Brother Copas Part 33

"I've a slice of bread here, and a cold sausage. If you'll wrap yourself up and come out, we can toast them both: the fire is still clear."

"As if I should think of it! . . . And it's lucky for you, Daddy, the key's on your side of the door. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, out of bed at--what _is_ the time?"

"Past ten o'clock."

"You are not telling me a fib, I hope, about keeping up a clear fire?" said Corona sternly.

"If you like, I will open the door just a little: then you can see for yourself."

"Cer--tainly not. But if you've been looking after yourself properly, why did you sneeze just now?"

"'Sneeze'? I never sneezed."

Silence, for a moment--

"_Somebody_ sneezed . . . I 'stinctly heard it," Corona insisted.

"Now I come to think, it sounded--"

There was another pause while, with a question in her eye, she turned and stared at the cas.e.m.e.nt. Then, as surmise grew to certainty, a little laugh bubbled within her. She stepped to the window.

"Good night, Uncle Copas!" she called out mischievously.

No one answered from the moonlit cabbage-plot. In fact, Brother Copas, beating his retreat, at that moment struck his staff against a disused watering-can, and missed to hear her.

He objurgated his clumsiness and went on, picking his way more cautiously.

"The question is," he murmured, "how I'm to extort confession from Bonaday to-morrow without letting him suspect . . ."

While he pondered this, Brother Copas stumbled straight upon another shock. The small gate of the cabbage-plot creaked on its hinge . . . and behold, in the pathway ahead stood a woman!

In the moonlight he recognised her.

"Nurse Branscome!"

"Brother Copas! . . . Why, what in the world are you doing--at this hour--and here, of all places?"

"Upon my word," retorted Copas, "I might ask you the same question.

. . . But on second thoughts I prefer to lie boldly and confess that I have been stealing cabbages."

"Is that a cabbage you are hiding under your gown?"

"It might be, if this place hadn't been dest.i.tute of cabbages these twelve months and more. . . . Pardon my curiosity: but is that also a cabbage you are hiding under your cloak?"

"It might be--" But here laughter--quiet laughter--got the better of them both.

"I might have known it," said Brother Copas, recovering himself.

"Her father is outside her door abjectly beseeching her to be as naughty as she pleases, if only she won't be unhappy. And she-- woman-like--is using her advantage to nag him."

'But if ne'er so fast you wall her--'

"Danae, immured, yet charged a lover for admission. Corona, imprisoned, takes it out of her father for speaking through the keyhole."

"You would not tell me what the child did, that you two have punished her."

"Would I not? Well, she was abominably rude to Nurse Turner this afternoon--went to the extent of calling her 'a nasty two-faced spy.'"

"Was that all?" asked Nurse Branscome.

"It was enough, surely? . . . As a matter of fact she went farther, even dragging your name into the fray. She excused herself by saying that she had a right to hate Nurse Turner because Nurse Turner hated you."

"Well, that at any rate was true enough."

"Hey?"

"I mean, it is true enough that Nurse Turner hates me, and would like to get me out of St. Hospital," said Nurse Branscome quietly.

"You never told me of this."

"Why should I have troubled to tell? I only tell it now because the child has guessed it."

Brother Copas leaned on his staff pondering a sudden suspicion.

"Look here," he said; "those anonymous letters--"

"I have not," said Nurse Branscome, "a doubt that Nurse Turner wrote them."

"You have never so much as hinted at this."

"I had no right. I have no right, even now; having no evidence.

You would not show me the letter, remember."

"It was too vile."

"As if I--a nurse--cannot look at a thing because it is vile!

. . . I supposed that you had laid the matter aside and forgotten it."

"On the contrary, I have been at some pains--hitherto idle--to discover the writer. . . . Does Nurse Turner, by the way, happen to start her W's with a small curly flourish?"

"That you can discover for yourself. The Nurses' Diary lies in the Nunnery, in the outer office. We both enter up our 'cases' in it, and it is open for anyone to inspect."

"I will inspect it to-morrow," promised Brother Copas. "Now--this Hospital being full of evil tongues--I cannot well ask you to eat an _al fresco_ supper with me, though"--he twinkled--"I suspect we both carry the const.i.tuents of a frugal one under our cloaks."

They pa.s.sed through an archway into the great quadrangle, and there, having wished one another good night, went their ways; she mirthfully, he mirthfully and thoughtfully too.

Next morning Brother Copas visited the outer office of the Nunnery and carefully inspected the Nurses' Diary. Since every week contains a Wednesday, there were capital W's in plenty.

He took tracings of half a dozen and, armed with these, sought Nurse Turner in her private room.

"I think," said he, holding out the anonymous letter, "you may have some light to throw on this. I have the Master's authority to bid you attend on him and explain it."