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Ronald stoutly denied that this was the case; but Billy affirmed it, though refusing to give reasons. Ronald had never succeeded in extorting from Billy one word of what had taken place when he had told Lady Ingleby that Jim Airth was the man. "If you wanted to know how she took it, you should have told her yourself," said Billy.
"That, my dear," replied Lady Ingleby, "is a little joke of the duchess's. This concert is arranged for the amusement of her house party, and for the gratification and glorification of local celebrities. The whole neighbourhood is invited. None of you are asked to perform, but local celebrities are.
Mutual and absorbing. I suppose that is Peter. Queer to think that I should have been the last to hear him calling Peter. I wonder whether Lady Ingleby liked Peter. If not, I doubt if she would have had much of a look-in. If anyone went to the wall it certainly wasn't Peter." He was still absorbed in the picture, when the butler returned with a long message, solemnly delivered.
"Yes," said Lady Ingleby. She devoutly hoped Billy was not going to propose. "Jolly room," said Billy; "at least, I always think so." "Yes," said Lady Ingleby. "So do I." Billy's eyes, roaming anxiously around for fresh inspiration, lighted on the portrait over the mantelpiece. He started and paled. Then he knew his hour had come. There must be no more beating about the bush.
"Yes, m' lady," said the footman; and Myra Ingleby smiled at the reflection, in the lad's voice and face, of her own immense relief. He turned and hastened to the house; Peter, in a sudden access of misplaced energy, barking furiously at his heels.
On a Sunday afternoon soon after that concert to which the girls had been escorted by the lodger, George Boult, his business exhortation finished, sprang on the poor mother the news that her son at the branch shop at Ingleby was not giving satisfaction.
Billy cleared his throat, and swallowed, quickly. Then he spoke. "The man who made the blunder," he said, "and fired the mine too soon; the man who killed Lord Ingleby, by mistake, was the chap you call 'Jim Airth." Lady Ingleby awaited Jim Airth's arrival, in her sitting-room. As the hour drew near, she rang the bell.
She easily mastered mi, re, do, and so, fa, fa, mi, because these represented the opening lines of Three Blind Mice, always a musical landmark to Myra. But when it came to the fugue-like intricacies in the theme of "They all ran after the farmer's wife," Lady Ingleby was lost without the words to cling to, and gave up the Tonic sol-fa system in despair.
This is reproduced from a fac-simile published by Dr. Ingleby. Mr. Hamilton has given a fac-simile of the same words; but Dr. Ingleby says that his is the more accurate. The lower memorandum is a pencilled word, "begging" opposite the line in "Hamlet," Act III., Sc. 2, "And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee," to which there is no corresponding word in ink.
"Extraordinary!" said Lady Ingleby. "So they did. And now one comes to think of it there are plenty of similar instances. The instinct of the serpent which Moses lifted up on a pole, would have been to come scriggling down, and go about biting the Israelites, instead of staying up on the pole, to be looked at for their healing." The doctor smiled.
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