"Very likely he did; he was waiting for the letter, I tell you. But that has nothing to do with it. He posted the letter, he says; and what I want to know is this: Who stole that letter after it came into this house?"
Mr. Brading shook his head. "You have to prove first, my lady, that the letter did come into this house," he said calmly.
"Of course there is a difficulty about that. I shall have to send for Lismore and a London detective, as the post office people say it must have come here, and I don't want to have all that bother. And so I ask you to compromise the matter by discharging this lad without saying a word more than you are obliged as to the reason. Say you have altered your plans, and that you will recommend him to anyone in London."
"What! You want to convince me that the lad is dishonest, and then in the same breath ask me to recommend him to a stranger? No, my lady, I am a plain man, of straightforward dealing, and I could not do that to the poorest errand boy in my employ."
Then began the Irish jig once more. Lady Mary lost control of her temper, and said a good many things she would fain have left unsaid, and at last left Mr. Brading as perplexed as before, both with regard to Arthur and also as to what he had better do in his own business arrangements, if the news concerning the railway was true.
He sat for nearly ten minutes after the lady had left the room. And then he exclaimed:
"I wish I had never seen the woman! What am I to believe? What am I to do? I've a good mind to go and talk to Andrews about it. He knows me, and he knows these Murrays. He may be able to make something of this tangle, for it seems as though a Solomon was needed to unravel it."
If Mr. Brading had been curious, and had watched the movements of Lady Mary, he would have seen that she, too, went to consult a lawyer. But it was not to Mr. Andrews' office that she bent her steps. Her man of business was a Mr. Simmons, a much younger man, and people considered him much more clever. Certainly he was much sharper in his practices. Everybody admitted that.
But to Lady Mary's imperious demand to see Mr. Simmons without delay, the clerk replied: "He is not in just now, my lady."
"When will he be in?" she asked.