‘This is it!’ she gasped. ‘The clue! Oh, it is certain! It is true! Who else could have wished him ill?’
Then she told the doctor the story of the pipe. She told her tale in verbal lightning. Every sentence flashed forth a fact; and in sixty seconds or thereabouts the doctor was a man convinced.
But meantime where was Barndale? Poor Leland could tell them nothing. For many a day he would bear no questioning. Could her lover, Lilian asked herself, have started for the ball last night, and come to any damage by the way?
‘Here is a letter,’ said the doctor, quietly taking up something from the table. ‘A lady’s handwriting. Postmark, Constantinople.’
He drew the letter from its envelope and read it as coolly as if he had a right to read it.
‘The story is clear enough,’ he said. ‘The lady is in London. Your brother knew of her presence there. The Greek you speak of has followed her. The pipe proves his presence here. But how did he find out with whom the lady was in correspondence?’
‘That I cannot guess,’ said Lilian.
It had been late in the afternoon when Lilian and her mother reached the house-boat first. Twilight had fallen when the doctor and the girl started to walk back together. Lilian, turning to look at the house-boat as they went, seized the doctor by the shoulder. He turned and looked at her. She pointed to a figure in the fields.
‘The Greek!’ she whispered.
She was right. Demetri Àgryopoulo had come back again with twilight to the scene of his crime, drawn by an impulse, passionate, irresistible, supreme.