Yours ever,
REX.”
There was a p.s.:
“If the fast boat calls here on Wednesday, and there is some
uncertainty as to whether it will or not, I think I shall come
straight away home. If you don’t hear from me, you will know I have
changed my mind. There are some stunning girls at Palermo.”
There was a further p.s.:
“We will have a dinner the night I return. Invite that
sixty-nine-inch brain of yours, Carver.”
Tab grinned, put the ring and the letter away in his desk and gave
himself over to the serious consideration as to whether it would
be advisable for Rex to come back to Doughty Street. He missed him
terribly at times. Apparently he had got over his infatuation for
Ursula, for the references to the stunning girls at Palermo did not
seem to harmonize with a broken heart.
He had arranged to go to tea with Ursula that afternoon, but he had
his doubts as to whether he would be able to keep his promise. The
second case was absorbing every minute of his time, and he was already
regretting the bond of secrecy under which he worked.
On this subject he spoke frankly to Carver when he saw him. Carver saw
his point of view.
“There is no reason why you shouldn’t tell everything--the full story
if you like, Tab, all except--all except the new pins,” he added.
Tab was delighted. So far he had only been able to give the vaguest
outlines of the story in print and the lifting of the embargo
simplified his work enormously; incidentally it gave him time to see
Ursula.
And she was glad to see him. She threw out two impulsive hands and
gripped his as he came into her sitting-room at the Central.
“You poor hard-worked man! You look as if you haven’t slept for a
week,” she said.
“I feel that way,” said Tab ruefully, “but if I yawn whilst I am with
you, throw a cup at me--not necessarily an expensive cup--I respond to
the commonest of crockery.”
“Of course, you are working on this new crime?” she asked, busy with
the teapot. “It is dreadful. Brown is the poor fellow they were trying
to discover, weren’t they? Isn’t he the man that Yeh Ling spoke about?”
Tab nodded.
“Poor soul,” she said softly, “he was from China also? I remember. And
you have captured Walters. I never thought that Walters was guilty.
I did not like the man; I had seen him once and felt instinctively
repulsed from him, though I never thought that he would murder Mr.
Trasmere.”
She turned quickly to another topic with relief.
“I have had an offer to go back to the stage, but of course, I am not
going,” she said. “I wonder if you will believe me when I tell you that
I hate the stage? It is full of the most unhappy memories for me.”
Suddenly a thought struck Tab.
“I heard from Rex this morning,” he said. “He is coming back again. You
haven’t heard from him?”
She shook her head and her eyes were grave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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