Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/121

 finished up with his own astonished recognition of “Mr. Holmes.”

“By the way, Mrs. Revel,” he ended, “I’ve never thanked you for imperilling your immortal soul by saying that I was an old friend of yours.”

“Of course you’re an old friend,” cried Virginia. “You don’t suppose I’d cumber you with a corpse, and then pretend you were a mere acquaintance next time I met you? No, indeed!”

She paused.

“Do you know one thing that strikes me about all this?” she went on. “That there’s some extra mystery about those Memoirs that we haven’t fathomed yet.”

“I think you’re right,” agreed Anthony. “There’s one thing I’d like you to tell me,” he continued.

“What’s that?”

“Why did you seem so surprised when I mentioned the name of Jimmy McGrath to you yesterday at Pont Street? Had you heard it before?”

“I had, Sherlock Holmes. George—my cousin, George Lomax, you know—came to see me the other day, and suggested a lot of frightfully silly things. His idea was that I should come down here and make myself agreeable to this man McGrath and Delilah the Memoirs out of him somehow. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He talked a lot of nonsense about English gentlewomen, and things like that, but his real meaning was never obscure for a moment. It was just the sort of rotten thing poor old George would think of. And then I wanted to know too much, and he tried to put me off with lies that wouldn’t have deceived a child of two.”

“Well, his plan seems to have succeeded, anyhow,” observed Anthony. “Here am I, the James McGrath he had in mind, and here are you being agreeable to me.”

“But, alas, for poor old George, no Memoirs! Now I’ve got a question for you. When I said I hadn’t written those letters, you said you knew I hadn’t—you couldn’t know any such thing.”

“Oh, yes, I could,” said Anthony, smiling. “I’ve got a good working knowledge of psychology.”

“You mean your belief in the sterling worth of my moral character was such that”

But Anthony was shaking his head vigorously.