The Fountain Plays

 

 

“YES,” SAID MR. SPILLER, in a satisfied tone, “I must say I like a bit of

ornamental water. Gives a finish to the place.”

“The Versailles touch,” agreed Ronald Proudfoot.

Mr. Spiller glanced sharply at him, as though suspecting sarcasm, but

his lean face expressed nothing whatever. Mr. Spiller was never quite at his

ease in the company of his daughter’s fiancé, though he was proud of the

girl’s achievement. With all his (to Mr. Spiller) unamiable qualities, Ronald

Proudfoot was a perfect gentleman, and Betty was completely wrapped up

in him.

“The only thing it wants,” continued Mr. Spiller, “to my mind, that is, is

Opening Up. To make a Vista, so to say. You don’t get the Effect with these

bushes on all four sides.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Spiller,” objected Mrs. Digby in her mild voice.

“Don’t you think it makes rather a fascinating surprise? You come along the

path, never dreaming there’s anything behind those lilacs, and then you turn

the corner and come suddenly upon it. I’m sure, when you brought me

down to see it this afternoon, it quite took my breath away.”

“There’s that, of course,” admitted Mr. Spiller. It occurred to him, not

for the first time, that there was something very attractive about Mrs.

Digby’s silvery personality. She had distinction, too. A widow and widower

of the sensible time of life, with a bit of money on both sides, might do

worse than settle down comfortably in a pleasant house with half an acre of

garden and a bit of ornamental water.

“And it’s so pretty and secluded,” went on Mrs. Digby, “with these

glorious rhododendrons. Look how pretty they are, all sprayed with the water—like fairy jewels—and the rustic seat against those dark cypresses at

the back. Really Italian. And the scent of the lilac is so marvellous!”

Mr. Spiller knew that the cypresses were, in fact, yews, but he did not

correct her. A little ignorance was becoming in a woman. He glanced from

the cotoneasters at one side of the fountain to the rhododendrons on the

other, their rainbow flower-trusses sparkling with diamond drops.

“I wasn’t thinking of touching the rhododendrons or the cotoneasters,”

he said. “I only thought of cutting through that great hedge of lilac, so as to

make a vista from the house. But the ladies must always have the last word,

mustn’t they—er—Ronald?” (He never could bring out Proudfoot’s

Christian name naturally.) “If you like it as it is, Mrs. Digby, that settles it.

The lilacs shall stay.”

“It’s too flattering of you,” said Mrs. Digby, “but you mustn’t think of

altering your plans for me. I haven’t any right to interfere with your

beautiful garden.”

“Indeed you have,” said Mr. Spiller. “I defer to your taste entirely. You

have spoken for the lilacs, and henceforward they are sacred.”

“I shall be afraid to give an opinion on anything, after that,” said Mrs.

Digby, shaking her head. “But whatever you decide to do, I’m sure it will

be lovely. It was a marvellous idea to think of putting the fountain there. It

makes all the difference to the garden.”

Mr. Spiller thought she was quite right. And indeed, though the fountain

was rather flattered by the name of “ornamental water,” consisting as it did

of a marble basin set in the centre of a pool about four feet square, it made a

brave show, with its plume of dancing water, fifteen feet high, towering

over the smaller shrubs and almost overtopping the tall lilacs. And its

cooling splash and tinkle soothed the ear on this pleasant day of early

summer.

“Costs a bit to run, doesn’t it?” demanded Mr. Gooch. He had been

silent up till now, and Mrs. Digby felt that his remark betrayed a rather

sordid outlook on life. Indeed, from the first moment of meeting Mr.

Gooch, she had pronounced him decidedly common, and wondered that he

should be on such intimate terms with her host.

“No, no,” replied Mr. Spiller. “No, it’s not expensive. You see, it uses

the same water over and over again. Most ingenious. The fountains in

Trafalgar Square work on the same principle, I believe. Of course, I had to

pay a bit to have it put in, but I think it’s worth the money.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Digby.

“I always said you were a warm man, Spiller,” said Mr. Gooch, with his

vulgar laugh. “Wish I was in your shoes. A snug spot, that’s what I call this

place. Snug.”

“I’m not a millionaire,” answered Mr. Spiller, rather shortly. “But things

might be worse in these times. Of course,” he added, more cheerfully, “one

has to be careful. I turn the fountain off at night, for instance, to save

leakage and waste.”

