"I'm only hoarse. My Cousin Rose has arrived to-night in secret at Tilbury by the Minnetonka."
"The Minnetonka!" he muttered. Staggering coincidence! Mystic heralding of misfortune!
"I was sent for," the pale ghost of a delicate voice continued. "She's broken, ruined; no courage left. Awful fiasco in Chicago! She's hiding now at a little hotel in Soho. She absolutely declined to come to my hotel. I've done what I could for the moment. As I was driving by here just now I saw the rocket and I thought of you. I thought you ought to know it. I thought it was my duty to tell you."
She held her muff to her mouth. She seemed to be trembling.
A heavy hand was laid on his shoulder.
"Excuse me, sir," said a strong, rough voice, "are you the gent that fired off the rocket? It's against the law to do that kind o' thing [215] here, and you ought to know it. I shall have to trouble you—"
It was a policeman of the C Division.
Sir John was disappearing, with his stealthy and conspiratorial air, down the staircase.