“Who is Madame Serpilot?”
“There you’ve got me,” said Chelwyn. “I believe she’s an old widow, but Brown never told me much about her. He got instructions from her while he was in Paris, but I never discovered how. I went to Madeira with him because he knew I was tough—but I wasn’t tough enough,” he added with a dry smile.
Timothy held out his hand.
“Ginger,” he said solemnly, “please forgive the orange!”
“Oh, I didn’t mind that,” said the man, “that’s all in the day’s work. It made me a bit wild, and my eye’s feeling sore, but don’t let that worry you. What you’ve got to do now is to look out for Brown, because he’ll have you as sure as death.”
“I’ll look out for Madame Serpilot, too,” said Timothy. “I think I’ll go to Paris.”
“She’s not in Paris now, I can tell you that,” said the man. “The wire Brown got at Liverpool was from Monte Carlo.”
“Monte Carlo,” said Timothy, “is even more attractive than Paris.”
CHAPTER XVIII
CHELWYN left Timothy with something to think about. Who was Madame Serpilot, this old lady who had such an interest in Mary travelling alone? And why, oh! why had she left Paris for Monte Carlo at the fag end of the season? For he and Mary had privately decided between them that London and Paris should only be stopping places on the route to the Riviera. Why should Madame Serpilot have changed her plans at the same time? There was something more than a coincidence in this. At lunch-time he had Mary to herself, her chaperon having a headache.