"I can only hope," he answered, "that you will not feel like that. Remember that these things must have some bearing upon the disappearance of Mr. Weatherley." She rose to her feet with a little shrug of the shoulders and walked up and down the room for several moments, smoking and humming a light tune to herself. Arnold watched her, struggling all the time against the reluctant admiration with which she always inspired him. She seemed to read in his eyes what was passing in his mind, for when at last she came to a standstill she stood by his side and laughed at him, with faintly upraised eyebrows, the cigarette smoke curling from her lips. "And it was for a luncheon such as this," she protested, "that I wore my new muslin gown and came all the way from the country. I expected compliments at least. Perhaps I even hoped," she whispered, leaning a little towards him, with a smile upon her lips,--half mirthful, half provocative,--"that I might have turned for a moment that wonderfully hard head of yours." Arnold rose abruptly to his feet. "You treat men as though they were puppets," he muttered. "And you speak of puppets," she murmured, "as though theirs was a most undesirable existence. Have you never tried to be a puppet, Arnold?" He stepped a little further back still and gripped the back of the chair, but she kept close to him. "I am to have no other answer from you, then, but this foolery?" he demanded, roughly. "Why, yes!" she replied, graciously. "I have an answer ready for you. You are so abrupt. Listen to what I propose. We will go together to your office and see whether it is true that Mr. Weatherley has not returned. If he has really disappeared, and I think that anything which I can tell you will help, perhaps then I will do as you ask. It depends a great deal upon what you find in those papers. Shall we go now, or would you like to stay here a little longer?" "We will go at once," he said firmly. She sighed, and passed out of the door which he had thrown open. "It is I who am a heroine," she declared. "I am coming down to Tooley Street with you. I am coming to brave the smells and the fog and the heat." He handed her into the car. He had sufficiently recovered his self-control to smile. "In other words," he remarked, "you mean to be there when I open the safe!" CHAPTER XXVII THE LETTERS IN THE SAFE The arrival of Arnold, accompanied by Mrs. Weatherley, created a mild sensation in Tooley Street. Mr. Jarvis, fussier than ever, and blinking continually behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, followed them into the private office. "You have heard nothing of Mr. Weatherley?" Arnold asked. "Not a word," the cashier answered. "We have rung up several more places and have tried the hospitals again. We were all hoping that Mrs. Weatherley had brought us some news." She shook her head.