Very slowly and gently, he moved the handle round until the latch slipped and the door came a bare half inch towards him. Through the chink he looked into the lighted dining-room. There were two men there, both fully dressed. He was able to recognize them both without difficulty. Facing him was the footman William Cole. He held a tumbler half full of whisky and soda. His coat was torn at the neck, the right cuff was ripped, his hair a good deal disordered. The other man was the butler, Pullen. They were talking.
“Who was it?” This was Pullen, a little more hurried than when he was on duty.
“How should I know? I didn’t wait to ask his name, I can tell you. It took me all I knew to get away-and all for nothing.”
“You didn’t find it?”
William took a drink.
“Found the envelope. What they’ve done with the paper beats me.”
He pulled out a long envelope and flung it down on the table. Pullen picked it up and held it at arm’s length to read the endorsement: “ ‘ Our declaration of marriage.’ Yes, that’s it.”
“But it’s empty. I’d hardly put my hand on it before I had to cut and run. When I looked inside I could have done murder.”
“Where’s the declaration? That’s what I want to know.”
“The girl’s got it, of course. The question is-where’s the girl?”
“ Kimberley ’s found her already. I went on to the Foster’s. There’s nothing there, unless she had it on her. She was out with Millar.”
“That girl’s been here too long. She’s got to go. Once she’s gone, it don’t matter if a hundred certificates turn up. She’s got to go, and that’s an end of it.”
William finished his whisky.
“Well, do her in yourself,” he said.
“It’s not my line.”
“Why should it be mine?”
“Well, it’s yours-isn’t it-Lenny Morrison?”
William’s face underwent a horrible change. The stout Pullen recoiled.
“Less of that! D’you hear? Call me that again, and you’ll be sorry for it. As to the girl, she’s Egbert’s job, isn’t she?”
“He won’t. I said so all along. Grey Mask’s giving you the job. It wants neat doing, and Egbert’s a bungler if I ever saw one. Now, look here! There are to be no more delays.”
The man at the door went on listening for another ten minutes. Then he retraced his steps and vanished into the darkness outside the house.
Outside in the square Miss Silver waited patiently for another hour. When the man came out, she followed him.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Mrs. Foster came down to breakfast on Thursday morning in a state of nervous exasperation.
“Really, Archie’s the limit! Yes, I know he’s my cousin. Now, George, it’s no use you looking like that-I never said he was your cousin or anybody else’s cousin-I know he’s mine. But you needn’t try and make out that all your relations are angel beings who never do tiresome things, or land you in holes, or shove strange girls onto you in the middle of a dinner-party.”
The broad face of George Foster emerged from behind The Times.
“Got a bit off the rails, haven’t you? Take a good deep breath and start fresh.”
“George!”
“My dear child, what is it?”
“I’m feeling simply too temperamental, and I could kill Archie! First he dumps this girl on me in the very middle of a dinner party-”
“My good Ernestine!”
“It was the next thing to it, and my table would have been utterly spoilt if I hadn’t been firm and insisted on his removing her for the evening.”
George grinned.
“I didn’t notice your having to insist very much. Archie appeared only too anxious to oblige.”
“Oh, of course he’s in love with her. It’s the only excuse he’s got. George, if you go on rustling the paper like that, I shall scream.”
“What is the matter?”
“Really, George, you might have a little consideration, after the shock of having burglars and a dinner-party and Archie’s stray flapper all happening together. And I want to know what brought Maud Silver here. She asked for that girl.”
“Who’s Maud Silver?”
Ernestine flushed scarlet and bit her lip.
“You know perfectly well. She got back those odious diamonds your mother gave me. And I must say I didn’t think you’d refer to it now when I’m feeling as if I simply couldn’t bear to hear myself think.”
George said nothing; he returned to the golfing news.
“I do really think you might say something, George! You’re simply immersed in that wretched paper. I believe you’d just go on reading it with a burglar in the very room.”
“What d’you want me to say? Hullo! Sandy Herd did a jolly hot round yesterday.”
“Really, George!”
“What’s the matter?”
“If you talk to me about golf, I shall burst into tears.”
“What d’you want me to talk about?”
“The burglar, of course. What on earth did he come for?”
“Anything he could collect, I suppose.”
“Then why did he pull out everything in the spare room and not so much as look for my diamonds? Can you tell me that?”
George could not. He lacked interest in the burglar. Since nothing had been taken, why make a song and dance about it? He reverted to golf.
Miss Greta Wilson was late for breakfast. When she had finished, she accompanied a slightly calmer but still fractious hostess on what George rudely described as a “nose-flattening tour.”
“Men never seem to think you want any clothes,” said Mrs. Foster. “George is perfectly hopeless. If I say I want a new evening dress, he boasts, positively boasts, of the fact that his evening clothes are pre-Ararat.”
Greta giggled.
“I love looking at clothes,” she.said. “It’s the next best thing to buying them-isn’t it?”
They looked at a great many. Ernestine bought a hat, a jumper, and some silk stockings, which soothed her a good deal. At twelve o’clock she remembered with a shriek of dismay that she had promised, absolutely promised, to ring up Renee Latouche and give her Jim Maxwell’s address.
“I looked it up on purpose. And then George interrupted me and it went right out of my head. Come along to Harridge’s and I’ll ring up from there.”
As they turned into the big stores, a car came out of a narrow side street and drew up by the farther kerb.
Mrs. Foster left Greta to wander about on the ground floor whilst she rushed upstairs to telephone.
“But I shall be at least twenty minutes, because it always takes simply ages to get Renee to the telephone. I know I shall have to talk to everyone in the house before I get her. Maddening, I call it.”
Greta was quite pleased to be left. She looked at bewilderingly lovely materials shining with all the colours of the rainbow, and planned a dozen dresses. She then wandered into a duller department which displayed travelling rugs. She was not really interested in travelling rugs, but she pinched a fold of one of them to see how soft it was. As she did so, a curious thing happened. A man’s hand and arm came into view for a moment. She did not see the man, who was standing behind her; she only saw his hand and arm. The hand was broad and hairy, the sleeve of dark blue serge. The hand laid a note on the fleecy brown travelling rug and withdrew as suddenly as it had come.
Greta looked at the note with eyes as round as saucers. The colour drained slowly away from her rosy cheeks. She stared at the note and grew paler and paler. The envelope was grey-not the common Silurian grey, but a curious rough grey paper which was very uncommon. The envelope was addressed in a bold clear hand to Miss Margot Standing.
After a minute of terrified hesitation Margot took up the envelope and tore it open.