“I’ll swear you do, you damned old miser,” said Mr. Gooch, offensively.

Mr. Spiller was saved replying by the sounding of a gong in the

distance.

“Ah! there’s dinner,” he announced, with a certain relief in his tone. The

party wound their way out between the lilacs, and paced gently up the long

crazy pavement, past the herbaceous borders and the two long beds of raw

little ticketed roses, to the glorified villa which Mr. Spiller had christened

“The Pleasaunce.”

It seemed to Mrs. Digby that there was a slightly strained atmosphere

about dinner, though Betty, pretty as a picture and very much in love with

Ronald Proudfoot, made a perfectly charming little hostess. The jarring note was sounded by Mr. Gooch. He ate too noisily, drank far too freely, got on

Proudfoot’s nerves and behaved to Mr. Spiller with a kind of veiled

insolence which was embarrassing and disagreeable to listen to. She

wondered again where he had come from, and why Mr. Spiller put up with

him. She knew little about him, except that from time to time he turned up

on a visit to “The Pleasaunce,” usually staying there about a month and

being, apparently, well supplied with cash. She had an idea that he was

some kind of commission agent, though she could not recall any distinct

statement on this point. Mr. Spiller had settled down in the village about

three years previously, and she had always liked him. Though not, in any

sense of the word, a cultivated man, he was kind, generous and unassuming,

and his devotion to Betty had something very lovable about it. Mr. Gooch

had started coming about a year later. Mrs. Digby said to herself that if ever

she was in a position to lay down the law at “The Pleasaunce”—and she

had begun to think matters were tending that way—her influence would be

directed to getting rid of Mr Gooch.

“How about a spot of bridge?” suggested Ronald Proudfoot, when

coffee had been served. It was nice, reflected Mrs. Digby, to have coffee

brought in by the manservant. Masters was really a very well-trained butler,

though he did combine the office with that of chauffeur. One would be

comfortable at “The Pleasaunce.” From the dining-room window she could

see the neat garage housing the Wolseley saloon on the ground floor, with a

room for the chauffeur above it, and topped off by a handsome gilded

weather-vane a-glitter in the last rays of the sun. A good cook, a smart

parlourmaid and everything done exactly as one could wish—if she were to

marry Mr. Spiller she would be able, for the first time in her life, to afford a

personal maid as well. There would be plenty of room in the house, and of

course, when Betty was married—

Betty, she thought, was not over-pleased that Ronald had suggested

bridge. Bridge is not a game that lends itself to the expression of tender

feeling, and it would perhaps have looked better if Ronald had enticed Betty

out to sit in the lilac-scented dusk under the yew-hedge by the fountain.

Mrs. Digby was sometimes afraid that Betty was the more in love of the

two. But if Ronald wanted anything he had to have it, of course, and

personally, Mrs. Digby enjoyed nothing better than a quiet rubber. Besides,

the arrangement had the advantage that it got rid of Mr. Gooch. “Don’t play

bridge,” Mr. Gooch was wont to say. “Never had time to learn. We didn’t

play bridge where I was brought up.” He repeated the remark now, and

followed it up with a contemptuous snort directed at Mr. Spiller.

“Never too late to begin,” said the latter pacifically.

“Not me!” retorted Mr. Gooch. “I’m going to have a turn in the garden.

Where’s that fellow Masters? Tell him to take the whisky and soda down to

the fountain. The decanter, mind—one drink’s no good to yours truly.” He

plunged a thick hand into the box of Coronas on the side-table, took out a

handful of cigars and passed out through the French window of the library

on to the terrace. Mr. Spiller rang the bell and gave the order without

comment, and presently they saw Masters pad down the long crazy path

between the rose-beds and the herbaceous borders, bearing the whisky and

soda on a tray.

The other four played on till 10:30, when, a rubber coming to an end,

Mrs. Digby rose and said it was time she went home. Her host gallantly

offered to accompany her. “These two young people can look after

themselves for a moment,” he added, with a conspiratorial smile.

“The young can look after themselves better than the old, these days.”

She laughed a little shyly, and raised no objection when Mr. Spiller drew

her hand into his arm as they walked the couple of hundred yards to her cottage. She hesitated a moment whether to ask him in, but decided that a

sweet decorum suited her style best. She stretched out a soft, beringed hand

to him over the top of the little white gate. His pressure lingered—he would

have kissed the hand, so insidious was the scent of the red and white

hawthorns in her trim garden, but before he had summoned up courage, she

had withdrawn it from his clasp and was gone.

