but accurate summary of the facts. I dropped Mr. Furneaux and his prisoner at Bow Street and was on the way to my city office, when I suddenly felt faint for want of food, as I ate hardly any breakfast this morning, and only drank a cup of coffee in Mr. Theydon's place. So I returned to the Carlton, where I met a friend, a business associate, who remained for a chat while I had a meal. This trivial accident prevented me from telephoning to my house, though, naturally, I had no misgivings as to my daughter's well-being. Even then I was detained unduly, because my friend and I went to another office in the city, and two more hours elapsed before I reached my own place. Then, and not until then, did I hear of Evelyn's journey and its cause."
"Thank you, Mr. Forbes," said Winter quietly. "We seem to have made a forward move today. Before calling Miss Evelyn to the phone I want to tell you that in disobeying your orders to remain at home she did my department a good turn. Wong Li Fu and I were brought face to face. He is not a myth."
"My word might be regarded as sufficient proof of that fact."
"Certainly, Mr. Forbes, if given earlier," was the inevitable retort. "But here is your daughter. She can plead her cause far better than I."
Evelyn took the woman's way. To defend she attacked.
"Dad, dear," she complained, "why didn't you give me your confidence? If I had had the least notion of the dreadful things that were going on I should certainly have telephoned to Eastbourne before starting. But don't you see the diabolical cleverness of the scheme? The telegram arrived just in time to allow me to catch the 1:25 p. m. train, and rendering it idle to think of making a trunk call if I would obey an urgent message from my mother. Then again, when I reached Eastbourne, why should I suspect a foreign-looking gentleman who said Dr. Sinnett had sent his car to take me to the hotel? There isn't a Dr. Sinnett in Eastbourne at this date, but how was I to know that? Of course, both you and I have suffered a good deal, each in a different way, but all is well that ends well, and I shall have such a lot to tell you when we meet tonight.... What time? I don't know yet. I'll wire or phone when mother returns and we settle about the train. Goodby, darling! See you don't go anywhere alone until I come back."
For some reason Winter's manner was not so placid as usual. He looked so obviously perplexed and troubled that Theydon, searching for a cause, suddenly remembered that the chief inspector was a great smoker.
"Won't you have a cigar?" he said; "that is, unless Miss Forbes has any objection?"
"Me!" cried the girl. "I don't object in the least."
But the Royal Devonshire Hotel's best Havana did not wholly banish the frown from Winter's forehead. More than once he glanced at his watch and consulted a time table. At last he voiced one of his anxieties.
"What can have become of that American?" he said. "He knew what hotel you were making for?"
"Oh, yes," cried the others in chorus.
They laughed. Quite a cheerful air possessed two members of the little party, at any rate.
"Perhaps he has forgotten the name?" went on Evelyn.
"Americans never forget the names of hotels, or railway stations, or steamers," said Winter. "The average Englishman can tell you what will win the Derby, but the average American will be a good deal more accurate concerning next Saturday's mail steamer.... So, I frankly confess it—that man's prolonged absence supplies a riddle which I can't answer. What do you say if we give a look along the front? He may be shy, though I told the hall porter that any inquirer was to be shown up at once."
No; Mr. Handyside was not to be seen on Eastbourne's spacious marine promenade. A couple of well-dressed men caught sight of Winter, and decided that they had instant and urgent business elsewhere, But he only smiled. His quarry that day was not the swell mobsman, but much more dangerous game.
Lightning darted from a summer sky when the picnic party returned from Beachy Head in three cars, but without Mrs. Forbes.
Evelyn was hardly anxious at first. The hall porter informed her who the occupants of the cars were, and she watched the lively and chattering groups forming on the pavement and breaking up again to enter the hotel and dress for dinner.
At last, realizing that her mother was not among them, she singled out a lady whom she knew, and asked for an explanation. The lady, a Mrs. Montagu, was very much surprised.
"But, my dear Evelyn," she said, "didn't you yourself send for your mother?"
The girl blanched. Some premonition of evil gripped her very heart.
"What do you mean?" she said, and the other woman could not help noting the distress in her voice.
"If you didn't send, who did?" came the immediate response. "We were just going to have tea when a gentleman, a stranger, came and asked for Mrs. Forbes. We saw him arrive in a car which halted at the foot of the path—nearly a quarter of a mile away. Your mother answered, and he said that you were in Eastbourne, and had sent him to bring you to the hotel. He said the car belonged to a Doctor Somebody, but he himself looked like a foreigner."
A few others had gathered around, attracted by Evelyn Forbes's pallor and distress; Winter, too, had drawn near, and it was he who said:
"Did you see this stranger who brought the message?"
"O yes, plainly," said Mrs. Montagu.
"Had he a scar down the left side of his face?"
"Yes."
Then Evelyn Forbes, for the first time in her vigorous young life, fainted. Her mother was in the power of Wong Li Fu. All the terrors which imagination had painted in her own behalf were redoubled as to her mother's fate. Her brain reeled. Merciful oblivion came. Theydon and Winter were just able to catch her before she fell like a log.
CHAPTER XI
THE REAPPEARANCE OF HANDYSIDE
Consternation reigned for a while at the entrance to the Royal Devonshire. Men craned their necks and women uttered nervous little shrieks. But Evelyn Forbes was endowed with a vigorous frame and a splendidly vital spirit, and she recovered her senses before she could be carried into the vestibule.
The fact that she had fainted, too, brought to the aid of her waking senses the innate horror of her race and class for anything approaching a "scene," and she was almost unnaturally collected in speech and demeanor within a few seconds after her eyes had reopened.
"Did I give way like that?" she said, with a valiant smile, first at Theydon, and then at the ring of faces, each with its varying expression of curiosity or concern. "How stupid of me! How excessively stupid! That sort of behavior doesn't help at all—does it?... Thank you, I can walk quite well.... I'll just go to mother's room and telephone home.... There has been some silly mistake. By this time it will be rectified, I'm sure.... Come, Mr. Theydon. Where is Mr. Winter?"
"Here," said the detective. "I'll follow in a minute or so. Please don't communicate with London till I arrive."
His quietly insistent tone was meant rather for Theydon than for the half-demented girl, who was stumbling anywhere but in the right direction until Theydon caught her arm and led her to the lift. She contrived to remain outwardly calm until she reached the seclusion of the sitting room, when she broke into a flood of tears, while in disjointed and hysterical words she blamed her own rashness for the fate which had overtaken her mother.
If only she had used better judgment when the telegram came—if only she had hired an automobile and driven straight to Beachy Head—if only she had done a dozen other things which no one would possibly have dreamed of doing—she might have safeguarded her darling mother!
Theydon, meanwhile, was nearly frantic with the indecision of ignorance. Never had he felt so helpless, so utterly childish and unhinged in the face of disaster. He had heard that it was good for a woman to be allowed to cry when overwhelmed with misery. Again, he remembered