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252 touch with Captain Shepherd in that distant and backward land was a matter for Scotland Yard. No acting Chief Constable would do so without considerable delay.

He drafted the telegram in consultation with one of the commissioners, who himself set about the business of getting it through to Captain Shepherd and receiving his answer to it. Then he returned to Low Wycombe. Three days later came a letter from Scotland Yard to inform him that Captain Shepherd was in an out-of-the-way district in the north of Mesopotamia, and that there must be a delay of days before he received the telegram and sent his answer to it. Mr. Flexen possessed his soul in the patience of a man who was sure that he was going to get what he wanted.

A few days later, on a Saturday, his work took him to Loudwater, and he called on Olivia. He found her a different creature. She had lost her air of being under a strain, and save that her eyes were at first anxious, she showed herself wholly at her ease with him. He came away assuring himself that she was one of the most charming women he had ever met. He took it that she still met Colonel Grey in the pavilion in the East wood, and that after a decorous lapse of time they would marry. He thought Colonel Grey uncommonly fortunate.

Then he again wondered what had so perturbed t