Mr. Spiller, opening his own front door in an agreeable dream,

encountered Masters.

“Where is everybody, Masters?”

“Mr. Proudfoot left five or ten minutes since, sir, and Miss Elizabeth has

retired.”

“Oh!” Mr. Spiller was a little startled. The new generation, he thought

sadly, did not make love like the old. He hoped there was nothing wrong.

Another irritating thought presented itself.

“Has Mr. Gooch come in?”

“I could not say, sir. Shall I go and see?”

“No, never mind.” If Gooch had been sozzling himself up with whisky

since dinner-time, it was just as well Masters should keep away from him.

You never knew. Masters was one of these soft-spoken beggars, but he

might take advantage. Better not to trust servants, anyhow.

“You can cut along to bed. I’ll lock up.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Oh, by the way, is the fountain turned off?”

“Yes, sir. I turned it off myself, sir, at half-past ten, seeing that you were

engaged, sir.”

“Quite right. Good-night, Masters.”

“Good-night, sir.”

He heard the man go out by the back and cross the paved court to the

garage. Thoughtfully he bolted both entrances, and returned to the library.

The whisky decanter was not in its usual place—no doubt it was still with

Gooch in the garden—but he mixed himself a small brandy and soda, and

drank it. He supposed he must now face the tiresome business of getting

Gooch up to bed. Then, suddenly, he realised that the encounter would take

place here and not in the garden. Gooch was coming in through the French

window. He was drunk, but not, Mr. Spiller observed with relief, incapably

so.

“Well?” said Gooch.

“Well?” retorted Mr. Spiller.

“Had a good time with the accommodating widow, eh? Enjoyed

yourself? Lucky old hound, aren’t you? Fallen soft in your old age, eh?”

“There, that’ll do,” said Mr. Spiller.

“Oh, will it? That’s good. That’s rich. That’ll do, eh? Think I’m

Masters, talking to me like that?” Mr. Gooch gave a thick chuckle. “Well,

I’m not Masters, I’m master here. Get that into your head. I’m master and

you damn well know it.”

“All right,” replied Mr. Spiller meekly, “but buzz off to bed now, there’s

a good fellow. It’s getting late and I’m tired.”

“You’ll be tireder before I’ve done with you.” Mr. Gooch thrust both

hands into his pockets and stood—a bulky and threatening figure—swaying

rather dangerously. “I’m short of cash,” he added. “Had a bad week—

cleaned me out. Time you stumped up a bit more.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Spiller, with some spirit. “I pay you your

allowance as we agreed, and let you come and stay here whenever you like,

and that’s all you get from me.”

“Oh, is it? Getting a bit above yourself, aren’t you, Number Bleeding

4132?”

“Hush! said Mr. Spiller, glancing hastily round as though the furniture

had ears and tongues.

“Hush! hush!” repeated Mr. Gooch mockingly. “You’re in a good

position to dictate terms, aren’t you, 4132? Hush! The servants might hear!

Betty might hear! Betty’s young man might hear. Hah! Betty’s young man

—he’d be particularly pleased to know her father was an escaped jail-bird,

wouldn’t he? Liable at any moment to be hauled back to work out his ten

years’ hard for forgery? And when I think,” added Mr. Gooch, “that a man

like me, that was only in for a short stretch and worked it out good and

proper, is dependent on the charity—ha, ha!—of my dear friend 4132, while

he’s rolling in wealth—”

“I’m not rolling in wealth, Sam,” said Mr. Spiller, “and you know darn

well I’m not. But I don’t want any trouble. I’ll do what I can, if you’ll

promise faithfully this time that you won’t ask for any more of these big

sums, because my income won’t stand it.”

“Oh, I’ll promise that all right,” agreed Mr. Gooch cheerfully. “You give

me five thousand down—”

Mr. Spiller uttered a strangled exclamation.

“Five thousand? How do you suppose I’m to lay hands on five thousand

all at once? Don’t be an idiot, Sam. I’ll give you a cheque for five hundred

—”

“Five thousand,” insisted Mr. Gooch, “or up goes the monkey.”

