Helen repeated it slowly, and then said, 'I am not so surprised at your receiving no answer. It is best, gentlemen, though this is a matter which cannot possibly have any bearing upon the subject into which you are inquiring, that I should tell you at once, in justice to Mr. Warren, who would otherwise seem to have acted a strange part with regard to so intimate a friend as my Alston, that he did not extend his friendship to me, and that Mr. Warren and I are not at present on good terms. I therefore think it very likely that your having sent the message in my name has occasioned him to take no notice of it. He would not associate it with Alston, because he is in direct communication, as he believes, with him, whereas he knows that I have not been; so he would naturally suppose that any news affecting him in any way would have been transmitted direct to Chicago, and therefore his mind would be quite easy with regard to anything which might have occurred here.'
Thornton Carey and Bryan Duval exchanged looks. They admired the candour and the courage of this woman, who thus told a fact which might naturally excite grave suspicions in the minds of the two officers in her presence, grave suspicions of her own loyalty to her dead husband, by the admission that, so far as this man's intimate friendship was concerned, there had been a decided division of interest between them.
The police-officers also exchanged looks, and probably each understood the meaning of that of the other--they were not identical with those of the two gentlemen. In that moment Helen Griswold put the end of the thread into the hands of Justice; the ball was a long way off and hidden in some windings of the mass, but the way to it would be found by that hint.
'I think, gentlemen,' continued Helen, 'that if you believe Mr. Warren's presence at New York to be indispensable to your arriving at a true comprehension of my husband's affairs, you had better telegraph to him again in the name of the police authorities.'
The two men bowed acquiescence.
'And tell him in the message quite distinctly what it is that has occurred.'
'Certainly, Helen,' said Thornton Carey; 'this shall be done at once. If you had been able to hear that I had already telegraphed for Warren, or that I had anticipated any delay in his reply, I would have told you, and thus a great many hours would have been saved. If I telegraph immediately, at what hour could he leave Chicago, do you know?' he said, addressing one of the police-officers.
'If he left to-night,' was the reply, 'we could not possibly see him until Saturday morning. You must send your message at once, Mr. Carey, and make it as pressing, conclusive, and indeed imperative, as may be.'
'That's a long and serious delay,' said Bryan Duval. 'At what hour on Saturday does the steamer sail for England?'
'It will be late next Saturday,' said Thornton; 'the tide doesn't serve till five.'