less would not count. T.B. paced his room, his head sunk on his breast.
Where was the girl?
The telegram said “Come.” It suggested some prearranged plan in which the girl had acquiesced; she was to leave Falmouth and go somewhere.
Who sent the telegram? Not Silinski; this Eva Hyatt, by all showing, was of the class that sticks for the proprieties.
Suppose she had come to London, where would Catherine Silinski have placed her? Near at hand; a thought struck T.B.
He had been satisfied with deporting the dancing girl, a fruitless precaution, as it turned out; he had made no search of her flat. Had she been arrested in the ordinary way, the search would have followed, but her arrest was a little irregular.
He took down his overcoat and struggled into it, made a selection of keys from his pocket, and went out. It was a forlorn hope, but forlorn hopes had often been the forerunners of victory with him, and there was nothing to be lost by trying.
He came to the great hall of the mansion in Baker Street.
The hall porter recognized him and touched his cap.
“Evening, sir.” Then, “I suppose you know the young lady hasn’t come back yet?”
T.B. did know, but said nothing. The porter was in a talkative mood.
“She sent me a wire from Liverpool, saying that she’d been called away suddenly.”
T.B. nodded. He knew this, too, for it was he who had sent the wire.
“What the other young lady couldn’t understand,” continued the porter, and T.B.’s heart gave a leap, “was, why—”
“Why she hadn’t wired her, eh?” the detective jumped in.
“Well, you see, she was so busy—”
“Of course!” The porter clucked his lips impatiently. “Of course, you saw her off, didn’t you, sir?”
“I saw her off,” said T.B. gravely.
“I’d forgotten that; why, you went away together, an’ I never told the young lady. She’s upstairs in Miss Silinski’s flat at this moment. My word, she’s been horribly worried—”
“I’ll go up and see her. As a matter of fact, I’ve come here for the purpose,” said T.B. quickly.
He took the lift to the second floor, and walked along the corridor. He reached No. 43 and his hand was raised to press the little electric bell of the suite when the door opened quickly and a girl stepped out. She gave a startled cry as she saw the detective, and drew back.
“I beg your pardon,” said T.B. with a smile. “I’m afraid I startled you.”
She was a big florid girl with a certain awkwardness of movement.
“Well-dressed but gauche,” mentally summarized the detective. “Provincial! she’ll talk.”
“I was a little startled,” she said, with a ready smile. “I thought it was the postman.”
“But surely postmen do not deliver letters in this palatial dwelling,” he laughed. “I thought the hall porter—”
“Oh, but this is a registered letter,” she said importantly, “from America.”
All the time T.B. was thinking out some method by which he might introduce the object of his visit. An idea struck him.
“Is your mother—” she looked blank, “er — aunt within?” he asked.
He saw the slow suspicion gathering on her face.
“I’m not a burglar,” he smiled, “in spite of my alarming question, but I’m in rather a quandary. I’ve a friend — well, not exactly a friend — but I have business with Miss Silinski, and—”
“Here’s the postman,” she interrupted.
A quick step sounded in the passage, and the bearer of the King’s mails, with a flat parcel in his hand and his eyes searching the door numbers, stopped before them.
“Hyatt!” he asked, glancing at the address.
“Yes,” said the girl; “is that my parcel!”
“Yes, miss, will you sign!”
“Hyatt!” murmured T.B., “what an extraordinary coincidence. You are not by any chance related to the unfortunate young man, the story of whose sad death has been rilling the newspapers!”
She flushed and her lip trembled.
“He was my brother; did you know him!”
“I knew of him,” said T.B. quietly, “but I did not know you lived in London!”
“Nor do I,” said the girl; “it is only by the great kindness of Senora Silinski that I am here.”
There was no time for delicate finesse. He slid his card-case from his pocket.
“Will you let me come in and talk with you,” he said; then, as he saw again the evidence of her suspicion, “I am a police-officer, and what I have to ask you is of the greatest importance to you and to me.”
She took the pasteboard, and, as T.B. had anticipated, fell into a flutter of agitation.
“Oh, please come in! Was it wrong to come to London? The Senora was so anxious that nobody should know I was here. I’ve been so worried about her—”
She led the way into a handsomely furnished sittingroom.
“First of all,” said T.B. quietly, “you must tell me how the Senora found you.”
“She came to Falmouth and sought me out. It was not difficult. I have a little millinery establishment there, and my name is well known. She came one morning, eight days — no — yes, it was seven days ago, and—”
“What did she want?”
“She said she had known Charles, he had some awfully swagger friends; that is what got him into trouble at the post office; it was a great blow to us because—”
“What did she want?” asked T.B., cutting short the loquacity.
“She said that Charles had something of hers — a book which she had lent him, years before. Now, the strange thing was that on the very day poor Charles was killed I had a telegram which ran: ‘If anything happens, tell Escoltier book is at Antaxia, New York.’ It was unsigned, and I did not connect it with Charles. You see, I hadn’t heard from him for years.
“She was a great friend of Charles’ — the Sen-ora — and she came down especially about the book. She said Charles had got into trouble and she wanted the book to save him. Then I showed her the telegram. I was confused, but I
