Ruth wondered much what the outcome of this step would be. She shrank from being drawn into a police investigation; but the matter had gone so far now and was so serious that she could not dodge her duty.
That very next day word was sent in to Ruth from the guard at the entrance whom she had tipped for that purpose, that the American ambulance driver, Monsieur Bragg, was at the door.
When Ruth hastened to the court the brancardiers had shuffled in with the last of Charlie’s “load” and he was cranking up his car. The latter looked as though it had been through No Man’s Land, clear to the Boche “ditches” it was so battered and mud-bespattered. Charlie himself had a bandage around his head which looked like an Afghan’s turban.
“Oh, my dear boy! Are you hurt?” Ruth gasped, running down the steps to him.
“No,” grunted the young ambulance driver. “Got this as an order of merit. For special bravery in the performance of duty,” and he grinned. “Gosh! I can’t get hurt proper. I bumped my head on a beam in the park—pretty near cracked my skull, now I tell you! Say! How’s your friend?”
“That is exactly what I don’t know,” Ruth hastened to tell him.
“How’s that? Didn’t you go to Lyse?”
“Yes. But the man in whose pocket that letter to me was found isn’t Tom Cameron at all. It was some one else!”
“What? You don’t mean it! Then how did he come by that letter? I saw it taken out of the poor chap’s pocket. Johnny Mall wrote the note to you on the outside of it. I knew it was intended for you, of course.”
“But the man isn’t Tom. I should say, Lieutenant Thomas Cameron.”