Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/213

 “I hate that man with his prim little black beard and his eyeglasses,” said Bundle, as soon as the door had shut behind him. “I hope Anthony does snoo him. I’d love to see him dancing with rage. What do you think about it all, Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I’m tired. I shall go up to bed.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Lord Caterham. “It’s half-past eleven.”

As Virginia was crossing the wide hall, she caught sight of a broad back that seemed familiar to her discreetly vanishing through a side door.

“Superintendent Battle,” she called imperiously.

The superintendent, for it was indeed he, retraced his steps with a shade of unwillingness.

“Yes, Mrs. Revel?”

“M. Lemoine has been here. He says Tell me, is it true, really true, that Mr. Fish is an American detective?”

Superintendent Battle nodded.

“That’s right.”

“You have known it all along?”

Again Superintendent Battle nodded.

Virginia turned away towards the staircase.

“I see,” she said. “Thank you.”

Until that minute she had refused to believe.

And now?

Sitting down before her dressing-table in her own room, she faced the question squarely. Every word that Anthony had said came back to her fraught with a new significance.

Was this the “trade” that he had spoken of?

The trade that he had given up. But then

An unusual sound disturbed the even tenor of her meditations. She lifted her head with a start. Her little gold clock showed the hour to be after one. Nearly two hours she had sat here thinking.

Again the sound was repeated. A sharp tap on the window-pane. Virginia went to the window and opened it. Below on the pathway was a tall figure which even as she looked stooped for another handful of gravel.

For a moment Virginia’s heart beat faster—then she recognized the massive strength and square-cut outline of the Herzoslovakian, Boris.

“Yes,” she said in a low tone. “What is it?”