Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Love stories
Cyril looked at his watch. Ten minutes to three! Guy must have met with
an accident. Suddenly an alarming possibility occurred to him,--what if
the police had traced the jewels to Campbell? The bag, which had
disappeared, must have been taken by them. Griggs, when he inquired so
innocently about "Lady Wilmersley," had been fully cognisant of the
girl's identity. What was to be done now? He could not remain passive
and await developments. He must--was that--could that be Campbell
sauntering so leisurely toward him? Indeed it was!
"What has happened?" asked Cyril in a hoarse whisper, dragging his
friend into a secluded corner. "Tell me at once."
"Nothing, my dear boy. I am afraid I kept you waiting longer than I
intended to. I hope you have not been anxious?" Guy seemed, however,
quite unconcerned.
"Anxious!" exclaimed Cyril indignantly. "Well, rather! How could you
have kept me in such suspense? Why didn't you come to me at once on
leaving Miss Prentice?"
"But I did. I have just left her."
"And she is really all right? The governess, Miss What's her name, is
with her?"
"Certainly. But I didn't want to leave Mrs. Thompkins alone with a
stranger in a strange place, so I stayed and lunched with them."
Cyril almost choked with rage. _He_ had had no lunch at all. He had been
too upset to think of such a thing and all the time they--oh! It was too
abominable! Campbell was a selfish little brute. He would never forgive
him, thought Cyril, scowling down at the complacent offender. For he was
complacent, that was the worst of it. From the top of his sleek, red
head to the tips of his immaculate boots, he radiated a triumphant
self-satisfaction. What was the matter with the man? wondered Cyril. He
seemed indefinably changed. There was a jauntiness about him--a light in
his eyes which Cyril did not remember to have noticed before. And what
was the meaning of those two violets drooping so sentimentally in his
buttonhole? Cyril stared at the flowers as if hypnotised.
"So you liked Miss Prentice?" he managed to say, controlling himself
with an effort.
"Rather! But I say, Cyril, it's all rot about her being that Prentice
woman."
"Ah, you think so?"
"I don't think--I know. Why, she speaks French like a native."
"How did you find that out?" asked Cyril, forgetting his indignation in
his surprise at this new development.
"We had a duffer of a waiter who understood very little English, so Mrs.
Thompkins spoke to him in French, and such French! It sounded like the
real thing."
Cyril was dumfounded. How could a girl brought up in a small inland
village, which she had left only six months before, have learnt French?
And then he remembered that the doctor had told him that she had
retained a dim recollection of Paris. Why had the significance of that
fact not struck him before?
"But if she is not Priscilla Prentice, who on earth can she be? She
can't be Anita Wilmersley!" he exclaimed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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