At a few minutes past ten she and Grey went home to his flat. They preferred to walk.
Olivia did not return to Loudwater for three days. Grey did not return till the day after that. Then they again spent much of their time in the pavilion in the East wood, and since Olivia was careful not to replace William Roper, no one knew of their meetings. Every week they went to London for two days. They lived in an absorption in one another which left them little time to be troubled by fears of the danger which hung over them. The scandal about them ran the usual nine days' course. Then, since no new development of the Loudwater case arose to give it a fresh, active life, it died down.
About a fortnight after their marriage Mr. Manley retired from his post of secretary and went to London. A few days later he married Helena Truslove at the office of a registrar, and they established themselves in a furnished flat at Clarence Gate, while they furnished a flat of their own. Mr. Manley found himself, under the influence of domesticity, the stimulation of life in London, and the society of the intelligent, writing his new play with all the ease and vigour he had expected.
Mr. Flexen was beginning, somewhat gloomily, to think it probable that the problem of the death of Lord Loudwater would have to be set among the unsolved problems which have at different times baffled the police. Then, before he had quite lost hope, there came a letter from Mr. Carrington. It ran:
"Dear Mr. Flexen,
"I received this morning a letter from Mrs. Marshall, of 3, Laburnum Terrace, Low Wycombe, asking me, as the agent of the present Lord Loudwater, to have some repairs made to the house in which she is his lordship's tenant. We have never handled this property; we did not even know that it belonged to the late Lord Loudwater. If you can find the man who managed it for him, he may be able to give you the information you want.
"Yours faithfully,
"C.R.W. CARRINGTON."
In ten minutes Mr. Flexen was at 3, Laburnum Terrace; in a quarter of an hour he had learned that Mrs. Marshall had paid her rent to Mr. Shepherd, of 9, Bolton Street, Low Wycombe; in twenty minutes he had learned from Mrs. Shepherd that her husband was in Mesopotamia, and that she had not heard from him for two months. In half an hour from the time he read Mr. Carrington's letter he was in the train on his way to London. To get in touch with Captain Shepherd in that distant and backward land was a matter for Scotland Yard. No acting Chief Constable would do so without considerable delay.
He drafted the telegram in consultation with one of the commissioners, who himself set about the business of getting it through to Captain Shepherd and receiving his answer to it. Then he returned to Low Wycombe. Three days later came a letter from Scotland Yard to inform him that Captain Shepherd was in an out-of-the-way district in the north of Mesopotamia, and that there must be a delay of days before he received the telegram and sent his answer to it. Mr. Flexen possessed his soul in the patience of a man who was sure that he was going to get what he wanted.