Part 29 (2/2)

Holymead herself.

”My business is private, and must be placed before Mrs. Holymead,” he said firmly. ”I wish to see her.”

”I regret, monsieur, but Madame Holymead is out of town. She went last week. If you had only come before she went”--Mademoiselle Chiron looked genuinely sorry.

Rolfe was a little taken aback at this intelligence, and showed it.

”Out of town!” he repeated. ”Where has she gone to?”

She looked at him almost timidly.

”But, monsieur, I do not know if I ought to tell you without knowing who you are. Are you a friend of Madame's?”

”My name is Detective Rolfe--I come from Scotland Yard,” replied Rolfe, in the authoritative tone of a man who knew that the disclosure was sure to command respect, if not a welcome.

”Scotland? You come from Scotland? Madame will regret much that she has missed you.”

”Scotland Yard, I said,” corrected Rolfe, ”not Scotland.”

”Is it not the same?” Mademoiselle Chiron looked at him helplessly.

”Scotland Yard--is it not in Scotland? What is the difference?”

Rolfe, with a Londoner's tolerance for foreign ignorance, painstakingly explained the difference. She looked so puzzled that he felt sure she did not understand him. But that, he reflected, was not his fault.

”So you see, mademoiselle, my business with Mrs. Holymead is important, therefore I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find her,” he said. ”In what part of the country is she?”

Mademoiselle Chiron looked distressed. ”Really, monsieur, I cannot tell you. She is motoring, and I should have been with her but that I have _un gros rhume”_--she produced a tiny sc.r.a.p of lace handkerchief and held it to her nose as though in support of her statement--”and she rings me on the telephone from different places and tells me the things she does need, and I do send them on to her.”

”Where does she ring you up from?” asked Rolfe, eyeing Mademoiselle Chiron's handkerchief intently.

”From Brighton--from Eastbourne--wherever she stops.”

”What place was she stopping at when you heard from her last?”

”Eastbourne, monsieur.”

”And when will she return here?”

”That, monsieur, I do not know. To-night--to-morrow--next week--she does not tell me. If Monsieur will leave me a message I will see that she gets it, for it is always me she wants, and it is always me that talks to her.

What shall I tell her when next she rings the telephone? If Monsieur will state his business I will tell Madame what he tells me. I am Madame's cousin by marriage--in me she has confidence.”

She spoke in a tone which invited confidence, but Rolfe was not prepared to go to the length of trusting the young woman he saw before him, despite her a.s.surance that she was in the confidence of Mrs. Holymead. He rose to his feet with a keen glance at Mademoiselle Chiron's handkerchief, which she had rolled into a little ball in her hand.

”I cannot disclose my business to you, mademoiselle,” he said courteously. ”I must see Mrs. Holymead personally, so I shall call again when she has returned.”

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