“But I haven’t got it,” objected Mr. Spiller.

“Then you’d bloody well better find it,” returned Mr. Gooch.

“How do you expect me to find all that?”

“That’s your look-out. You oughtn’t to be so damned extravagant.

Spending good money, that you ought to be giving me, on fountains and

stuff. Now, it’s no good kicking, Mr. Respectable 4132—I’m the man on

top and you’re for it, my lad, if you don’t look after me properly. See?”

Mr. Spiller saw only too clearly. He saw, as he had seen indeed for some

time, that his friend Gooch had him by the short hairs. He expostulated

again feebly, and Gooch replied with a laugh and an offensive reference to

Mrs. Digby.

Mr. Spiller did not realise that he had struck very hard. He hardly

realised that he had struck at all. He thought he had aimed a blow, and that

Gooch had dodged it and tripped over the leg of the occasional table. But he

was not very clear in his mind, except on one point. Gooch was dead.

He had not fainted; he was not stunned. He was dead. He must have

caught the brass curb of the fender as he fell. There was no blood, but Mr.

Spiller, exploring the inert head with anxious fingers, found a spot above

the temple where the bone yielded to pressure like a cracked eggshell. The

noise of the fall had been thunderous. Kneeling on the library floor, Mr.

Spiller waited for the inevitable cry and footsteps from upstairs.

Nothing happened. He remembered—with difficulty, for his mind

seemed to be working slowly and stiffly—that above the library there was

only the long drawing-room, and over that the spare-room and bathrooms.

No inhabited bedroom looked out on that side of the house.

A slow, grinding, grating noise startled him. He whisked round hastily.

The old-fashioned grandfather clock, wheezing as the hammer rose into

action, struck eleven. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, got up and

poured himself out another, and a stiffer, brandy.

The drink did him good. It seemed to take the brake off his mind, and

the wheels span energetically. An extraordinary clarity took the place of his previous confusion.

He had murdered Gooch. He had not exactly intended to do so, but he

had done it. It had not felt to him like murder, but there was not the slightest

doubt what the police would think about it. And once he was in the hands of

the police—Mr. Spiller shuddered. They would almost certainly want to

take his fingerprints, and would be surprised to recognise a bunch of old

friends.

Masters had heard him say that he would wait up for Gooch. Masters

knew that everybody else had gone to bed. Masters would undoubtedly

guess something. But stop!

Could Masters prove that he himself had gone to bed? Yes, probably he

could. Somebody would have heard him cross the court and seen the light

go up over the garage. One could not hope to throw suspicion on Masters—

besides, the man hardly deserved that. But the mere idea had started Mr.

Spiller’s brain on a new and attractive line of thought.

What he really wanted was an alibi. If he could only confuse the police

as to the time at which Gooch had died. If Gooch could be made to seem

alive after he was dead … somehow …

He cast his thoughts back over stories he had read on holiday, dealing

with this very matter. You dressed up as the dead man and impersonated

him. You telephoned in his name. In the hearing of the butler, you spoke to

the dead as though he were alive. You made a gramophone record of his

voice and played it. You hid the body, and thereafter sent a forged letter

from some distant place—

He paused for a moment. Forgery—but he did not want to start that old

game over again. And all these things were too elaborate, or else

impracticable at that time of night.

And then it came to him suddenly that he was a fool. Gooch must not be

made to live later, but to die earlier. He should die before 10:30, at the time

when Mr. Spiller, under the eyes of three observers, had been playing

bridge.

So far, the idea was sound and even, in its broad outline, obvious. But

now one had to come down to detail. How could he establish the time? Was

there anything that had happened at 10:30?

He helped himself to another drink, and then, quite suddenly, as though

lit by a floodlight, he saw his whole plan, picked out vividly complete, with

every join and angle clear-cut.

He glanced at his watch; the hands stood at twenty minutes past eleven.

He had the night before him.

