THE man with the pipe was standing within half a dozen paces of her. She was going back through the gate, when she remembered Aunt Alma’s views on the guardianship.
“Are you waiting here all day?” she asked.
“Till this evening, miss. We’re to be relieved by some men from Gloucester—we came from town, and we’re going back with the nurse, if you can do without her?”
“Who placed you here?” she asked.
“Mr. Gonsalez. He thought it would be wise to have somebody around.”
“But why?”
The big man grinned.
“I’ve known Mr. Gonsalez many years,” he said. “I’m a police pensioner, and I can remember the time when I’d have given a lot of money to lay my hands on him—but I’ve never asked him why, miss. There is generally a good reason for everything he does.”
Mirabelle went back into the farmhouse, very thoughtful. Happily, Alma was not inquisitive; she was left alone in the drawing-room to reconstruct her exciting yesterday.
Mirabelle harboured very few illusions. She had read much, guessed much, and in the days of her childhood had been in the habit of linking cause to effect. The advertisement was designed especially for her: that was her first conclusion. It was designed to bring her into the charge of Oberzohn. For now she recognized this significant circumstance: never once, since she had entered the offices of Oberzohn & Smitts, until the episode of the orangeade, had she been free to come and go as she wished. He had taken her to lunch, he had brought her back; Joan Newton had been her companion in the drive from the house, and from the house to the hall; and from then on she did not doubt that Oberzohn’s surveillance had continued, until . . .