Part 32 (1/2)
”Good heavens!” cried Lucas. ”Read that.”
Hillary read--
”Come immediately. Unfortunate complication here. Require you to explain fully.--HERIOT WALKINGSHAW.”
He looked considerably sobered.
”Of course I didn't really mean what I was saying--”
Lucas interrupted him brusquely.
”I'm off. Look after things here. What the devil--”
He strode down the lane, hailed a cab, and drove off to an accompaniment of the most anxious speculations.
”This way, sir,” said the attendant at the Hotel Gigantique.
Lucas followed him, still racking his brains for some explanation not too disastrous to his hopes. The man opened the door of a sitting-room and closed it quietly behind him. In the room there was only one person, a girl with the sunniest hair and the straightest little nose and the most delightfully astonished face imaginable.
”Jean!” he cried.
He took a quick step towards her and then remembered the gravity of the summons.
”What's the matter?” he demanded.
”Then it was you!” she exclaimed.
”Me?”
”Father only told me that some one--a man--”
He held out the telegram abruptly.
”What do you make of that?”
She read it, and then read it again, and her bewilderment seemed to change into another emotion.
”What did your father tell you to do?” asked Lucas.
She gave him the queerest look.
”Get rid of the man if I could,” she said.
He ran his fingers through his mop of brown hair.
”But I don't understand--what's the 'complication'?”
She began to smile shyly--