Free Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold Page B

bellows.
    â€œLet me do that,” said Peter, picking them up. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”
    â€œYou’ve said that before,” said Jeanie a trifle tartly. “And you know, or perhaps you don’t, that there has been a murder here.”
    â€œOh, I know! That’s the murder I’m suspected of having done. I’m not really a murderer, though. Although I’m just as much a murderer as I am a thief, and everybody thinks I’m a thief.”
    â€œIn fact, you’re Little Misunderstood, aren’t you?” said Jeanie crossly. She did not care for melodrama in real life, and Mr. Peter Johnson struck her as unnecessarily histrionic in his behaviour. He made no reply. Glancing at him as he knelt on the hearth-rug and worked the bellows, she half repented her tartness when she observed the lines in his white young face, the smudges beneath his eyes, the lips tensed so as not to tremble.
    â€œWhat happened to you yesterday?” she asked more gently. He was instantly on the defensive.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou were here, weren’t you? Sarah said you were.”
    â€œWell, I am still a member of the Handleston Field Club, you know, even though no longer a member of this household!”
    Jeanie looked steadily at him. He put down the bellows and looked inimically back at her.
    â€œWhat, you came all the way up from London to join the Field Club in looking at Grim’s Grave and Black Ellen’s Tower?”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œNever seen them before, had you?”
    â€œMany times.”
    â€œSo many times that halfway through the proceedings you got bored and went off to London again. You weren’t here anyway when the police inquiry was going on.”
    Peter’s face darkened.
    â€œThank you, I’ve had all the police inquiry I want at my flat in London.”
    â€œWhat time did you go off yesterday?”
    â€œI left the house, madam, at about half-past three.” 
    As soon as you’d had a good look at the medieval kitchen?”
    â€œI didn’t go near the kitchen.”
    â€œNot after coming all the way from London to see it?”
    Peter Johnson put down the bellows and stood up. A bright flame rushed up around the log. Standing on the hearth-rug in his overcoat and scarf, Peter looked tall, angry, and formidable. Once again, as with Tamsin Wills, Jeanie felt a little chill of the spirit. Here the two bandied words, as if there were no realities in this peaceful, lovely place: but murder had been a reality in this peaceful, lovely place only yesterday.
    Jeanie, sitting in her low chair, looked up at Peter, and suddenly thought how she scarcely knew him, how they were alone together, how somebody unknown had murdered poor Robert Molyneux. She was silent. But Peter replied after a moment:
    â€œThe fact is, as you’ve very perspicaciously guessed, Miss Halliday, I didn’t come down here to see the medieval kitchen. No, I came down here to see Mrs. Molyneux.” He paused. “And, having seen her, I went home.”
    He lit a cigarette, frowning, and offered one to Jeanie. “No, thank you. Well, it’s funny, but when the police were making their inquiries yesterday, Agnes didn’t say anything about seeing you.”
    â€œIt isn’t funny at all. It may be very tragic,” said Peter, looking at her sombrely.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWell, because I didn’t say anything about it either to the police. When they asked me why I’d come down here yesterday I said I’d come to join the Field Club. I suppose I was a fool. I felt I’d rather leave it to Agnes to clear my character.” 
    â€œWell, I’m afraid she didn’t do it, Peter.”
    â€œI might have known she wouldn’t,” said Peter with extreme bitterness. “She let me be thought a thief. She’ll let me be thought a murderer. I wonder whether she’d let me be