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"Been trying to get some of these cursed wood pigeons. Do a lot of damage, you know."
"You're a very fine shot, I hear," I told him.
"Eh? Who told you that? Oh, Boyd Carrington. Used to be - used to be. Bit rusty nowadays. Age will tell."
"Eyesight," I suggested.
He negatived the suggestion immediately.
"Nonsense. Eyesight's as good as ever it was. That is - have to wear glasses for reading, of course. But far sight's all right."
He repeated a minute or two later:
"Yes - all right. Not that it matters..."
His voice tailed off into an absent-minded mutter.
Miss Cole said, looking round:
"What a beautiful evening it is."
She was quite right. The sun was drawing to the west and the light was a rich golden, bringing out the deeper shades of green in the trees in a deep, glowing effect. It was an evening, still and calm, and very English, such as one remembers when in far-off tropical countries. I said as much.
Colonel Luttrell agreed eagerly.
"Yes, yes, often used to think of evenings like this - out in India, you know. Makes you look forward to retiring and settling down - what?"
I nodded. He went on, his voice changing:
"Yes, settling down - coming home - nothing's ever quite what you picture it - no - no."
I thought that that was probably particularly true in his case. He had not pictured himself running a guest house, trying to make it pay, with a nagging wife forever snapping at him and complaining.
We walked slowly towards the house. Norton and Boyd Carrington were sitting on the verandah and the Colonel and I joined them while Miss Cole went on into the house.
We chatted for a few minutes. Colonel Luttrell seemed to have brightened up. He made a joke or two and seemed far more cheerful and wide-awake than usual.
"Been a hot day," said Norton. I'm thirsty."
"Have a drink, you fellows. On the house, what?" The Colonel sounded eager and happy.
We thanked him and accepted. He got up and went in.
The part of the terrace where we were sitting was just outside the dining-room window, and that window was open.
We heard the Colonel inside - opening a cupboard, then heard the squeak of a corkscrew and the subdued pop as the cork of the bottle came out.
And then, sharp and high came the unofficial voice of Mrs Colonel Luttrell!
"What are you doing, George?"
The Colonel's voice was subdued to a mutter.
We only heard a mumbled word here and there - fellows outside - drink -
The sharp, irritating voice burst out indignantly:
"You'll do no such thing, George. The idea now. How do you think we'll ever make this place pay if you go round standing everybody drinks? Drinks here will be paid for. I've got a business head if you haven't. Why, you'd be bankrupt tomorrow if it wasn't for me! I've got to look after you like a child. Yes, just like a child. You've got no sense at all. Give me that bottle. Give it me, I say."
Again there was an agonized low protesting mumble.
Mrs Luttrell answered snappishly:
"I don't care whether they do or they don't. The bottle's going back in the cupboard, and I'm going to lock the cupboard too."
There was the sound of a key being turned in the lock.
"There now. That's the way of it."
This time the Colonel's voice came more clearly:
"You're going too far, Daisy. I won't have it."
"You won't have it? And who are you, I'd like to know? Who runs this house? I do. And don't you forget it."
There was a faint swish of draperies and Mrs Luttrell evidently flounced out of the room.
It was some few moments before the Colonel reappeared. He looked in those few moments to have grown much older and feebler.
There was not one of us who did not feel deeply sorry for him and who would not willingly have murdered Mrs Luttrell.
"Awfully sorry, you chaps," he said, his voice sounding stiff and unnatural. "Seem to have run out of whisky."
He must have realized that we could not have helped overhearing what had passed. If he had not realized it, our manner would soon have told him. We were all miserably uncomfortable, and Norton quite lost his head, hurriedly saying first that he didn't really want a drink - too near dinner, wasn't it, and then elaborately changing the subject and making a series of the most unconnected remarks. It was indeed a bad moment. I myself felt paralyzed and Boyd Carrington, who was the only one of us who might conceivably have managed to pass it off, got no opportunity with Norton's babble.
Out of the tail of my eye I saw Mrs Luttrell stalking away down one of the paths equipped with gardening gloves and a dandelion weeder. She was certainly an efficient woman, but I felt bitterly towards her just then. No human being has a right to humiliate another human being.
Norton was still talking feverishly. He had picked up a wood pigeon and from first telling us how he had been laughed at at his prep school for being sick when he saw a rabbit killed, had gone on to the subject of grouse moors, telling a long and rather pointless story of an accident that had occurred in Scotland when a beater had been shot. We talked of various shooting accidents we had known, and then Boyd Carrington cleared his throat and said:
"Rather an amusing thing happened once with a batman of mine. Irish chap. He had a holiday and went off to Ireland for it. When he came back, I asked him if he had had a good holiday.
"'Ah shure, your Honour, best holiday I've ever had in my life!'
"'I'm glad of that,' I said, rather surprised at his enthusiasm.
"'Ah yes, shure, it was a grand holiday! I shot my brother.'
"'You shot your brother!' I exclaimed.
