presumably he would welcome any evidence that strengthened the case against himself.
"Well," said I reluctantly, "it's like this, Dig. ... Beau went down to the drawing-room last night. I met him with the key in his hand ..." ”