In the adjoining room she encountered Andrews, and gave him the message. The experience had brought them very close together—closer than ever before—and the man had proved himself.
There had been great difficulty when they reached the gardens on the preceding afternoon to ascertain the facts. The guards evidently had been instructed by the management to hush the matter up.
Each and all professed entire ignorance. There had been some disturbance, but beyond that they knew nothing whatever. And the police were almost equally uncommunicative.
From a visitor, however, Andrews had learned that the scene of the affair was the tiger-house, and that a gentleman had been probably fatally injured.
More than that, his informant, who had seen the gentleman carried out, gave so graphic a description of the victim that, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there could be no doubt it was Kneedrock.
As temperately as possible Andrews had passed these tidings on to Mrs. Darling.
"And now," he said, "you'd best go home at once, since nothing can be gained by your stopping here. I'll get what additional facts I can, and follow as soon as possible."
With which he had put her again into the taxicab, and hurried back to intercept other visitors.
But the narratives, formed most of them from hearsay, were contradictory and confusing, and it was not until by sheer accident he ran into the identical guard he had interviewed in the morning that he obtained a veracious and circumstantial story of what had happened.
The tiger-house, owing to the accident, had been closed for the rest of the day; and this guard, whose name was Phipps, was among those relieved from duty.