"It is," said Mr. Flexen, frowning. "I wonder if there was an intrigue with a country girl or woman, some one in the neighbourhood?"
"There might have been. Lord Loudwater rode a great deal. He was hours in the saddle every day. He had time and opportunity for that kind of thing."
"On the other hand, there's no need for it to have been any one in the neighbourhood at all. To say nothing of the train, it's a short enough motor drive from London; and it was a moonlight night," said Mr. Flexen.
"Then you may be able to find traces of the car. The woman must have left it somewhere while she had the interview with Lord Loudwater," said Mr. Carrington.
"I'll try," said Mr. Flexen, not very hopefully, "But there are so few people about at night nowadays. Five out of the eight gamekeepers are still abroad. In ordinary times there would have been four at least of them about the roads and woods. On that night there was only one."
"There's the further difficulty that Lord Loudwater had so few friends. That will make it harder to find out anything about an affair of this kind—if he had one," said Mr. Carrington.
"It will, indeed," said Mr. Flexen, and paused, frowning. Then he added gravely: "I'm sure that there was such an affair, and I've got to find the woman."
CHAPTER XI
Mr. Manley did not lunch with Mr. Flexen and the lawyer. In cultivating Mr. Flexen he had been forced to see less than usual of Helena, and, interesting a companion as Mr. Flexen was, Mr. Manley very much preferred her society. He found her less nervous than she had been the day before, but she still wore a sufficiently anxious air, and was still restless. She seemed more pleased to see him than usual, and the warmth of her welcome gave him a sudden sense that she was even fonder of him than he had thought, or hoped. It stirred him to an admirable response.
At lunch she questioned him with uncommon particularity about the proceedings of Mr. Flexen, the discoveries he had made, the lines on which he was making his investigation. Her interest seemed natural enough, and he told her all that he knew, which was little. She seemed much disappointed by his lack of information. He was careful not to tell her that Mr. Flexen had inquired of him whether he knew of any entanglement between Lord Loudwater and a woman. Thanks to his imagination he was a young man of uncommon discretion, and it was plain that she was suffering anxiety enough.