nodded.
“Very reasonably put, Fawsitt,” he conceded. “I’ll give you a letter to Barnes whenever you like.”
“I should be glad if you would do so, sir,” the young man said. “I’m only wasting my time here….”
Francis wrote a letter of recommendation to Barnes, the great K.C., considered a stray brief which had found its way in, and strolled up towards the Milan as the hour approached luncheon-time. In the American bar of that palatial hotel he found the young man he was looking for—a flaxen-haired youth who was seated upon one of the small tables, with his feet upon a chair, laying down the law to a little group of acquaintances. He greeted Francis cordially but without that due measure of respect which nineteen should accord to thirty-five.
“Cheerio, my elderly relative!” he exclaimed. “Have a cocktail.”
Francis nodded assent.
“Come into this corner with me for a moment, Charles,” he invited. “I have a word for your ear.”
The young man rose and sat by his uncle’s side on a settee.
“In my declining years,” the latter began, “I find myself reverting to the follies of youth. I require a letter of introduction from you to a young lady of your acquaintance.”
“The devil! Not one of my own special little pets, I hope?”
“Her name is Miss Daisy Hyslop,” Francis announced.
Lord Charles Southover pursed his lips and whistled. He glanced at Francis sideways.
“Is this the beginning of a campaign amongst the butterflies,” he enquired, “because, if so, I feel it my duty, uncle, to address to you a few words of solemn warning. Miss Daisy Hyslop is hot stuff.”
“Look here, young fellow,” Francis said equably, “I don’t know what the state of your exchequer is—”
“I owe you forty,” Lord Charles interrupted. “Spring another tenner, make it fifty, that is, and the letter of introduction I will write for you will bring tears of gratitude to your eyes.”
“I’ll spring the tenner,” Francis promised, “but you’ll write just what I tell you—no more and no less.”
“Anything extra for keeping mum at home?” the young man ventured tentatively.
“You’re a nice sort of nephew to have!” Francis declared. “Abandon these futile attempts at blackmail and just come this way to the writing-table.”
“You’ve got the tenner with you?” the young man asked anxiously.
Francis produced a well-filled pocketbook. His nephew led the way to a writing-table, lit a cigarette which he stuck into the corner of his mouth, and in painstaking fashion wrote the few lines which Francis dictated. The ten pounds changed hands.
“Have one with me for luck?” the young man invited brightly. “No? Perhaps you’re right,” he added, in valedictory fashion. “You’d better keep your head clear for Daisy!”
CHAPTER XI
Miss Daisy Hyslop received Francis that afternoon, in the sitting-room of her little suite at the Milan. Her welcoming smile was plaintive and a little subdued, her manner undeniably gracious. She was dressed in black, a wonderful background for her really gorgeous hair, and her deportment indicated a recent loss.
“How nice of you to come and see me,” she murmured, with a lingering touch of the fingers. “Do take that easy-chair, please, and sit down and talk to me. Your roses were beautiful, but whatever made you send them to me?”
“Impulse,” he answered.
She laughed softly.
“Then please yield to such impulses as often as you feel them,” she begged. “I adore flowers. Just now, too,” she added, with a little sigh, “anything is welcome which helps to keep my mind off my own affairs.”
“It was very good of you to let me come,” he declared. “I can quite understand that you don’t feel like seeing many people just now.”
Francis’ manner, although deferential and courteous, had nevertheless some quality of aloofness in it to which she was unused and which she was quick to recognise. The smile, faded from her face. She seemed suddenly not quite so young.
“Haven’t I seen you before somewhere quite lately?” she asked, a little sharply.
“You saw me at Soto’s, the night that Victor Bidlake was murdered,” he reminded her. “I stood quite close to you both while you were waiting for your taxi.”
The animation evoked by this call from a presumably new admirer, suddenly left her. She became nervous and constrained. She glanced again at his card.
“Don’t tell me,” she begged, “that you have come to ask me any questions about that night! I simply could not bear it. The police have been here twice, and I had nothing to tell them, absolutely nothing.”
“Quite right,” he assented soothingly. “Police have such a clumsy way of expecting valuable information for nothing. I’m always glad to hear of their being disappointed.”
She studied her visitor for a moment carefully. Then she turned to the table by her side, picked up a note and read it through.
“Lord Southover tells me here,” she said, “that you are just a pal of his who wants to make my acquaintance. He doesn’t say why.”
“Is that necessary?” Francis asked good-naturedly.
She moved in her chair a little nervously, crossing and uncrossing her legs more than once. Her white silk stockings underneath her black skirt were exceedingly effective, a fact of which she never lost consciousness, although at that moment she was scarcely inspired to play the coquette.
“I’d like to think it wasn’t,” she admitted frankly.
“I’ve seen you repeatedly upon the stage,” he told her, “and, though musical comedy is rather out of my line, I have always admired you immensely.”
She studied him once more almost wistfully.
“You look very nice,” she acknowledged, “but you don’t look at all the kind of man who admires girls who do the sort of rubbish I do on the stage.”
“What do I look like?” he asked, smiling.
“A man with a purpose,” she answered.
“I begin to think,” he ventured, “that we shall get on. You are really a very astute young lady.”
“You are quite sure you’re not one of these amateur detectives one reads about?” she demanded.
“Certainly not,” he assured her. “I will confess that I am interested in Victor Bidlake’s death, and I should like to discover the truth about it, but I have a reason for that which I may tell you some day. It has nothing whatever to do with the young man himself. To the best of my belief, I never saw or heard of him before in my life. My interest lies with another person. You have lost a great friend, I know. If you felt disposed to tell me the whole story, it might make such a difference.”
She sighed. Her confidence was returning—also her self-pity. The latter at once betrayed itself.
“You see,” she confided, “Victor and I were engaged to be married, so naturally I let him help me a little. I shan’t be able to stay on here now. They are bothering me about their bill already,” she added, with a side-glance at an envelope which stood on a table by her side.
He drew a little nearer to her.
“Miss