He fetched an electric torch from the hall and stepped boldly out of the

French window. Close beside it, against the wall of the house, were two

taps, one ending in a nozzle for the garden hose, the other controlling the

fountain at the bottom of the garden. This latter he turned on, and then,

without troubling to muffle his footsteps, followed the crazy-paved path

down to the lilac hedge, and round by the bed of cotoneasters. The sky,

despite the beauty of the early evening, had now turned very dark, and he

could scarcely see the tall column of pale water above the dark shrubbery,

but he heard its comforting splash and ripple, and as he stepped upon the

surrounding grass, he felt the blown spray upon his face. The beam of the

torch showed him the garden seat beneath the yews, and the tray, as he had

expected, standing upon it. The whisky decanter was about half full. He

emptied the greater part of its contents into the basin, wrapping the neck of

the decanter in his handkerchief, so as to leave no fingerprints. Then,

returning to the other side of the lilacs, he satisfied himself that the spray of

the fountain was invisible from house or garden.

The next part of the performance he did not care about. It was risky; it

might be heard; in fact, he wanted it to be heard if necessary—but it was a

risk. He licked his dry lips and called the dead man by name:

“Gooch! Gooch!”

No answer, except the splash of the fountain, sounding to his anxious

ear abnormally loud in the stillness. He glanced round, almost as though he

expected the corpse to stalk awfully out upon him from the darkness, its

head hanging and its dark mouth dropping open to show the pale gleam of

its dentures. Then, pulling himself together, he walked briskly back up the

path and, when he reached the house again, listened. There was no

movement, no sound but the ticking of the clocks. He shut the library door

gently. From now on there must be no noise.

There was a pair of galoshes in the cloak-room near the pantry. He put

them on and slipped like a shadow through the French window again: then

round the house into the courtyard. He glanced up at the garage; there was

no light in the upper story and he breathed a sigh of relief, for Masters was

apt sometimes to be wakeful. Groping his way to an outhouse, he switched

the torch on. His wife had been an invalid for some years before her death,

and he had brought her wheeled chair with him to “The Pleasaunce,” having

a dim, sentimental reluctance to sell the thing. He was thankful for that,

now; thankful, too, that he had purchased it from a good maker and that it

ran so lightly and silently on its pneumatic tyres. He found the bicycle

pump and blew the tyres up hard and, for further precaution, administered a

drop of oil here and there. Then, with infinite precaution, he wheeled the

chair round to the library window. How fortunate that he had put down

stone flags and crazy paving everywhere, so that no wheel-tracks could

show.

The job of getting the body through the window and into the chair took

it out of him. Gooch had been a heavy man, and he himself was not in good

training. But it was done at last. Resisting the impulse to run, he pushed his

burden gently and steadily along the narrow strip of paving. He could not

see very well, and he was afraid to flash his torch too often. A slip off the

path into the herbaceous border would be fatal; he set his teeth and kept his

gaze fixed steadily ahead of him. He felt as though, if he looked back at the

house, he would see the upper windows thronged with staring white faces.

The impulse to turn his head was almost irresistible, but he determined that

he would not turn it.

At length he was round the edge of the lilacs and hidden from the house.

The sweat was running down his face and the most ticklish part of his task

was still to do. If he broke his heart in the effort, he must carry the body

over the plot of lawn. No wheel-marks or heel-marks or signs of dragging

must be left for the police to see. He braced himself for the effort.

It was done. The corpse of Gooch lay there by the fountain, the bruise

upon the temple carefully adjusted upon the sharp stone edge of the pool,

one hand dragging in the water, the limbs disposed as naturally as possible,

to look as though the man had stumbled and fallen. Over it, from head to

foot, the water of the fountain sprayed, swaying and bending in the night

wind. Mr. Spiller looked upon his work and saw that it was good. The

journey back with the lightened chair was easy. When he had returned the

vehicle to the outhouse and passed for the last time through the library

window, he felt as though the burden of years had been rolled from his

back.

His back! He had remembered to take off his dinner-jacket while

stooping in the spray of the fountain, and only his shirt was drenched. That

he could dispose of in the linen-basket, but the seat of his trousers gave him some uneasiness. He mopped at himself as best he could with his

handkerchief. Then he made his calculations. If he left the fountain to play

for an hour or so it would, he thought, produce the desired effect.

Controlling his devouring impatience, he sat down and mixed himself a

final brandy.

At 1 o’clock he rose, turned off the fountain, shut the library window

with no more and no less than the usual noise and force, and went with firm

footsteps up to bed.

