did she write that?”
“I’ve got it,” said Jack. “The story! Mademoiselle Briggerland told me she was writing a story, and I remember she said she had writer’s cramp. Suppose she dictated a portion of the story to Mrs. Meredith, and suppose in that story there occurred this letter: Lydia would have put the quotation marks mechanically.”
The detective took the letter from his hand.
“It is possible,” he said. “The writing is very even — it shows no sign of agitation, and of course the character’s initials might be ‘L.M.’ It is an ingenious hypothesis, and not wholly improbable, but if this were a part of the story, there would be other sheets. Would you like me to search the house?”
Jack shook his head.
“She’s much too clever to have them in the house,” he said. “More likely she’s put them in the fire.”
“What fire?” asked the detective dryly. “These houses have no fires, they’re central heated — unless she went to the kitchen.”
“Which she wouldn’t do,” said Jack thoughtfully. “No, she’d burn them in the garden.”
The detective nodded, and they returned to the house.
Jean, deep in conversation with her father, saw them reappear, and watched them as they walked slowly across the lawn toward the trees, their eyes fixed on the ground.
“What are they looking for?” she asked with a frown.
“I’ll go and see,” said Briggerland, but she caught his arm.
“Do you think they’ll tell you?” she asked sarcastically.
She ran up to her own room and watched them from behind a curtain. Presently they passed out of sight to the other side of the house, and she went into Lydia’s room and overlooked them from there. Suddenly she saw the detective stoop and pick up something from the ground, and her teeth set.
“The burnt story,” she said. “I never dreamt they’d look for that.”
It was only a scrap they found, but it was in Lydia’s writing, and the pencil mark was clearly visible on the charred ashes.
“‘Laura Martin,’” read the detective. “‘L.M.,’ and there are the words ‘tragic’ and ‘remorse’.”
From the remainder of the charred fragments they collected nothing of importance. Jean watched them disappear along the avenue, and went down to her father.
“I had a fright,” she said.
“You look as if you’ve still got it,” he said. He eyed her keenly.
She shook her head.
“Father, you must understand that this adventure may end disastrously. There are ninety-nine chances against the truth being known, but it is the extra chance that is worrying me. We ought to have settled Lydia more quietly, more naturally. There was too much melodrama and shooting, but I don’t see how we could have done anything else — Mordon was very tiresome.”
“Where did Glover come from?” asked Mr. Briggerland.
“He’s been here all the time,” said the girl.
“What?”
She nodded.
“He was old Jaggs. I had an idea he was, but I was certain when I remembered that he had stayed at Lydia’s flat.”
He put down his tea cup and wiped his lips with a silk handkerchief.
“I wish this business was over,” he said fretfully. “It looks as if we shall have trouble.”
“Of course we shall,” she said coldly. “You didn’t expect to get a fortune of six hundred thousand pounds without trouble, did you? I dare say we shall be suspected. But it takes a lot of suspicion to worry me. We’ll be in calm water soon, for the rest of our lives.”
“I hope so,” he said without any great conviction.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was prostrate and in bed, and Jean had no patience to see her.
She herself ordered the dinner, and they had finished when a visitor in the shape of Mr. Marcus Stepney came in.
It was unusual of Marcus to appear at the dinner hour, except in evening dress, and she remarked the fact wonderingly.
“Can I have a word with you, Jean?” he asked.
“What is it, what is it?” asked Mr. Briggerland testily. “Haven’t we had enough mysteries?”
Marcus eyed him without favour.
“We’ll have another one, if you don’t mind,” he said unpleasantly, and the girl, whose every sense was alert, picked up a wrap and walked into the garden, with Marcus following on her heels.
Ten minutes passed and they did not return, a quarter of an hour went by, and Mr. Briggerland grew uneasy. He got up from his chair, put down his book, and was halfway across the room when the door opened and Jack Glover came in, followed by the detective.
It was the Frenchman who spoke.
“M’sieur Briggerland, I have a warrant from the Préfect of the Alpes Maritimes for your arrest.”
“My arrest?” spluttered the dark man, his teeth chattering. “What — what is the charge?”
“The wilful murder of François Mordon,” said the officer.
“You lie — you lie,” screamed Briggerland. “I have no knowledge of any—” his words sank into a throaty gurgle, and he stared past the detective. Lydia Meredith was standing in the doorway.
Chapter XXXIX
The morning for Mr. Stepney had been doubly disappointing; again and again he drew up an empty line, and at last he flung the tackle into the well of the launch.
“Even the damn fish won’t bite,” he said, and the humour of his remark cheered him. He was ten miles from the shore, and the blue coast was a dim, ragged line on the horizon. He pulled out a big luncheon basket from the cabin and eyed it with disfavour. It had cost him two hundred francs. He opened the basket, and at the sight of its contents, was inclined to reconsider his earlier view that he had wasted his money, the more so since the maŒtre d’h”tel had thoughtfully included two quart bottles of champagne.
Mr. Marcus Stepney made a hearty meal, and by the time he had dropped an empty bottle into the sea, he was inclined to take a more cheerful view of life. He threw over the debris of the lunch, pushed the basket under one of the seats of the cabin, pulled up his anchor and started the engines running.
The sky was a brighter blue and the sea held a finer sparkle, and he was inclined to take a view of even Jean Briggerland, more generous than any he had held.
“Little devil,” he smiled reminiscently, as he murmured the words.
He opened the second bottle of champagne in her honour — Mr. Marcus Stepney was usually an abstemious man — and drank solemnly, if not soberly, her health and happiness. As the sun grew warmer he began to feel an unaccountable sleepiness. He was sober enough to know that to fall asleep in the middle of the ocean was to ask for trouble, and he set the bow of the Jungle Queen for the nearest beach, hoping to find a landing place.
He found something better as he skirted the shore. The sea and the weather had scooped out a big hollow under a high cliff, a hollow just big enough to take the Jungle Queen and deep and still enough to ensure her a safe anchorage. A rock barrier interposed between the breakers and this deep pool which the waves had hollowed in the stony