* * * * *
Late that afternoon, while Miss Clifford was changing her dress for dinner, there was a knock at her door, and her nephew entered. With a look of moody thought on his face, he stood for some moments beside the dressing-table drumming with his fingers on the edge of the mirror in a way that betokened indecision.
"Is anything the matter?" his aunt asked when she had glanced at him the second time and still he had not spoken.
"Just this," he replied, frowning slightly. "Would you believe me if I told you that that cable you spoke of was never sent?"
CHAPTER XII
"Not sent!"
Miss Clifford laid down the comb she was using and turned upon her nephew a face of bewilderment.
"No, it wasn't sent."
"But that's impossible; it must have been."
"It wasn't. There's no record of it."