The compartment held six seats, while a door led to a side corridor running the length of the coach. The two remaining occupants were worthy Britons who neither invited nor received any special attention.
Mr. Handyside was introduced, and promptly said the right thing.
"I guess I knew what I was doing when I forced Mr. Theydon to take me out of London today," he said, with a smile which left the girl in no doubt as to the nature of the implied compliment.
"But it is hardly an hour since I spoke to my father at Mr. Theydon's flat," she said. "Were you there, too, Mr. Handyside?"
"No, in the next block. That was the nearest I got to Mr. Theydon before we met and took a cab for Victoria."
Theydon was pleased with his ally. No diplomat, trained during long years to conceal material facts, could have headed the girl off more deftly, while every word was literally true.
"Ah!" she said, glancing meaningly at Theydon, "we are all the sport of fortune, then. How strange! Of course, Mr. Theydon, you don't know why I am here. I have had a telegram from my mother, or one sent in her name. She has been taken ill suddenly."
"That is bad news," was the sympathetic answer. "If the message has not come direct from Mrs. Forbes may it not be rather exaggerated in tone? Some people can never write telegrams. The knowledge that each word costs a halfpenny weighs on them like a nightmare."
As he hoped and anticipated, she produced the message itself from her handbag.
"This is what it says," she said, and read: "'Mrs. Forbes ill and unable communicate by telephone. Come at once. Manager Royal Devonshire Hotel.'" Then she added, with a suspicious break in her voice: "That sounds serious enough, in all conscience."
"Is it addressed to you personally?" said Theydon, racking his wits for some means of lessening the girl's foreboding without tickling the ears of the other people in the compartment by suggesting that she might have been brought from her home by some cruel ruse of her father's enemies.
"Yes."
"But isn't that somewhat singular in itself? One would imagine that such a significant message would have been sent to your father."
"Why?"
"Well, men are better fitted to withstand these shocks, for one thing. It was heartless, or, to say the least, thoughtless, to give you such news with the brutal frankness of a telegram."
"I cannot understand it at all. Mother wrote this morning telling me that she was going to Beachy Head this afternoon with a picnic party."
"I am convinced," said Theydon gravely, "that some one has blundered. It may be the act of some stupid foreigner. I shall not be content now, Miss Forbes, until I have gone with you to the Royal Devonshire, and learnt what the extent of the trouble really is. Then, if Mrs. Forbes needs your presence, perhaps you will allow me to telephone to your father, as he will be greatly disturbed when he returns home and learns the cause of your journey."
"But I can't think of allowing you two to break up your afternoon on my account. I'm sure, when we reach Eastbourne, I shall see an array of golf clubs among your luggage."
"No," smiled Theydon. "My friend here refuses to play until he has seen something of the country. He knows that the golfer's vision is bounded by the nearest bunker."
Handyside took the cue.
"That's the exact position, Miss Forbes," he said. "I was warned by the horrible experience of a friend of mine. He left Newark, N. J., on a sightseeing tour of Europe, but unfortunately took his clubs with him. Now, if you ask him what he thought of Westminster Abbey or the Wye Valley he tells you he hadn't time to look 'em up, but that the fifth hole at Sandwich is a corker, while the thirteenth at St. Andrews has been known to restore the faculty of speech to a dumb man. You see, some poor mute had either to express his feelings or bust."
Evidently Miss Evelyn Forbes would not be allowed to mope during the run to Eastbourne.
As between Theydon and herself, the situation was curiously mixed. On the one hand, Theydon had now a remarkably close insight into the peril which threatened Forbes and each member of his family; the girl, on the other, knew well that her father was bound up in some way with the tragedy at No. 17 Innesmore Mansions.
Nevertheless, an open discussion was out of the question, and the two accepted cheerfully the limitations imposed by circumstances, so that the strangers in the compartment little suspected what grave issues lay behind an apparently casual meeting between a pretty girl and two men that summer's afternoon in the Eastbourne express.
The American played his part admirably. When not passing some caustically humorous comment on British ways and manners he was being even more critical of his fellow-countrymen.
As he himself put it, he guessed New York society was mighty like London society with the head cut off, and proved his contention with many wise saws and modern instances.
Thus the journey south passed pleasantly enough. When they alighted the girl reverted to the topic uppermost in her mind.
"You gentlemen will have to look after your luggage," she said. "I'm sure you will forgive me if I hurry to the hotel. If you come there, Mr. Theydon, I'll take care that I see you at once. It is exceedingly kind of you to bother with my affairs."
But Theydon had a scheme ready, having foreseen this very difficulty.
"Mr. Handyside will attend to everything," he said glibly. "Please let me come with you. I shan't have a moment's peace until assured that Mrs. Forbes is suffering from little more than a slight indisposition."
Evelyn looked puzzled, but was willing to agree to anything so long as she reached her mother quickly. Handyside, too, made matters easy by lifting his hat and walking off in the direction of the luggage van.
"Well," she said, "I really don't care what happens if only I lose no time."
Suiting the action to the word, she hurried toward the exit, and was murmuring something that sounded like an apology for her seeming brusqueness as they passed the ticket collector. Here a momentary difficulty arose. Theydon had forgotten to ask Handyside for his ticket. The girl, of course, had her own ticket, but her companion was not allowed to pass the barrier. He began an explanation to which a busy official paid no heed. In desperation, he produced a sovereign, and his card.
"Here," he said, "you can hold this as a guarantee that my ticket will be given up. This lady has been called to the bedside of her mother, who is said to be dangerously ill, and I simply must be allowed to take her to the Royal Devonshire Hotel."
Luckily, the railwayman had the wit to see that this earnest-eyed passenger was speaking the truth.
"That's all right, sir," he said. "We have to be very particular about tickets, you know."
Evelyn Forbes was a few yards in advance, and impatiently awaiting her escort, when a gentleman approached and spoke to her.
"Miss Forbes, I believe," he said, raising his hat.
"Yes," she answered breathlessly, because the man's garb suggested, before he uttered another syllable, that he was a doctor. He had a curiously foreign aspect, and spoke with a pronounced lisp.
"I am assistant to Dr. Sinnett," he said, "and he has sent me to take you to the hotel. This is his car. Will you come, quick?"
He pointed to a smart limousine drawn up near the exit, and, in his eagerness to be polite, almost pushed the girl toward the open door. Insensibly, she resisted, and turned to explain matters to Theydon, who had just placated the Cerberus at the gate, and was running alter her.
"Mr. Theydon—" she began.
"There ith no time to wathe, I athure you," said Dr. Sinnett's assistant imperatively. At that instant Theydon came up. His temper was ruffled, and he did not scrutinize the doctor's appearance as closely as might be looked for in one who was actually on his guard against foul play.
"What is it now?" he asked.
"This