Twenty-six ROBERT GARDNER

It was just twenty minutes later when Emily rang the front door bell ofThe Laurels¹. It had been a sudden impulse.
Aunt Jennifer, she knew, would be still at Deller’s with Ronnie Garfield.
She smiled beamingly on Beatrice when the latter opened the door to her.
“It’s me again,” said Emily. “Mrs. Gardner’s out, I know, but can I seeMr. Gardner?”
Such a request was clearly unusual. Beatrice seemed doubtful.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll go up and see, shall I?”
“Yes, do,” said Emily.
Beatrice went upstairs, leaving Emily alone in the hall. She returned in afew minutes to ask the young lady to please step this way.
Robert Gardner was lying on a couch by the window in a big room onthe first floor. He was a big man, blue-eyed and fair-haired. He looked,Emily thought, as Tristan ought to look in the third act of Tristan and Isoldeand as no Wagnerian tenor² has ever looked yet.
“Hello,” he said. “You are the criminal’s spouse³ to be, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, Uncle Robert,” said Emily. “I suppose I do call you UncleRobert, don’t I?” she asked.
“If Jennifer will allow it. What’s it like having a young man languishingin prison?”
A cruel man, Emily decided⁴. A man who would take a malicious⁵ joy ingiving you sharp digs in painful places. But she was a match for him. Shesaid smilingly:
“Very thrilling.”
“Not so thrilling for Master Jim, eh?”
“Oh, well,” said Emily, “it’s an experience, isn’t it?”
“Teach him life can’t be all beer and skittles,” said Robert Gardner mali-ciously. “Too young to fight in the Great War, wasn’t he? Able to live softand take it easily. Well, well .?.?. He got it in the neck from another source.”
He looked at her curiously⁶.
“What did you want to come and see me for, eh?”

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