After dinner, which passed without any unusual happenings, she went into the lounge, supplied herself with some new magazines, and hurried away to her room. The absence of Peter Stoger disturbed her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. She disliked and feared him enough when he was present, but in his absence he seemed positively terrifying. She sat down by the window in the gathering twilight to think it all over.
Three of them gone—the very three on whom suspicion rested most heavily! The Crimson Patch gone with them. Her father gone too, involved in who knew what troubles, what difficulties, in his search. What was this strange Crimson Patch, anyway? Patricia shut her eyes tight and strove to call up the image of the sketch as she had seen it last. It was nothing, it was absolutely nothing but the cleverly executed sketch in water-colors of a peculiar species of butterfly with a bright crimson spot on each lower wing. There was nothing about it that was different, nothing that she could remember, to distinguish it from the many other sketches in her father's possession. That it could harbor any secret, and especially any government secret, seemed absolutely absurd. And yet—it must be so.
Then her mind wandered back to Virginie. Where was she now? What had she tried so hard to communicate in that broken, incomplete message to Chester Jackson? Would they ever see each other again? In twenty-four hours, life had suddenly assumed a very complicated aspect to Patricia. She could scarcely realize now how happy and care-free she had been last night at this very hour. It did not seem as if she could be the same person, so many were the perplexing problems on her mind.
And this brought her thoughts back to Chester Jackson. She must see him again, as soon as possible, and discover what it was that he knew about herself and her father and his affairs. She would call up the office and ask to have something sent to the room. So determined, she switched on the lights, went to the telephone and asked to have some of the hotel stationery sent up. There was nothing else she could think of, just at the moment. The knock at the door a few moments later sent her flying to it, her mind full of the questions she planned to ask. To her intense chagrin, it was another bell-boy who brought the paper.
Scarcely able to murmur her thanks, she turned back into the room and shut the door. Had Chester, too, deserted her? What could possibly have happened? It was the first time she could remember that he had not personally answered the summons. If he had also, for some inscrutable reason, left the hotel on this fateful night, she would certainly feel herself to be deserted of all mankind.
CHAPTER VIII
A PIECE OF PAPER
Delia having appeared at the time agreed on, and promptly withdrawing to her own room, Patricia continued to worry for an hour and a half over the problem that was perplexing her, trying vainly to write letters or concentrate her mind on a book. But it was useless, and at length she determined to put an end to her misery and suspense, in that direction at least, and ring for something else. If Chester Jackson did not answer this time, it would mean that he too had gone or been removed, and that she was left without a single friend to rely on.
So once again she telephoned, this time for ice-water, and waited in breathless suspense for the answering knock. The curly head and merry eyes of Chet Jackson at the door was like a bracing tonic to her overwrought nerves.
"Oh!" she quavered. "Whatever happened to you? I thought you were gone, too."
He gazed at her in unfeigned astonishment. "I don't get yer!" he remarked. "There ain't nothin' happened to me!"