Free The Notched Hairpin by H. F. Heard

And as soon as I was settled, out came Mr. M. to bring me to the point, I assumed. I was now prepared to be brought—in fact, had myself arrived.
    â€œI’m quite ready,” I said, when he came up to where I was seated in the fine stone chair, “to waive my natural prejudices against felo-de-se when it permits me to have fellowship with such a manifest sense of culture as this place yields me. I presume whoever has now become the legal owner will be only too glad to find such a couple as ourselves to sign a clean bill of health for the place. As the case is closed legally, I too am quite willing to let bygones be bygones, as far as such a small (and in this respect convenient) accident is concerned.”
    â€œBut I don’t remember that I ever said the case was closed.”
    This was not only pompous, but, worse, portentous. Was I once more—after having made a considerable effort to meet the old master’s wishes and put the whole incident out of my mind—was I again to find everything being raveled, tangled, and confused, and maybe even our certainty of securing this place put in jeopardy? I was sufficiently upset to say unguardedly, “I don’t understand!”
    And got in reply, “I will explain, or rather I am going to bring the explanation to you. Believe me, it will interest you, and I need your co-operation.”
    My temporary upset began to be tinged with possible interest, for I respond to any call for help.
    â€œWill you please get up and follow me?”
    I rose. The old man took out from his portfolio a fair-sized piece of folded newspaper and, leaving it on the stone table to my right, turned to the garden entrance of the arbor. He went through this and then turned sharp right. I had dutifully followed this maneuver. We now had the high, dense hedge of the arbor between us and the chair and the two tables. As the hedge was of beech, though the new leaves were still only partly unfurled, the old leaves, as is so nice with that species of tree when it is used for hedges, were still obligingly hanging on in sufficient numbers so that there was no visible thinning of the cover. I couldn’t help thinking how like the faded leaves, still holding their post and discharging their duty, were to those old and, alas, practically extinct servants who, though due to retire, used to stay on to oblige until the new ones were sufficiently expert to take over without making any break in the ancient routine. The weave of the twigs themselves was also, at this level—in spite of the late occupant’s reported grumbles—almost as close as basketwork. So I found, when we came to a pause and stood looking at this living arras, that though we were actually within three or four yards of where I had just been seated, you could no more catch a glimpse of the inner fittings of the arbor, or of the house that stood behind and beyond, than you could have seen through a brick wall.
    â€œMr. Silchester.”
    Mr. M. was using the kind of tone which he only uses to me when I have no doubt that I can do him a real service. This, you may gather, is rare, but the inflection is so impressive that I know at once we are going into action, and I must own I find it exhilarating.
    â€œMr. Silchester, will you do me a real favor by staying here? I may not have to keep you waiting for more than ten minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour. If you will wait for that time completely silent, not even shifting your position, that is all I believe that will be needed, and much may turn on it.”
    Anyone would have felt a thrill, a tension caught from the gravity of his tone. I nodded, and he slipped back into the arbor, I heard him shifting about behind the arras of leaves but could not see a thing. While I was trying to see whether I could see, I heard Jane’s voice—as playwrights say, “off,” but as plumbers say of taps, full “on.”
    â€œHe’s out in the