Inspector Frampton was, to Mr. Spiller’s delight, a highly intelligent

officer. He picked up the clues thrown to him with the eagerness of a

trained terrier. The dead man was last seen alive by Masters after dinner—

8:30—just so. After which, the rest of the party had played bridge together

till 10:30. Mr. Spiller had then gone out with Mrs. Digby. Just after he left,

Masters had turned off the fountain. Mr. Proudfoot had left at 10:40 and

Miss Spiller and the maids had then retired. Mr. Spiller had come in again

at 10:45 or 10:50, and inquired for Mr. Gooch. After this, Masters had gone

across to the garage, leaving Mr. Spiller to lock up. Later on, Mr. Spiller

had gone down the garden to look for Mr. Gooch. He had gone no farther

than the lilac hedge, and there calling to him and getting no answer, had

concluded that his guest had already come in and gone to bed. The

housemaid fancied she had heard him calling Mr. Gooch. She placed this

episode at about half-past eleven—certainly not later. Mr. Spiller had

subsequently sat up reading in the library till 1 o’clock, when he had shut

the window and gone to bed also.

The body, when found by the gardener at 6:30 a.m., was still wet with

the spray from the fountain, which had also soaked the grass beneath it.

Since the fountain had been turned off at 10:30, this meant that Gooch must

have lain there for an appreciable period before that. In view of the large quantity of whisky that he had drunk, it seemed probable that he had had a

heart-attack, or had drunkenly stumbled, and, in falling, had struck his head

on the edge of the pool. All these considerations fixed the time of death at

from 9:30 to 10 o’clock—an opinion with which the doctor though

declining to commit himself within an hour or so, concurred, and the

coroner entered a verdict of accidental death.

Only the man who has been for years the helpless victim of blackmail

could fully enter into Mr. Spiller’s feelings. Compunction played no part in

them—the relief was far too great. To be rid of the daily irritation of

Gooch’s presence, of his insatiable demands for money, of the perpetual

menace of his drunken malice—these boons were well worth a murder.

And, Mr. Spiller insisted to himself, as he sat musing on the rustic seat by

the fountain, it had not really been murder. He determined to call on Mrs.

Digby that afternoon. He could ask her to marry him now without haunting

fear for the future. The scent of the lilac was intoxicating.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Masters.

Mr. Spiller, withdrawing his meditative gaze from the spouting water,

looked inquiringly at the manservant, who stood in a respectful attitude

beside him.

“If it is convenient to you, sir, I should wish to have my bedroom

changed. I should wish to sleep indoors.”

“Oh?” said Mr. Spiller. “Why that, Masters?”

“I am subject to be a light sleeper, sir, ever since the war, and I find the

creaking of the weather-vane very disturbing.”

“It creaks, does it?”

“Yes, sir. On the night that Mr. Gooch sustained his unfortunate

accident, sir, the wind changed at a quarter past eleven. The creaking woke

me out of my first sleep, sir, and disturbed me very much.”

A coldness gripped Mr. Spiller at the pit of the stomach. The servant’s

eyes, in that moment, reminded him curiously of Gooch. He had never

noticed any resemblance before.

“It’s a curious thing, sir, if I may say so, that, with the wind shifting as it

did at 11.15, Mr. Gooch’s body should have become sprayed by the

fountain. Up till 11.15, the spray was falling on the other side, sir. The

appearance presented was as though the body had been placed in position

subsequently to 11.15, sir, and the fountain turned on again.”

“Very strange,” said Mr. Spiller. On the other side of the lilac hedge, he

heard the voices of Betty and Ronald Proudfoot, chattering as they paced to

and fro between the herbaceous borders. They seemed to be happy together.

The whole house seemed happier, now that Gooch was gone.

“Very strange indeed, sir. I may add that, after hearing the inspector’s

observations, I took the precaution to dry your dress-trousers in the linen-

cupboard in the bathroom.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Spiller.

“I shall not, of course, mention the change of wind to the authorities, sir,

and now that the inquest is over, it is not likely to occur to anybody, unless

their attention should be drawn to it. I think, sir, all things being taken into

consideration, you might find it worth your while to retain me permanently

in your service at—shall we say double my present wage to begin with?”

Mr. Spiller opened his mouth to say, “Go to Hell,” but his voice failed

him. He bowed his head.

“I am much obliged to you, sir,” said Masters, and withdrew on silent

feet.

Mr. Spiller looked at the fountain, with its tall water wavering and

bending in the wind.

“Ingenious,” he muttered automatically, “and it really costs nothing to

run. It uses the same water over and over again.”

 

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