Charles kept a steadying hand on the wheel.
“Keep your eye on the road,” he said sternly.
“I only looked at you,” said Greta in an injured voice. “Archie likes to have me look at him. Yesterday, when I looked at him, he said I’d got eyes like blue flowers-he did really.”
“You weren’t driving a car. You keep your eye on the road.”
“I am keeping it on the road. Archie likes me to look at him. He did say that about my eyes. Are they like blue flowers, Charles?”
“You keep ’em on the road,” said Charles firmly.
Greta recurred to Margaret.
“You didn’t answer about Margaret. Shall I like Archie’s cousin? Is she like Archie? I don’t think Archie would make a pretty girl. Do you? Do you think Margaret is pretty?”
“No,” said Charles.
He had often thought her beautiful.
“You’ve known her a frightfully long time, haven’t you? You know, she won’t tell me whether she was ever really engaged or not. But I think she must have been. Don’t you? Of course I was only teasing her about the blue dressing-gown. But I think she must have been engaged really, and perhaps there’s some frightfully romantic reason why she isn’t married. Sometimes I think it’s rather ordinary to get married, and that it would really be more romantic to have a hopeless attachment. Perhaps Margaret has got a frightfully romantic hopeless attachment. Do you think she has?”
“Among the Drastik Indians women who ask questions are buried alive,” said Charles.
Greta gave a little shriek and did another swerve.
“Charles, it did it again! Why does it do it?”
“Because you look round at me. I’m going to drive now, and then you can look at me as much as you like.”
When he had handed her over to Ernestine Foster, he went rather reluctantly to call on Miss Silver.
She was knitting an infant’s pale blue woolly coat. A white silk handkerchief lay in her lap. When she saw Charles, she wrapped the pale blue coat in the handkerchief and dropped it into her knitting-bag. She said “Good-morning,” and then in the same breath,
“I’m very glad you’ve come.”
Charles was wishing the interview well over; he was wishing he had never come at all. Every time it got more difficult to steer a course between Greta’s safety and Margaret’s.
Miss Silver took a sheet of paper out of a drawer and handed it to Charles.
“I thought you might come in, so I prepared this for you. I should like you to read it. It is a list of the cases in which I believe Grey Mask to have had a hand. In the ones marked with an asterisk the evidence is strong; in the others it is of a slighter nature; in the two last in the list it really amounts to nothing more than suspicion. You may remember some of the cases.”
Charles looked at the list. Miss Silver was right; he remembered some of the cases. What he remembered about them appalled him. His brows drew together as he read:
“ ‘The Falny Case’-Good heavens! ‘The Martin Case’ -Martin got twenty years for that.” The words came out just above his breath.
Miss Silver answered them.
“Yes. But Grey Mask was behind him, and Grey Mask went scot free. I knew Martin’s wife. She told me things- nothing, you understand, that could have been used in evidence. You know what I mean, Mr. Moray-‘The little more, and how much it is; the little less, and what worlds away.’ ”
Charles went on looking at the list. Names-a date or two-an occasional curt comment: “No arrest ever made”; “Smith arrested, but died before trial”; “Jewels never traced.” When he had read to the end, he gave the paper back with a “thank you.”
Miss Silver locked it up again.
“Do you feel quite comfortable about Miss Standing?”
“No,” said Charles.
“She had a narrow escape last night, Mr. Moray.”
Charles looked at her without speaking.
“It is not at all prudent for her to go to the theatre or to appear in public as she is doing.”
“Do you suggest that I should lock her up?”
Miss Silver coughed. Charles leaned forward.
“You speak of her having had a narrow escape. What do you mean?”
“Well, Mr. Moray, it was a narrow escape-wasn’t it?”
“How do you know about it?”
“I was following you.”
“You saw it happen?”
“Unfortunately, no. I saw Miss Standing and Miss Langton step off the kerb, with Mr. Pelham a little behind them on Miss Langton’s right. Then two men passed in front of me. I heard Miss Standing scream, and then I saw her lying on the ground. I waited until you took her away. What is her account?”
“She says that someone pushed her, and that Miss Langton saved her from going under the bus.”
Miss Silver looked at him mildly.
“Miss Langton saved her-she says that? Does she know who pushed her?”
“No, she doesn’t. Miss Silver-the two men you spoke of-were they near enough?”
“I am not sure. I spoke to them afterwards, but they declared they had not seen anything-they said they were talking. The policeman took down their names and addresses. They were quite genuine-two young clerks in a shipping office.”
“Something else happened last night,” said Charles. He gave Greta’s account of the car that had followed her.
“Was it the Daimler?” said Miss Silver.
“She doesn’t know a Daimler from a wheelbarrow,” said Charles. “And she can’t give any description of the chauffeur. The only thing she’s sure about is that he said her cousin wanted her to come at once.”
Miss Silver frowned.
“You are sure she said her cousin?”
“Perfectly. Her cousin Egbert Standing. It’s the only thing she is sure about. By the way, she has left Miss Langton and is now staying with Mrs. Foster, whom I think you know.”
Miss Silver did not reply. A small puzzled frown drew her brows together.
“What about Jaffray?” said Charles. “Anything more?”
“Jaffray has returned to his lodgings. I traced the car to a West End garage, but it was taken out late yesterday afternoon.”
“By Jaffray?”
“No, not by Jaffray. It was not brought there by Jaffray either. The same man brought it and took it away. The only thing the people at the garage appear to have noticed about him was that he had red hair.”
“Red hair?”
“So they said. If it is the man I suspect, the red hair is merely assumed. It makes a very good disguise, you know, just because everyone notices it.”
“Who do you think he is?”
“I am not prepared to say. Your story doesn’t fit in, I must follow it a little farther. You are quite sure Miss Standing said that it was her cousin Egbert who tried to carry her off?”
“She didn’t see him,” said Charles; “she only saw the chauffeur.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I think I had better see Miss Margot Standing,” she said.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Mrs. Ravenna drove Margaret back to Sauterelle’s.
“I’m only in town for two days, and I simply must see you again. I kept to-night for a cousin whom I haven’t seen for eighteen years; but she’s wired to say she can’t leave her husband, so I’d like to have you come instead if you will. Will you, my dear? If you don’t, I shall think you’ve not forgiven me for having startled you with my stupid mistake.”
Margaret accepted. She had no wish to spend the evening alone hearing the silence of her little room give up an echo of what Charles Moray had said. She looked at the old green desk as she stood waiting for a minute or two before walking to the corner to catch her bus. The room was silent; she missed Greta’s chatter and Archie’s laugh. She looked at the old green desk, and remembered the envelope that Greta had found. It was in her mind that she would ask Mrs. Ravenna about the words which she had overheard as a child.