But it was Ivor.
“What news?” I questioned him, my voice sounding queer and far away in my own ears.
“I don’t know whether you’ll call it news or not, though plenty of things have happened. I’m awfully sorry to be late—”
I wouldn’t let him finish, standing there, but took him by the arm and drew him into the garden, pushing the gate shut behind him as I did so. Yet I forgot to lock it, and naturally it did not occur to Ivor that it ought to be fastened.
Once inside, in the garden, I was going to make him begin again, as I had told Marianne I would. But suddenly I bethought myself that he might have been followed; that there might be watchers behind that high wall, watchers who would try to be listeners too, and whose ears would be very different from old Henri’s. “Come into the house,” I said, in a low voice, “before you begin to tell anything.” Then, when we were inside, I could not even wait for him to go on of his own accord and in his own way.
“The treaty?” I asked. “Have you got hold of it?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“But you’ve heard of it? Oh, say you’ve heard something!”
“If I haven’t, it isn’t because I’ve sat down and waited for news to come. I went back to the Gare du Nord after you left me, to try and get on the track of the men who travelled with me in the train to Dover. But I was sent off on the wrong scent, and wasted a lot of time, worse luck—I’ll tell you about it later, if you care to hear details. Then, when that game was up, I did what I wish I’d done at first, found out and consulted a private detective, said to be one of the best in Paris—”
“You told your story—my story—to a detective?” I gasped.