The Vintage Mysteries for the Holidays. Эдгар Аллан По

James stroked his chin and smiled. At last he said:

      “Just so, just so. Well, she’s found. And that’s the great thing, isn’t it? Eh! Come now, that’s the great thing?”

      “Sure it is. But just how did you strike her trail? Miss Tuppence and I thought you’d quit for good and all.”

      “Ah!” The lawyer shot a lightning glance at him, then resumed operations on his chin. “You thought that, did you? Did you really? H’m, dear me.”

      “But I guess I can take it we were wrong,” pursued Julius.

      “Well, I don’t know that I should go so far as to say that. But it’s certainly fortunate for all parties that we’ve managed to find the young lady.”

      “But where is she?” demanded Julius, his thoughts flying off on another tack. “I thought you’d be sure to bring her along?”

      “That would hardly be possible,” said Sir James gravely.

      “Why?”

      “Because the young lady was knocked down in a street accident, and has sustained slight injuries to the head. She was taken to the infirmary, and on recovering consciousness gave her name as Jane Finn. When—ah!—I heard that, I arranged for her to be removed to the house of a doctor—a friend of mine, and wired at once for you. She relapsed into unconsciousness and has not spoken since.”

      “She’s not seriously hurt?”

      “Oh, a bruise and a cut or two; really, from a medical point of view, absurdly slight injuries to have produced such a condition. Her state is probably to be attributed to the mental shock consequent on recovering her memory.”

      “It’s come back?” cried Julius excitedly.

      Sir James tapped the table rather impatiently.

      “Undoubtedly, Mr. Hersheimmer, since she was able to give her real name. I thought you had appreciated that point.”

      “And you just happened to be on the spot,” said Tommy. “Seems quite like a fairy tale.”

      But Sir James was far too wary to be drawn.

      “Coincidences are curious things,” he said dryly.

      Nevertheless Tommy was now certain of what he had before only suspected. Sir James’s presence in Manchester was not accidental. Far from abandoning the case, as Julius supposed, he had by some means of his own successfully run the missing girl to earth. The only thing that puzzled Tommy was the reason for all this secrecy. He concluded that it was a foible of the legal mind.

      Julius was speaking.

      “After dinner,” he announced, “I shall go right away and see Jane.”

      “That will be impossible, I fear,” said Sir James. “It is very unlikely they would allow her to see visitors at this time of night. I should suggest to-morrow morning about ten o’clock.”

      Julius flushed. There was something in Sir James which always stirred him to antagonism. It was a conflict of two masterful personalities.

      “All the same, I reckon I’ll go round there to-night and see if I can’t ginger them up to break through their silly rules.”

      “It will be quite useless, Mr. Hersheimmer.”

      The words came out like the crack of a pistol, and Tommy looked up with a start. Julius was nervous and excited. The hand with which he raised his glass to his lips shook slightly, but his eyes held Sir James’s defiantly. For a moment the hostility between the two seemed likely to burst into flame, but in the end Julius lowered his eyes, defeated.

      “For the moment, I reckon you’re the boss.”

      “Thank you,” said the other. “We will say ten o’clock then?” With consummate ease of manner he turned to Tommy. “I must confess, Mr. Beresford, that it was something of a surprise to me to see you here this evening. The last I heard of you was that your friends were in grave anxiety on your behalf. Nothing had been heard of you for some days, and Miss Tuppence was inclined to think you had got into difficulties.”

      “I had, sir!” Tommy grinned reminiscently. “I was never in a tighter place in my life.”

      Helped out by questions from Sir James, he gave an abbreviated account of his adventures. The lawyer looked at him with renewed interest as he brought the tale to a close.

      “You got yourself out of a tight place very well,” he said gravely. “I congratulate you. You displayed a great deal of ingenuity and carried your part through well.”

      Tommy blushed, his face assuming a prawnlike hue at the praise.

      “I couldn’t have got away but for the girl, sir.”

      “No.” Sir James smiled a little. “It was lucky for you she happened to—er—take a fancy to you.” Tommy appeared about to protest, but Sir James went on. “There’s no doubt about her being one of the gang, I suppose?”

      “I’m afraid not, sir. I thought perhaps they were keeping her there by force, but the way she acted didn’t fit in with that. You see, she went back to them when she could have got away.”

      Sir James nodded thoughtfully.

      “What did she say? Something about wanting to be taken to Marguerite?”

      “Yes, sir. I suppose she meant Mrs. Vandemeyer.”

      “She always signed herself Rita Vandemeyer. All her friends spoke of her as Rita. Still, I suppose the girl must have been in the habit of calling her by her full name. And, at the moment she was crying out to her, Mrs. Vandemeyer was either dead or dying! Curious! There are one or two points that strike me as being obscure—their sudden change of attitude towards yourself, for instance. By the way, the house was raided, of course?”

      “Yes, sir, but they’d all cleared out.”

      “Naturally,” said Sir James dryly.

      “And not a clue left behind.”

      “I wonder——” The lawyer tapped the table thoughtfully.

      Something in his voice made Tommy look up. Would this man’s eyes have seen something where theirs had been blind? He spoke impulsively:

      “I wish you’d been there, sir, to go over the house!”

      “I wish I had,” said Sir James quietly. He sat for a moment in silence. Then he looked up. “And since then? What have you been doing?”

      For a moment, Tommy stared at him. Then it dawned on him that of course the lawyer did not know.

      “I forgot that you didn’t know about Tuppence,” he said slowly. The sickening anxiety, forgotten for a while in the excitement of knowing Jane Finn was found at last, swept over him again.

      The lawyer laid down his knife and fork sharply.

      “Has anything happened to Miss Tuppence?” His voice was keen-edged.

      “She’s disappeared,” said Julius.

      “When?”

      “A week ago.”

      “How?”

      Sir James’s questions fairly shot out. Between them Tommy and Julius gave the history of the last week and their futile search.

      Sir James went at once to the root of the matter.

      “A wire signed with your name? They knew enough of you both for that. They weren’t sure of how much you had learnt in that house. Their kidnapping of Miss Tuppence is the counter-move to your escape. If necessary they could seal your lips with a threat of what might happen to her.”

      Tommy nodded.

      “That’s just what I thought, sir.”

      Sir