a jot whether or not it was a prudent one.
The mere sound of Evelyn Forbes's voice had steeled his heart and conscience against the dictates of common sense. Let the detectives think what they might, the girl's father must be allowed to carry through his plans without let or hindrance.
"Miss Beale," said Theydon, gazing fixedly into the sorrow-laden eyes of the quiet little lady whom he found seated where he had left her, "I'm going to tell you something very important, very serious, something so far-reaching and momentous that neither you nor I can measure its effect. You heard the conversation on the telephone?"
"I heard what you were saying, but could not understand much of it," said his visitor in a scared way.
"I have been trying to communicate with Mr. Forbes, but his daughter tells me that the murder of your niece seems to have affected him in a manner which is incomprehensible to her, and even more so to me, though I am acquainted with facts which her father and I have purposely kept from her knowledge. Mr. Forbes has gone hurriedly to the Home Office. I suppose you know what that means? He is about to give the Home Secretary certain information, and it is not for you or me to interfere with his discretion. Now, if you tell the Scotland Yard people what you have told me, namely, that Mr. Forbes was the intermediary through whom Mrs. Lester received the greater part of her income, he will be brought prominently into the inquiry. You see that, don't you?"
"Yes. I suppose that something of the sort must happen."
"Well, I want you to suppress that vital fact until we know more about this affair. It will not be for long. Each of us must tell our story without reservation at some future date—whether this afternoon, or tomorrow, or a week hence, I cannot say now. But I do ask you to keep your knowledge to yourself until I have had an opportunity of consulting Mr. Forbes. I undertake to tell you the exact position of matters without delay, and I accept all responsibility for my present advice."
"I know little of the world, Mr. Theydon," said Miss Beale, rising, and beginning to draw on her gloves, "but I shall be very greatly surprised if you are advising me to act otherwise than honorably. I shall certainly not utter a word about Mr. Forbes at Scotland Yard. When all is said and done, my statement to you was largely guesswork. You must remember that I have never seen Mr. Forbes, nor hardly ever heard his name except in connection with public matters in the Press. O, yes. I make that promise readily. I trust you implicitly!"
CHAPTER VI
CLOSE QUARTERS
Theydon escorted Miss Beale downstairs. As they passed the closed door of No. 17, the lady shivered.
"To think that within the next few days I would have been staying there with Edith, and planning evenings at the theater before going to Newquay!" she murmured; there was a pitiful catch in her voice that told better than words how the remainder of her existence would be darkened by the tragedy.
At best she was a shrinking, timid little woman, for whom life probably held but narrow interests. Such as they were, their placid content was forever shattered. The death of her niece had closed the one chief avenue leading to the outer world. She would retire to the quiet back-water of Iffley, to become more faded, more insignificant, more lonely each year.
Theydon commiserated with her deeply and did not hesitate to utter his thoughts while putting her into a cab.
"Have you no friends in London?" he inquired. "I don't like the notion of sending you off alone into this wilderness. London is the worst place in the world for any one in distress. The heedless multitude seems to be callous and unsympathetic. It isn't, in reality. It simply doesn't know, and doesn't bother."
"I used to claim some acquaintances here, but I have lost track of them for years," she said. "In any event, I shall have more than enough to occupy my mind today. The inquest opens at three o'clock, and I must face the ordeal of identifying Edith's body. The detective told me that this should be done by a relation, while the only other person who could act—Ann Rogers—has been nearly out of her mind since yesterday morning."
"Where are you staying?"
She mentioned a small hotel in the West End.
"I used to go there with my people when I was a girl," she added, sadly.
"Then I'll get my sister to call. You'll like her. She's a jolly good sort, and a chat with another woman will be far more beneficial than the society of detectives and lawyers and such-like strange fowl. Keep your spirits up, Miss Beale. Nothing that you can say or do now will restore the life so cruelly taken, but you and I, each in our own way, can strive to bring the murderer to justice. I am convinced that a distinct step in that direction will be taken this very day. You can count on seeing or hearing from me as soon as possible after I have discussed matters with Mr. Forbes. Meanwhile, don't forget to have a lawyer representing you at the inquest."
They parted as though they were friends of long standing. Theydon was genuinely sorry for this gray-haired woman's plight, and she evidently regarded him as a kind-hearted and eminently trustworthy young man. He stood and watched the cab as it bore her off swiftly into the maelstrom of London. He could not help thinking that seldom had he met one less fitted for the notoriety thrust upon all connected with a much-talked-of crime.
When the press interviewers, the photographers, the hundred and one officials with whom she must be brought in contact, were done with her, poor Miss Beale would retire to her Oxfordshire nook in a state of mental bewilderment that would baffle description. In one of his books Theydon had endeavored to depict just such a middle-aged spinster confronted with a situation not wholly unlike that which now faced Miss Beale.
He smiled grimly when he realized how far fiction had wandered from fact. The woman of his imagination had acted with a strength of character, a decisiveness, that outwitted and confounded certain scheming personages in the story. How different was the reality! Miss Beale, rushing across London in a taxi, reminded him of nothing more masterful than a cage-bird turned loose in a tempest.
He was about to reenter the mansions, meaning to telephone to both the Fortescue Square house and the Old Broad Street offices, and ask for instant news of Mr. Forbes in either locality. He was so preoccupied that he failed to notice an approaching taxicab, though the driver was signaling, and even tooted a motor horn loudly in the endeavor to attract his attention.
He did, however, catch his own name, and halted.
"Beg pardon, sir, but you are Mr. Theydon, aren't you?" said the man.
Then Theydon recognized Evans, the taxi-driver, who had brought him from Fortescue Square.
"Hullo!" he cried. "Any news of the gray car?"
"Yes, sir, I think so," was the somewhat surprising answer. "When I dropped you last night I got a fare to Euston. Then I took a gentleman to the Langham, an', as I felt like a snack, I pulled into the nearest cab rank. I was having some corfee an' a sandwich when I 'appened to speak about the gray car to one of the chaps. 'That's odd,' he said. 'Quarter of an hour ago I had a theater job to Langham Plice, an' a gray landaulette stopped in front of the Chinese Embassy. It kem along from the east side, too.' He didn't notice the number, sir, so there may be nothink in it, after all, but I thought you might like to hear wot my pal said."
"Was the car empty? Did it call for some one at the Embassy?"
"That's the queer part of it, sir. I axed pertic'ler. This gray car brought a gentleman, a small, youngish man, 'oo skipped up the Embassy steps like a lamplighter, and went in afore you could s'y 'knife.' Somebody might ha' bin watchin' for him through the keyhole, the door was opened that quick. Then the car went off. My friend wouldn't ha' given a second thought to it if the gentleman hadn't vanished like a jack-in-the-box. That's w'y he remembered the color of the car."
Theydon tried to look as though Evans's statement merely puzzled him, whereas his mind was already busy with the extraordinary coincidences which the haphazard events of a few hours had produced. Was